Queen of Sheba, Grim.
Jus as a side note - and I hope I’m not offending anyone - but I pretty much doubt that Jesus would have sat down for a portarait, or agreed to one made in absentia. First-century Jews didn’t really hold with representational art. What with the Second Commandment and all, historically speaking very few Jews were involved in the plastic arts until something like the 19th century.
SHAKES, your impression is incorrect.
The bride in the Song of Songs skin color is described several times. And I have heard that that may be referring to the Queen of Sheba. But when she appears in I Kings 10 and I Chronicles 9, there’s no mention of her skin color.
Well, I geuss I should withdraw my debate then. Jeesh! boy is my face red. I was going by all the Jews I’ve seen on the T.V. (Hollywood) Those people are Jewish and white whats up with that?
Anyway, my first debate here and probably my last at least for a while…:smack:
amarinth, a valid point. And I’ve also heard the “I am black but beautiful” line is minstranslated from “I am black and beautiful.” I have no authority on this that I can cite, however, it being a memory of something I read nigh a decade ago. Still, there we go, bride in the Song of Solomon. I suspect that if one were to go to a racist website and search for Sons of Ham, for example, one might find others. I don’t know for sure, as I’ve avoided such things.
SHAKES: I was going by all the Jews I’ve seen on the T.V. (Hollywood) Those people are Jewish and white whats up with that?
Where were you seeing depictions of Jews that led you to think that a typical Jew is pale-skinned, blond-haired, and blue-eyed? Most contemporary American Jews are generally considered to “look white”, more or less, but AFAIK they (we) usually are much more “brunette”-looking than the depictions of “blond Jesus”.
So I still don’t see why you’d imagine that a “Swedish-looking” blond Jesus would be a more historically accurate picture than an “African-looking” black Jesus. The historical Jesus would most likely have been somewhere between those two extremes, but he certainly wouldn’t have been a blond.*
(As for why most American Jews are lighter-skinned and more “white”-looking than many Middle Eastern populations who are probably more similar in appearance to the historical Jesus: that’s because most American Jews are descended from European Jewish population groups. The Jews who lived in Europe since the medieval period (sometimes identified as “Ashkenazi Jews”, though I think technically that may refer to a more specific group) have common ancestors with the more “Middle-Eastern-looking” Sephardic Jews and Arabs, but they also have some genetic input from European populations that tended to be “whiter”.)
*Random fun fact: when I studied Akkadian, I learned that a common idiom for the human race among ancient Mesopotamians was “the black-headed ones”. Black hair was so universal in their Middle Eastern culture that it passed into their language as a descriptor for all humans! 
Random musing: I’m not accusing the OP of racism, but I do think it’s very interesting and significant that he (like many of us, I’m sure) automatically perceives “Swedish Jesus” to be a more accurate picture than “African Jesus”. The real Jesus, as we’ve said, probably looked very different from both of them. But since “Swedish Jesus” falls into the racial category “white”, and in most people’s minds “Jew” also falls into the category “white”, and “African Jesus” doesn’t, then automatically, “Swedish Jesus” is a more acceptable picture. It’s really bizarre how our mental racial categories make us highlight certain physical differences as being significantly “different” and downplay others as being “basically the same”!
I’m reminded of one of G. M. Fraser’s “Private Macauslan” short stories where he’s talking about a pipe band in a WWII Scots regiment of the Royal Army. A new recruit, who happens to be an accomplished bagpipes player, wants to join the band, but the commanding officer is uneasy about it because the new recruit is black. (He had a Scots father and an African mother.) Not that the CO is prejudiced against blacks or distrusts the new recruit on racial grounds in any way—but the pipe band is supposed to have a consistent and uniform appearance, and the black guy is so different that he stands out and it might look weird.
Consider: if the pipe band had one significantly shorter guy, or one significantly taller guy, or only one blond guy or only one redheaded guy, that would be innately just as “different” and just as “weird”, right? But it wouldn’t be perceived as a problem in the pipe band. Our brains have internalized arbitrary racial divisions so deeply that we automatically think that skin-color differences make people much more “different” than other kinds of physical differences. Freaky! (Happy ending: the black bagpiper does get to join the band after all.)
