# 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:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**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 2, 2005, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/61 "2005-10-02T12:45:34Z")
> [@BluePitbull](#): > > I wonder how people know that the image on the toast or sandwich is the Virgin Mary or Jesus. I just wonder how many times I ate Jesus by mistake. :eek: Someday I will patent my Jesus and Mary waffle iron. Heavenly waffles EVERY time. [Your own personal Jesus toast.](http://www.blacktable.com/gillin041202.htm) ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2005, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/62 "2005-10-02T13:02:14Z")
He would have looked in features and colouring most like a Palestinian does today, or like an Israeli Jew that has lived their life in the region and heritage-wise is not intermixed with European/non-regional blood. Which gives you a fairly broad range, but basically caucasian with mediterranean colouring and semitic features, if that makes any sense. The BBC picture is bizarrely neanderthal/homo robustus looking. I suppose he could have looked like that, but most wider-Levantine-area people, modern-day at least, seem more fine-featured. Maybe something like [**this**](http://www.interarteonline.com/Samoamax/Altas/palestinian%20boy.jpg). In terms of a “historical” Jesus, [**this one**](http://www.pitt.edu/AFShome/s/o/sorc/public/html/ocfellow/icons/jcsinai.jpg) seems quite likely. He would have had whatever beard/hair was appropriate in Jewish custom for his particular sect during that time. The Romans depict him as clean shaven, but this is unlikely. For Jesus was a Jew. He may have been “gentle”, but was certainly not a Gentile 😉 ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2005, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/63 "2005-10-02T13:04:16Z")
Odd. Not all my post came out. Here is the missing line: In terms of a “historical” Jesus, [**this one**](http://www.pitt.edu/AFShome/s/o/sorc/public/html/ocfellow/icons/jcsinai.jpg) seems quite likely. ---
**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 2, 2005, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056/64 "2005-10-02T14:14:12Z")
> [@capybara](#): > > In your catalog 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) I was sticking to modern imagery because of its controversial nature. If the “traditional” images of Christ were shown to his contemporaries, I think they’d react the same way some people react to nontraditional imagery today. Serrano and Ofili are (maybe) extreme examples, but remember the reaction to Kazantzakis’ Last Temptation of Christ, not the movie, the book which was placed on the Roman Catholic Index of Forbidden Books by the Pope in 1954. > [@](#): > > 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 transfers to its prototype (the saint or Jesus) so you worship a saint of God THROUGH the image, not the image itself. I like this, the intent of the artist changes the meaning of the art. A white Jesus, allows a white viewer to identify with Christ the deity, not the historical man. If only we were allowed that same freedom today. In the end I just can’t get this Bob Dylan line out of my head. Always thought Serrano was actually making the same point. A mass produced (usually in the third world and for slave wages) plastic image of Christ, was no different than pissing on Christ literally. Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their mark Made everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark It’s easy to see without looking too far That not much Is really sacred. > [@](#): > > 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) d) “Hey, if your not gonna eat that, I’m starving” in the 1540s **literally**! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-white/324056.md?page=3)