# Do most Christians literally think Jesus was a tall white guy with blue eyes? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 17, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460 "2010-10-17T17:56:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/21 "2010-10-17T19:57:50Z")
> [@Enter\_the\_Flagon](#): > > Remember, though, that Christ was the product of the miracle of artificial insemination, and was genetically half god/half human. Therefore, you can imagine him looking any way you like. Based on that one thing’s for certain though: regardless of his skin color, he obviously must have had a huge cock. ---
**Author:** ![falcotron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@falcotron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/falcotron)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/22 "2010-10-17T20:12:13Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > > [@Enter\_the\_Flagon](#): > > > > Remember, though, that Christ was the product of the miracle of artificial insemination, and was genetically half god/half human. Therefore, you can imagine him looking any way you like. > > Based on that one thing’s for certain though: regardless of his skin color, he obviously must have had a huge cock. If man was made in God’s image, shouldn’t a half-man/half-god just look like a man? (Ms. Swan says yes.) On the other hand, Bjork argues that if only people with a cock can perform the miracle of transubstantiation, you must need a truly massive cock to do something like resurrect Lazarus. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/23 "2010-10-17T20:20:26Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > Are they aware that Jews in 1st century Palestine were generally short-ish and **olive-skinned**? What, you mean [greenish](http://www.crayola.com/colorcensus/history/history.cfm?id=olive%20green)?! (Everything I know about colors I learned as a kid from Crayola.) ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/24 "2010-10-17T20:23:56Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > > [@LouisB](#): > > > > I’ve been told that Jesus spoke English, too. > > By whom? In the context of, say, the King James Version of the Bible being the best possible translation and containing the literal words & language? > > I’m not being sarcastic here. My father, whose education basically ended at 3rd grade (black man, rural Mississipi, 1940s) has said things along those lines. But a pastor friend of his who should know better has opined things among those lines – and also that this verse > > [QUOTE=Hosea 9:6] > “What will you do on the day of appointed festival, and on the day of the feast of The Lord? For behold, they are going to Assyria; Egypt shall gather them, Memphis shall bury them. Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver; thorns shall be in their tents.” is a prophecy referring to the largest city in Tennessee. [/QUOTE] The idea that Jesus spoke English was put to me in the State of Kentucky by a couple of members of the snake handling church; I’ve forgotten what name they go by. I believe those people were serious; I didn’t see much future in debating the point as they had already demanded to know if I had been “warshed in the blood of the lamb.” I assured them that I had and just sort of faded out of the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![heathen\_earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/13edae/32.png) [@heathen\_earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heathen_earthling)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/25 "2010-10-17T20:33:58Z")
When did the blue eyes part begin? Most famous paintings of a caucasian Jesus I’ve seen still give him brown eyes. There was a band in the '90s called Blue Eyed Christ, so I guess it is a widely-known meme somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/26 "2010-10-17T20:34:50Z")
The only time I have ever heard this is from someone who claims that Christians believe it. I don’t know a single Christian who does. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/27 "2010-10-17T20:39:28Z")
I’m scared to think of any Christians that would think that Jesus was like that. I’ve been raised conservative Evangelical and we have always learned: 1. We have no idea what he looked like obviously. 2. He probably had darker skin based on where he was from. 3. Yeah, he probably had a beard. That’s about it, really. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/28 "2010-10-17T20:45:20Z")
I think it’s pretty common for most cultures to picture Jesus as an attractive person in that culture. But I doubt if many people outside White Supremacist circles would cling to the idea of Jesus being a Nordic type. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/29 "2010-10-17T21:01:31Z")
I was about nine or ten when I started contemplating Jesus’s race. I had stumbled across some Afro-centric Jesus literature laying around, and I kept thinking to myself, “Jesus can’t be black. He’s WHITE.” In my mind he was blond and blue-eyed and nothing was going to shake that. I took me a real long time for me to stop picturing Jesus in this way. I have no idea why, because it wasn’t like the church I went to had pictures of an Anglo-Saxon Jesus, nor did we have any pictures–white or black–of him at home. No one had told me that Jesus was white. But that’s what he looked like on TV, so that had to be the “right” image of him. But I admit the whole Jesus thing confused the hell at out of me was I was a kid. Like, my mother or Sunday School or someone had told me that Jesus was in “all of us”. So now I had in my head the picture of Jesus all scrunched up in my body, waiting to break loose like Alien. So not only was Jesus a white guy, he was a white guy stuck in a little black girl’s body. There were so many questions…but I knew I could never ask them without seeming like an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/30 "2010-10-17T21:38:57Z")