We do say so. (And I am not at all sure why you are having trouble with this.)
It is not even limited to Christianity.
Here is an image of Buddha from Nepal (with facial features of the people in that region.
Here is an image of Buddha from China (with “Chinese” facial features).
If you look at paintings of the nativity or the crucifixion of Jesus from the Byzantine Empire of the ninth century, the Magi wear the clothes of Byzantine nobility and the “Roman” soldiers wear the uniforms of ninth century Byzantium. If you look at painting from 13th century Flanders, the magi wear the clothes of important Flemish merchants and the “Roman” soldiers are dressed as 13th century Flemish soldiers. The same process is repeated throughout all the artwork. “Universal” themes tend to be portrayed in ways most like the people who commission the paintings.
This might be a stupid question, but if they’re so long dead, how do you know the portraits are accurate? Is it that they are all similar to each other? Or are you extrapolating from portraits painted since film?
Anyway, I thought there were no original pictures of jesus, so the portraits in existance hardly can be acurate however much they’d like to be.
I think its important to realize that our Western concepts and ideas about race mostly arose after the 15th and 16th centuries, with the exploration of the Americas, Africa, Asia, the conquest of the Native Americans, the slave trade, and colonization.
If anything, I believe the ancient Mediterranean peoples had the ntion that they were “normal” and the darker people to the south and lighter people to the north were “different”. But they didn’t think in terms of black and white, which if you really think about it are hyperbolic terms that overstate the real differences in skin colors (pink and brown), to drive a bigger wedge between two different types of people.
To call Jesus “black”, “white” or whatever simply projects our modern feelings on race of a man or God (?) that existed long before those terms really existed.
Examples of people creating art in their own (period and cultural) images: (I had to run some errands, so did not get a chance to complete my earlier post.)
Jan van Eyck. The Crucifixion. 1425-1430 (Note the 15th century Northern European appearance of the people from this 15th century Northern European painting.)
Simone Martini. Jesus on Way to Calvary c. 1342 (With (light haired) Jesus surrounded by typical townsfolk of Northern Italy and Southern France of the early 14th century.)
Piero della Francesca. Resurrection c. 1462 (With a pale-skinned, blonde Jesus standing over tomb guards who are certainly more 15th century Italian than 1st century Roman.)
And, not limited to just pictures of Jesus, we find:
Lucas Cranach the Elder. Judith with the Head of Holofernes. c.1530 (With a Judith who does not look particularly Middle Eastern, dressed as a 16th century German Burger’s daughter.)
Jean Fouquet, illustrating the Histories of Josephus with the Fall of Jericho. c. 1475 (Despite illustrating a hstory book, the city of Jericho is portrayed as a 15th century French town on the Rhone River rather than a 14th century B.C.E. city in the desert south of Judea.)
And, outside the Christian tradition, beyond the different faces given to the Buddha by different ethnic groups, we not only find representations of the Buddha that are lean and fit, but other representations in which he is quite fat. There does not appear to be a need for “historical” representation in those images.
For what it’s worth, most of the earliest known depictions of Jesus show him looking pretty much like a Roman. Funny that these were created by Romans, who knew very well what Jews looked like.
Example 1 , Example 2, Example 3.
Funny also that the Roman Christians usually depicted him clad in gold and purple robes – garb reserved exclusively for the emperor.
Religion and culture and tightly intermingled, and if a human face is going to worshipped as a god, most people would prefer that the face look something like their own. It’s pretty much the same reason why Jesus is called Jesus/Gesu/Jesu (etc) instead of Yeshua ben Yosef.
Jesus was descended of David and David was redheaded. Many Jews are redheads – and I know a Jewish woman from Iran whose grandmothers were Iranian Jews and blond. So the idea that blond and redheaded Jews are just mixed with Europeans assumes that Europe has a copyright on that characteristic – which isn’t true since much of the darker characteristics in the Middle East are due to the Muslim invasions from Yemen/Saudi Arabia in the 7th. century, the original Turkish central Asians moving into the region as will as the Mongul invasions. There was also some mixture between Arabs and black slaves which can also be seen in some regions of the Mid East.
