Louis Farrakhan made the claim during his speech at the Million Man March
[QUOTE=Louis Farrakhan ]
Listen. Listen. Listen. Listen. White supremacy caused you all - not you all, some white folk, to try to rewrite history and write us out. White supremacy caused Napoleon to blow the nose off of the Sphinx because it reminded you too much of the black man’s majesty. White supremacy caused you to take Jesus, a man with hair like lamb’s wool and feet like burnished brass, and make Him white so that you could worship Him because you could never see yourself honoring somebody black because of the state of your mind. You see, you really need help. [crowd responds] You’ll be all right. You will be all right.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
There’s a passage in Revelation that says Jesus has feet “like burnished bronze” (which is dark brown) and hair as “white as wool.” This is the passage which is seized upon to make the case that Jesus was black. It’s the book of Revelation, though, so nothing in it should be taken very literally.
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That’s putting it mildly.
Firstly burnished bronze means the bronze is polished. That means a yellow-gold colour. nothing even remotely approaching brown or black. Secondly the vison doesn’t describe him as having feet like burnished bronze at all, it describes feet “like bronze glowing in a furnace”. IOW the vision describes him having bright red or even white feet, depending on the temperature of your furnace.
[QUOTE=Blake]
That’s putting it mildly.
Firstly burnished bronze means the bronze is polished. That means a yellow-gold colour. nothing even remotely approaching brown or black. Secondly the vison doesn’t describe him as having feet like burnished bronze at all, it describes feet “like bronze glowing in a furnace”. IOW the vision describes him having bright red or even white feet, depending on the temperature of your furnace.
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Whatever. I don’t know shit about metallurgy. I looked up the Greek and it says “…like fine brass as burned in a furnace…” Whatever that looks like.
Somehow, cosmic radiation and being born among farm animals gave Jesus a wooly pelt and feet that lit up.
And so he learned to harness his powers for good, and fought crime as… the Lamb!
[QUOTE=BrightNShiny]
Scratch that. Only parts of the Krishna myth are in the Mahabharata. In one of my translations, the author chose to include the entire story based on other sources.
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The Krishna myth was around a long time before the Mahabharata. I don’t believe it’s known exactly how and when the character first emerged in India.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
I’ve never heard that any founder of an Indian religion was anything other than of Indian descent himself.
Blue in Indian art is often used to connote holiness and godliness. I’ve never heard that it derived from being black.
Where DID you hear this?
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Heard it on the Dope.
I have a good memory for any random information I read. This came from this post here. But indeed, the topic was Krishna not a founder of Hinduism (misrecalled that bit.) And given as that the factuality of this seems to be being debated here, I’ll now relegate this to being “hearsay” rather than “factual tidbit.”
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The Krishna myth was around a long time before the Mahabharata. I don’t believe it’s known exactly how and when the character first emerged in India.
[/QUOTE]
He first teamed up with the Lamb to battle Doctor Dagon in Amazing Deity #15.
Y’know guiys, there’s a long tradition of depicting Christ in whatever style or ethnicity is local anyway. If you lok around, you can see some Christs from China, or South America, or Sub-Saharan Africa.
“like burnished bronze” (which is dark brown) and hair as “white as wool.”
Jesus was a surfer.
You know, the more I think about this, the more confusing it gets. Draupadi, another character in the Mahabharta, is supposed to have dark skin, and she is sometimes depicted in blue. However, in one version of the story, she emerges from a sacred fire during a ceremony (rather than being born), so the blue depiction could signify divinity (alhtough I don’t recall her being linked to specific god).
And Rakshasas (demons) are often depicted with dark skin, but I’ve seen depictions of them with sickly green skin. Does the green signify darkness or evilness?
Arjuna, who is the son of Indra (again from the Mahabharta), is sometimes depicted with blue or purplish skin, but there I think the color is supposed to signify divinity. But I don’t recall Indra being depicted with blue or purplish skin.
Shiva is often depicted with blue or purplish skin. But in one myth, he swallows a poison which was threatening the world, which turned either his throat or his entire body purplish.
So, I guess blue signifies darknes except when it signifies divinity, or vice-versa. Clear as blue mud, I tells ya.
[QUOTE=Lynwood Slim]
“like burnished bronze” (which is dark brown) …
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Burnished bronze is polished bronze. In no way is burnished bronze even remotely dark brown.
[QUOTE=Blake]
Burnished bronze is polished bronze. In no way is burnished bronze even remotely dark brown.
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I think it’s actually the “burnt in a furnace” part which some people claims make it brown. I don’t know or care if that’s actually true, but it’s the basis of the argument. I think it’s meaningless anyway because the author of Revelation had only seen Jesus in visions.
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
See this guy?
[/QUOTE]
Bigger hijack: If someone could photoshop a martini glass and a cigarette into this picture, they’d be my new hero. Whenever I see this depiction of Jesus, I imagine him in a cocktail lounge.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Y’know guiys, there’s a long tradition of depicting Christ in whatever style or ethnicity is local anyway. If you lok around, you can see some Christs from China, or South America, or Sub-Saharan Africa.
[/QUOTE]
I think most people in this thread are perfectly aware of this. However, there are many people I am sure who think he looked like his popular depictions.
One example of a Black Christ is that of Portobelo, in Panama. However, the image has rather Caucasian features, and I don’t think many of its devotees actually think that Christ himself was actually black.
[QUOTE=MissMossie]
Whenever I see this depiction of Jesus, I imagine him in a cocktail lounge.
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No doubt ordering a Virgin Mary .
[QUOTE=BluePitbull]
So any ideas where people got this info?
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There is a (for lack of a better term) “Black Power Movement” that claims many accomplishments for Black people (besides Jesus claiming folks like Shakespeare and U.S. Presidents like Lincoln). It is hard to claim a one size fits all description for all these groups – but on the edges it is certainly fair to call it a piece of a “Black Supremacist” ideology. The Wiki acticle touches on these views somewhat.
I always though the Fayum mummy portraits were a good source as to what these folks in the area looked like … though they are believed to be Greeks or Romans – we can’t be sure who they were exactly (more than ‘probably’ not Jews tho) and there was a large and anceint Jewish community at Fayum. Doesn’t mean much - but these were certainly people who lived among Jews of the time interacted with them on a daily basis.
So having said all that … there were, more than likely, “Black Jews” in ancient times - who had nothing to do with anything in the Passion of the Christ.
Isn’t it widely accepted that ethnic groups who adopted Christianity made Jesus look like a member of their own group in depictions? Jesus in paintings from northern Europe looks like a northern European, Jesus in paintings from southern Italy or Greece looks darker, Jesus in African art looks African, etc? I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with different groups depicting Jesus in their own image - while I’m not religious, it just makes sense to me from a cultural standpoint. They want to feel closer to their deity, and it’s easier to do that when he looks like you, your family, and your friends.
But once you get into the realm of actual history, as opposed to mythology, I say you should abandon the ethnic pride angle and just accept that Jesus might not have looked like you. So the people that argue that “Jesus was black” or even more absurdly, “Jesus was an Aryan” just come off as arrogant to me. In all likelihood, Jesus probably looked more like Jeff Goldblum, and that’s all there is to it.
[QUOTE=Colibri]
Damn. He could be this guy’s brother.
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Geeze, no wonder we can’t win in Sadr City.
If you want your Christ to be at least moderately good-looking, you can imagine him looking like this.
