# Was Jesus white? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2005, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056 "2005-09-29T17:43:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/41 "2005-09-30T04:48:44Z")
Jesus IS IS IS Edgar Winter :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Greenback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/2bfe46/32.png) [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/42 "2005-09-30T04:52:17Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > 16th Century English? How did you know? Have you spoken with him too? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/43 "2005-09-30T04:55:44Z")
Remember that the author of Revelations probably never saw Jesus, plus he was seeing a vision, not describing the actual man. He also described as having a sword coming out of his mouth and stars in his hands (as well, IIRC, hearts, moons, and frosted clovers). ---
**Author:** ![drmark2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@drmark2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drmark2000)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/44 "2005-09-30T05:07:53Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Remember that the author of Revelations probably never saw Jesus, plus he was seeing a vision, not describing the actual man. He also described as having a sword coming out of his mouth and stars in his hands (as well, IIRC, hearts, moons, and frosted clovers). Point well taken. But, and flay the skin from my bones, I always liked Lucky Charms cereal. ---
**Author:** ![drmark2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@drmark2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drmark2000)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/45 "2005-09-30T05:12:15Z")
> [@Seven](#): > > So, Jesus in Edgar Winter? He only comes out at night, man, takin’ that free ride. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/46 "2005-09-30T06:05:28Z")
According to Phillip Jose Farmer, he looked almost exactly like Tom Mix. ([Oddly appropriate,](http://betweenthecovers.com/display.php?id=68770) I guess. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/47 "2005-09-30T06:18:28Z")
He wasn’t white in the sense of the lily white, fair-skinned, European Jesus. He was native to the region, so he most likely had curly dark hair, light brown skin and brown eyes. Then again, can fictitious figures actually have a racial classification? I suppose that Jesus wasn’t white, in the same sense that King Arthur was white. Or in the sense that Merlin was white (he was white, wasn’t he?). ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/48 "2005-09-30T06:26:57Z")
Ceberus, Jesus is not in any way in the same category as Merlin or Arthur. Those two are entirely fictional, or at best loosely based on oral accounts of long-dead heroes while Jesus was a real person. > [@](#): > > Still, barring an actual conspiracy, 40 years is too short a time for an entirely mythical Christ to have been fabricated out of (heh-heh) whole cloth. (See below.) Certainly the non-Christians who wrote about him in the years following his putative death did not doubt he had once lived. The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in his Annals around 110 AD, mentions one “Christ, whom the procurator Pontius Pilate had executed in the reign of Tiberius.” The Jewish historian Josephus remarks on the stoning of “James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” The Talmud, a collection of Jewish writings, also refers to Christ, although it says he was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier called Panther. Doubts about the historicity of Christ did not surface until the 18th century. In short, whether or not JC was truly the Son of God, he was probably the son of somebody [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2\_275.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_275.html) ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/49 "2005-09-30T07:08:05Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > The image of Jeses is based on the face of an image of Zeus. > > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue\_of\_Zeus\_at\_Olympia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Zeus_at_Olympia) > > It is an example of how Xtianity has co-opted ideas & images from other faiths as convienent. > [@tomndebb](#): > > Looking at the statue of Zeus, again, I could easily see it as the template for several paintings or statues of God the Father and at least one statue of Moses. I have a hard time seeing it at the physical inspiration of any representation of Jesus. Yeah, that’s what I immediately thought of–Zeus as the inspiration for Jehovah in the [Sistine Chapel](http://www.usc.edu/schools/annenberg/asc/projects/comm544/library/images/056bg.jpg), definitely. For the conventional [long-haired youthful Jesus](http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Images/110images/sl6images/Leonardo_LastSupper_Christ.jpg), not so much. > [@drmark2000](#): > > His head and his hair were white as white wool; white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze… > > Revelations 1:14, 15 > > What are we to make of this? His hair was white, and his feet were brown. As any obsessive sunbather knows, that’s just the way you end up by the end of the summer. > > Hair like snow, eyes like fire (as in REALLY red), and feet (more than likely) covered in dirt. This was who the man was. Dunno how seriously this post was intended, but I have occasionally run across people who really believe that this passage in Revelation actually has something to say about Jesus’ skin color, so I’ll just point out that the “feet of bronze” is a direct reference to [the second chapter of the Book of Daniel](http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?book_id=34&chapter=2&version=31&context=chapter); the famous image of the statue with “feet of clay”: > [@](#): > > You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. It’s not that the feet of the glorified Christ of Revelation are brown or copper-colored or whatever, it’s that they are made of a hard metal, as opposed to the statue with feet of clay in Daniel: > [@](#): > > While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. The hair being “white as wool” is also a reference to Daniel; [Daniel 7:9](http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?book_id=34&chapter=7&verse=9&version=31&context=verse): > [@](#): > > As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/50 "2005-09-30T08:29:35Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > The image of Jeses is based on the face of an image of Zeus. I had always wondered what was the plural of _Jesus_. ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/51 "2005-09-30T08:42:03Z")
> [@Fabulous Creature](#): > > I need a cite for that so much tat, if it is denied, it is enitrely possible that I shall sneeze uncontrollably and continually for hte next 19 years. I am not sure if that wonderful quote is indeed fact but is quoted by many people e.g. [http://www.hispanicmagazine.com/PDF/April%201996%20The%20Politics%20of%20Language.pdf](http://www.hispanicmagazine.com/PDF/April%201996%20The%20Politics%20of%20Language.pdf) (pdf). It appeared in the book All Pianos Have Keys, (1994) by José A. Cárdena ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/52 "2005-09-30T13:40:16Z")