There are light skinned Arabs and people in the Middle East, I know them. So it would be unusual but it can’t be ruled out either. Most Middle Eastern people would associate themselves as “white” as opposed to “Black” or “yellow” using the old fashioned “three-race theory” that used to be taught. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/31 "2010-10-17T21:43:30Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > There are light skinned Arabs and people in the Middle East, I know them. So it would be unusual but it can’t be ruled out either. > > Most Middle Eastern people would associate themselves as “white” as opposed to “Black” or “yellow” using the old fashioned “three-race theory” that used to be taught. To my descended-from-sub-Sarahan-African-slaves eye, Arabs look pretty much like most Europeans. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/32 "2010-10-17T21:58:11Z")
I think that the fact that he’s never described in the Bible is pretty good evidence that he looked fairly unremarkable, for someone in that time and place. If he looked like a tall, pale Norseman or a sub-Saharan African, that probably would have been remarkable enough for someone to mention it. But that still leaves considerable room for variation. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/33 "2010-10-17T22:00:33Z")
All we know for sure about Jesus’ physical appearance is that the rumors were true. He really was hung. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/34 "2010-10-17T22:01:25Z")
Arabs are classified as white on things like the census. They’re not much different from other Mediterraneans. > [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Well, of the first three actors to have played Jesus that I can think of off the top of my head, 2 had pale eyes: Jeffrey Hunter and Willem Dafoe. Fortunately they got it right with James Caviezel. He has a good mix of the dusky Swiss, swarthy Slovaks, and never-sunburns-after-60-seconds Irish. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/35 "2010-10-17T22:10:04Z")
Most Roman Catholic depictions of Jesus I have seen depict him with dark eyes and hair, which makes this [image](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IqM53hCQmrc/S-Arplkc4MI/AAAAAAAAEVo/3uOhSEaOBm4/s1600/jcjudgeeyes.jpg) from the mosaic behind the main altar at the Washington Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception rather anomalous. ---
**Author:** ![Larzipan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@Larzipan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larzipan)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/36 "2010-10-17T22:14:53Z")
I personally believe him to have dark brown hair, with eyes of the relatively same color. In terms of height I would say 5’6. ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/37 "2010-10-17T22:17:08Z")
Has everybody seen [this](http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/forensics/1282186)? A forensic anthropologist’s facial reconstruction of a typical man from Jesus’s birthplace and era. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/38 "2010-10-17T22:37:55Z")
Every culture on the planet has tailored Jesus to look like one of them. And this makes a lot of sense, logically. The whole “Jesus didn’t look like what you think he looked like” thing is not as edgy or paradigm-shattering as the people who say it often seem to think. We’re talking about someone who, in the words of Lord Summerisle, was “the son of a virgin impregnated by a ghost.” His physical appearance is the least of the leaps of logic involved. The “forensic reconstruction” of a typical Semite from the time of Jesus doesn’t really prove anything, and it seems to me to be more of an over-compensation, deliberately presenting a face that’s scruffy looking and not very handsome, as if to say - “HA! Everything you ever believed is WRONG!” ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/39 "2010-10-17T22:45:13Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Most Roman Catholic depictions of Jesus I have seen depict him with dark eyes and hair, which makes this [image](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IqM53hCQmrc/S-Arplkc4MI/AAAAAAAAEVo/3uOhSEaOBm4/s1600/jcjudgeeyes.jpg) from the mosaic behind the main altar at the Washington Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception rather anomalous. AKA “Smackdown Jesus” by Catholic University students. When I would go to Mass there, I would deliberately sit behind a column so I wouldn’t have to see that image. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460/40 "2010-10-17T22:49:36Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > The “forensic reconstruction” of a typical Semite from the time of Jesus doesn’t really prove anything, and it seems to me to be more of an over-compensation, deliberately presenting a face that’s scruffy looking and not very handsome, as if to say - “HA! Everything you ever believed is WRONG!” There is no description of Jesus being particularly good-looking. And since the guy, as it is written, was pretty busy healing and preaching and stuff, I doubt he had a lot of time getting $400 haircuts and facials. I don’t think very many people back in the olden times would have looked very handsome or beautiful. But of course, looks are subjective. I don’t that the reconstruction shows an ugly face at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-christians-literally-think-jesus-was-a-tall-white-guy-with-blue-eyes/557460.md?page=3)