Jews of the 1st. century were probably lighter, much lighter, than most Jews living in Arabic lands (or the ones living there until they were kicked out in the 40s) in modern times. Much of Rome was Semitic (Syrian, Jewish) by 100AD and most of the depictions of Jews were of whites with brown or red hair – sometimes blonder. Ephriamites (other tribes of the northern kingdoms) were described as having peach or ruddy complexions and light hair and they are depicted on Egyptian wall paintings as such.
Blue and green eyes are also a characteristic you can still see in some Arab populations as well as jews.
Let’s say that a country like Sweden continues to have heavy immigration from non-white areas and continues to have a low birthrate. In a few hundred years most of the Swedish population will be dark and few will be born looking like the idea people have of Swedes today (based on a population that existed to the 1970s as a homogenus population usually with red or blond hair). Could people then start questioning a painting of a Viking showing a blond warrior since most people there in the future might look more like a Pakistani or Iraqi?
I think that this is comparable with Israel of the 1st. Century and so most of the depictions of Jesus with what is mistakenly described as “Nordic” features probably do show what he actually looked like.
1ofnine, do you think the research and “reconstruction” done by British and Israeli anthropologists is inaccurate then? (See links from early posts on page 1.)
I don’t usually associate fair-skinned people with the ability to tolerate the desert sun very well.
Welcome to SDMB!
I really don’t know what Jesus looked like, and don’t have an investment in it either. I just thought I’d throw in a few links showing that there are black Jews, possibly part of the Lost Tribes. This link discusses the Lemba people, and this one, the Cohanim. Interesting stuff.
1ofnine, this is the first I’ve heard of this theory, and I’ve been a Christian all my life. Could you please tell me what it’s based on and provide a link or two? I’m with Zoe. I have very fair skin myself, and it’s not well suited to a sunny climate. I’m also no ethnographer, but this is the first time I’ve heard that red hair is found in Middle Eastern genotypes.
Thank you, and welcome to the Board,
CJ
A site dealing with the Moorish invasion of Europe notes:
“The Berbers, under Arab leadership, formed the largest part of the Moorish invasion. They were generally of a lighter complexion than the Arabs, some being fair-haired with blue-eyes.”
http://www.lusaweb.com/azores/html/pioneer.cfm
“Many Berbers have characteristic physical features, quite a few are blond-haired and blue-eyed.”
http://www.hampshireflag.co.uk/world-flags/allflags/berber.html
I thought I would take just one example of Middle Eastern people to illustrate my point. Berbers inhabit some of the hottest regions of North Africa. They are not Europeans either.
Now this is just one grooup of people. The Middle East has a wide range of peoples who, while they have mixed considerably, you still can find blond or red hair in the population. Many Iranians have light complexions as do Kurds (both these groups were originally Indo European – they still are but other groups have contributed to the genetic makeup), and I have met many Lebanese and Syrians that could easily pass as British. So why is it so strange to say that prior to the Islamic-inspired invasions from Yemen/Saudi Arabia and the Mongol invasions (both occuring long after the times of Jesus) that the Jews living in the region looked like they are depicted in Egyptian and Roman pictures – as basically light complected with wide ranges in hair color?
This is really interesting as it pertains to what the Jewish/Hebrews lookded like:
Remember - Israel was part of the roman Empire,
Most recent evidence of Jesus shows that he didn’t even speak Hebrew, he spoke Aramaic. Only the pharosies spoke Hebrew,the pesants spoke another language.
Jesus was a Jew, its a fact. He was a levite,Line of David,Line of abraham,the blessed father of all jews.
Well, I don’t know about that; yes, he spoke Aramaic in daily life, but wouldn’t the learned discourses in the temple have been in Hebrew, much like a medieval boy from Brittany would have spoken Breton but learned Latin if he became a priest?
As far as black jesus goes,i see it as a racist issue.
Some blacks are still interetwined with white rejectionism.This is simply a problem with racism,somthing that takes time and emotional healing to get passed.
We are all human, if a person can only bring himself to pray to a black jesus,than i guess thats better than not at all.