My grandmother has a Japanese-style print of a very Asian Jesus (complete with Mandarin-style mustache) calming a tsunami-sized wave. She also has a picture of baby Jesus and Mary dressed in the style of a Qing dynasty emperor and empress respectively (but for that picture I can’t remember what ethnicity they were portrayed as). Me, I think Jesus probably looked like Osama bin Laden. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![ArrMatey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrmatey/32/3522_2.png) [@ArrMatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArrMatey)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/53 "2005-09-30T14:24:29Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Not genetic drift, but rather they didn’t remain ethnically “Middle Eastern” due to interbreeding with European populations. Genetic drift is just random mutations that accumulate in isloated populations, and that generally are not due to natural selection. My bad. S’what I meant. Thanks for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![Indyellen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/indyellen/32/4176_2.png) [@Indyellen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indyellen)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/54 "2005-09-30T15:37:05Z")
> [@scm1001](#): > > I am not sure if that wonderful quote is indeed fact but is quoted by many people e.g. [http://www.hispanicmagazine.com/PDF/April%201996%20The%20Politics%20of%20Language.pdf](http://www.hispanicmagazine.com/PDF/April%201996%20The%20Politics%20of%20Language.pdf) (pdf). It appeared in the book All Pianos Have Keys, (1994) by José A. Cárdena Mild “Google Ad” hijack, but I would like to point out that this particular post generated an ad at the bottom of the page for “used baby grand pianos”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/55 "2005-09-30T15:55:32Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I had always wondered what was the plural of _Jesus_. Jesi? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/56 "2005-09-30T15:57:44Z")
> [@scm1001](#): > > > [@Fabulous Creature](#): > > > > I need a cite for that so much tat, if it is denied, it is enitrely possible that I shall sneeze uncontrollably and continually for hte next 19 years. > > I am not sure if that wonderful quote is indeed fact but is quoted by many people e.g. [http://www.hispanicmagazine.com/PDF/April%201996%20The%20Politics%20of%20Language.pdf](http://www.hispanicmagazine.com/PDF/April%201996%20The%20Politics%20of%20Language.pdf) (pdf). It appeared in the book All Pianos Have Keys, (1994) by José A. Cárdena Dropping “ma ferguson english jesus” into Google™ brings back a _lot_ of hits with (mostly) the same wording. Much more difficult to find has been the site I stumbled on about a year ago that claimed either that the quote was apocryphal or that there was some mitigating factor regarding the quote. At any rate, she’s stuck with that popular view of her, now. There is a [German/English blog](http://www.margaret-marks.com/Transblawg/archives/001407.html) that quotes (without citation) a Mark Liberman debunking (sort of) the story, but I have not yet found anything substantial. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/57 "2005-10-01T12:48:50Z")
Great thread Anybody want to comment on this ? Ex.20:4, Dt.5:8 “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath.” Dt.4:16-18 “Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the simultude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth.” Dt.4:23 “Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget … and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee.” Dt.27:15 Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman. 2 Kg.18:3-4 He [Hezekiah] did that which was right in the sight of the LORD… He … brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made. In light of the bible’s take on this, why the outrage over Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (a protest against the commercialization of sacred imagery.) and Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary, but virtual silence when the Jesus on toast, Virgin Mary grilled cheese (and tortilla) end up on E-Bay? Are some images more “graven” than others? ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/58 "2005-10-01T14:24:31Z")
In your catalogue you forgot Solomon and the idols, King Josiah, the Golden Calf, etc. Are some images more graven than others? Historically, yes. (I assume you’re looking for a real answer) No comment on Serrano et al, but the questions of what’s a graven image and idolatry and such have been big from the start. In the Byzantine east there were intermittent iconoclasms; not so frequent in the Roman west but 1563 in the Netherlands/ Flanders is a good example. Gregory I had pitched that images could be used ‘properly’-- to educated the masses, as the ‘bible of the illiterate’ and such. He and later authors suggested that the honor (“latreia”) shown to an image tranfers to its prototype (the saint or Jesus) so you worship a saint of God THROUGH the image, not the image itself. In the west Aquinas et al later go into more depth on the various proper use of images, although there is constant arguement from those that think that images are a waste of money and distracting (Cistercians, for example) and those who think they allow people to lift their spirits closer to God, etc. Things finally come to a head during the Prot Reformation especially with the Calvinists. At this time, however, the Calvinists and RC were even dividing up the 10 commandments differently-- one had the images statement wedged into the ‘no other gods’ commandment and the other gave it its own commandment. The range of approaches taken in, say, the 1540s: a) “Dude, it says GRAVEN images. This one’s, like, painted, not sculpted. And this isn’t an IDOL, it’s Jesus, anyway.” (and other loopholes) (A grilled cheese sandwich is not ‘graven’) b) “Thom Aquinas and Gregory the Great say there are proper functions for images. This is a question of decorous use versus abuse. We should use images THIS way, not THAT way.” (Erasmus) c) “Price of bread’s gone up. I say we break everything in Antwerp Cathedral. C’mon, boys!” (Calvin, Zwingli, Hedge-preachers) Simplified, but it’s always been an issue. This is in GQ, so pffft to current opinion. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/59 "2005-10-01T14:31:01Z")
Oh, also, in the 1530s/40s image polemic all the examples of scripture you cited were deployed by BOTH sides in their pamphlets, essays and sermons to support either a pro-image or anti-image stance; scripture was easy to spin either way. ---
**Author:** ![BluePitbull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@BluePitbull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BluePitbull)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/60 "2005-10-01T16:43:59Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > In light of the bible’s take on this, why the outrage over Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (a protest against the commercialization of sacred imagery.) and Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary, but virtual silence when the Jesus on toast, Virgin Mary grilled cheese (and tortilla) end up on E-Bay? Are some images more “graven” than others? I wonder how people know that the image on the toast or sandwhich is the Virgin Mary or Jesus. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056.md?page=4)