Christ was not white ..

[_Quasimodo]

[
No, it is because the people promoting the idea just want to make the prevailing attitude of what Christ looked like seem silly and even racist. However, most of these people making such comments have not visited the Middle East or probably know few people from that region.

I know quite a few people from the Middle East. I know a couple of Iranians with green eyes and light skin, a few Assyrians who look more like Italians (slightly olive skin but light eyes and auburn hair) a couple of Syrians who have blue eyes and light complexions, and one Moroccan who has light brown hair and quite white skin -- he says his grandfather in Africa is as blonde as any Swede. An Afghan I know has a grandmother she says had pale skin, red hair and blue eyes. And since every Jew I know ranges between a somewhat Welsh look (slight olive skin with dark brown hair) or blonde to red hair then I find it quite unlikely that the people of the region that is Israel today were dark. Besides, if the Romans were light people then they would have noted if Jews were dark.

Think about it. People from this generation in most parts of the world are the result of hundreds of years of intermixing with people from other parts of the world. European features will show up in many eastern countries. There is a real problem in Vietnam right now for "American" looking Vietnamese people being discriminated against. All due to the number of Yankee babies produced during the war.

As I explained before, Afghanistan is a long way from Judea (get out an atlas and see where it is). There has been a population of Nordic descendants in Afghanistan for nearly a thousand years.

Romans from the South of Italy were as dark as the Judeans. Romans from the North of Italy were fair haired and fair skinned. I don't think they would have thought enough of skin color to make a comment.

The vast majority of people in the Levant were dark in the time of Jesus and the Romans and still are. Unless Jesus had a Roman dad from Northern Europe (and Mary had some of those genes in her ancestry... recessive) he would have been dark, as well.

He would look a lot like this:


By the way, I'm Welsh. I have blue eyes and freckles.

[_DarkHelmet]

Black Jesus is the coolest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKIKKXm6Mlk

[_Cardinal Biggles]

Unless Jesus had a Roman dad from Northern Europe (and Mary had some of those genes in her ancestry... recessive) he would have been dark, as well.

A Roman dad... or a god.

Now, I'm not saying that I subscribe to the idea that Jesus' biological father was otherworldly, but, if he was (and many people believe that he was), then it would probably be reasonable to think that he might have looked quite a bit different from those around him.

[_Bond James Bond]

Romans from the South of Italy were as dark as the Judeans. Romans from the North of Italy were fair haired and fair skinned. I don't think they would have thought enough of skin color to make a comment.

Southern Italy=heavily colonized by Greeks (Magna Graecia)
Northern Italy=colonized by European migrants (beginning with Gauls in the 390s BC who even sacked Rome but numerous other migrations)

Rome was sort of in the middle and served as a melting pot because of it's location and situation as the most important city on the peninsula. Pompeius Magnus was basically a Gaul from Picentine (northeastern Italy) but some other Roman noblemen were from the south, especially Campania region where Capua was but that's not the southern tip of the Peninsula where Greek influence was most felt. Most Romans of note were from Latium or north of the city. Then as now the northern half of Italy is the power base :/

The vast majority of people in the Levant were dark in the time of Jesus and the Romans and still are. Unless Jesus had a Roman dad from Northern Europe (and Mary had some of those genes in her ancestry... recessive) he would have been dark, as well.

Agreed. Jesus was probably darker skinned. We have to leave open the possibility he was light but most likely he was olive skinned like most Semitic peoples were. The discussion about Jews being white with blonde hair has to do with them taking on the traits of Europe when they lived there, forming the Ashkenazic subgroup of Jewish people. Jews lived in Northern Europe for hundreds of years, especially Germany/Russia/Poland after 1300-1400s and are almost all the Jews even today, including populating modern Israel after the Holocaust. Darker skinned Jews today are descended from Jewish diaspora elements that survived in the greater Middle East.

A point about Iran though (since I saw posts earlier in the thread with white Iranians). Persia/Parthia/Iran has been relatively untouched compared to Iraq/Mesopotamia which has seen numerous population injections. Iran was occasionally captured, but never with lasting consequence like seen in Mesopotamia/Eastern Mediterranean region. Iran was also settled by Proto Indo-Europeans more than 5000 years ago and are related more closely to the ancestors of Europe than Semitic peoples such as Arabs.

Besides the Romans who are already noted are the Greeks who brought Hellenistic influence to the Eastern Mediterranean after Alexander the Great and continued well into 1200s even after the Romans supplanted Greek rule under the Byzantine banner. Besides that were the Ottoman/Turkic peoples who were pretty tolerant of racial mixing leads to vast variety in the area. All of these groups included population significant. One of my favorite ethnic anomalies is Galatia, a small section of modern central Turkey where Gauls from modern France lived their own culture for several hundred years until they were absorbed into the local populations.

[_Fiannan]

Of course if you look at the murals of Pompeii which is in southern Italy, one notices the Romans of all classes that are depicted are white -- some with brown hair, some with red and some with ash blonde hair.

And since Macedonia is even closer to the Middle East, and Alexander the Great was a blonde, I would think blonde hair was also common among the ancients in that region.

[_Quasimodo]

Of course if you look at the murals of Pompeii which is in southern Italy, one notices the Romans of all classes that are depicted are white -- some with brown hair, some with red and some with ash blonde hair.

And since Macedonia is even closer to the Middle East, and Alexander the Great was a blonde, I would think blonde hair was also common among the ancients in that region.

What???

What does Pompeii have to do with it? We know already that Italy had a population of Alpine Europeans in the North that would have been incorporated into the Empire. Some could well have lived in Pompeii.

Macedonia was at the bottom of central Europe. The Greeks called them Keltoi (Celts). Most of them would have been less dark than the Greeks (especially those in the North of Macedonia). The distance between the Levant and Macedonia isn't really a relative point (get your atlas out again... it's called the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia now).

I think you're grasping at straws to maintain a belief in a white Jesus. Why not just accept the fact that the odds are overwhelming that he didn't look like you.

[_Fiannan]

Mosaic from Galilean region from ancient history.

[_Quasimodo]

Mosaic from Galilean region from ancient history.

It's telling that your first image comes from a very racist web site:

http://spiritwaterblood.com/about/

Hint: images you post on this board carry the URL from the original source. You should be more careful if you don't want anyone to know what sort of racist websites you frequent.

Besides that, it has a very Roman look to it (Romans lived in Judea for quite a while).

I'm at a total loss as to why you would even post this second image (also from the same racist web site) to defend your point.

[_Fiannan]

Mosaic from Galilean region from ancient history.

It's telling that your first image comes from a very racist web site:

http://spiritwaterblood.com/about/

Hint: images you post on this board carry the URL from the original source. You should be more careful if you don't want anyone to know what sort of racist websites you frequent.

Besides that, it has a very Roman look to it (Romans lived in Judea for quite a while).

I'm at a total loss as to why you would even post this second image (also from the same racist web site) to defend your point.

Not sure if information can be "racist" -- as for the site, just a googled image. So my reply to that is "Whatever!"

Now, as for the pictures do you dispute they exist? The older engraving makes it clear that the facial characteristics are more Caucasian than some here would like to admit. The mural depicts a scene from what appears daily life. If it were Romans (Italians) I doubt a donkey would have been featured any more than Donald Trump would pose by a broken down pickup truck for a painting.

[_Quasimodo]

Not sure if information can be "racist" -- as for the site, just a googled image. So my reply to that is "Whatever!"

Now, as for the pictures do you dispute they exist? The older engraving makes it clear that the facial characteristics are more Caucasian than some here would like to admit. The mural depicts a scene from what appears daily life. If it were Romans (Italians) I doubt a donkey would have been featured any more than Donald Trump would pose by a broken down pickup truck for a painting.

Sorry, Fiannan.

I think the cat's out of the bag. I have a low tolerance for bigotry and it was becoming apparent that bigotry was where you were coming from. Your last post just confirmed this.

Your claim that the second image portrays Caucasian characteristics is ludicrous.