I think we know Jesus wasn’t white. Every once in a while, a meme like this will pop up in my feed, and I always find them interesting. My educational background is in history and religious studies. I love both subjects. But for a long time, I was on the wrong side of both, at least when it came to Christianity and specifically Jesus.
In my teenage years, I was certain Jesus didn’t exist, and that he was a construct created in order to control the masses. So this meme is something I would have wholeheartedly adopted. And I probably would have annoyingly pushed it with some challenge attached to it, because simply, I acted like a dick when it came to religion.
That has since changed. I no longer have the fervent need to “preach” on the subject, but instead I try to approach it much more academically. I’ve also learned that while I would say I’m quite knowledgeable on the subject, there is always more to learn. But it’s a subject I love exploring, and even in school, I spent a whole semester just looking at the story of Jesus and arguing that he did in fact exist, while explaining some of the modern views and how they are misconceptions that formed later on.
One thing I never really had to dive into though was the color of Jesus. Within the scholarship, it is taken for granted that Jesus was a Galilean. He was a Jew from the Levant. In short, he wasn’t white. His ethnicity never really came up, unless it was something minor, such as the degree to which he was Hellenized. That didn’t change his appearance though.
Since being out of college, I continue to dive into the research and discussions. I enjoy debating, especially about religion and specifically the first-century Levant. Throughout all of that, the color of Jesus’s skin may have come up a handful of times, and generally it’s an argument against the historicity of Jesus because obviously he wasn’t white (I’m not sure how that would make a case for him not existing, but a debate of that sort really isn’t productive either, so I tend to avoid them).
The reason it doesn’t come up is because most people realize that Jesus wasn’t white. Whether it is evangelical Christians, or very liberal Christians, there tends to be an acceptance that Jesus was Middle Eastern and looked that way. There is somewhat of a growing movement to claim Jesus was black, but it’s more of fringe groups, and they are really just as wrong as claiming Jesus was white.
So why is Jesus depicted as white? This meme argues that it was a psychological tool used to create the image of God being white (the phrasing of the meme is technically incorrect, which is why I rephrased it here. The meme should say, image of a white god, as that would be grammatically correct. The wording here implies that we aren’t necessarily talking about the Abrahamic god, God with a big g, but just a white god in general. However, below all of this, it’s clear that Jesus is associated with the Abrahamic God, and this enters into the realm of the Trinity, where Jesus is God but also the Son of God. If anyone wants a detailed look at the Trinity, let me know, and I can work on that).
The purpose, according to this meme, of creating an image of God as white is to control people of color so that they are more compliant. Basically, they are arguing that by making God white, it makes white people in general seem like authority figures who should be dominant.
That isn’t the reason at all though, and it’s a rather poor psychological tool because Christians generally don’t accept that Jesus was white. That, and it goes against the general message of Jesus. Most troublesome though is that while Jesus is included in the Trinity, as is seen as God, there is still a distinction between God and Jesus. Making Jesus white wouldn’t make God white. The logic behind it simply doesn’t work.
There is a larger issue though, and that gets into history. The earliest known depictions of Jesus are more symbolic. It’s not until the third century that we really start seeing depictions of Jesus that are positive and aren’t limited to symbols. One of the first of these was found in the St. Callisto catacomb in Rome, and shows Jesus as a good shepherd. Most important for this discussion is that he was shown with olive colored skin, and as beardless. He wore contemporary dress for that time period as well. The thing that sticks out is that he was beardless. This was something common for Romans, but for Judean men, they would have sported a beard.
This began changing around the 4th century, at least for Rome (both the western empire, as well as the eastern empire, often referred to as the Byzantine Empire). Christianity begins to be more accepted, and we get an explosion of art, as it didn’t have to be hidden.
This is when we begin seeing the common iconography associated with Jesus, at least in the West. We get the halo around his head, the long hair and beard, and his skin lightens up. These are never meant to be accurate portrayals of Jesus, but are theological portrayals. They borrow heavily from Greek and Roman art, and in particular, the depictions of the Greek god Zeus.
By the sixth century, the general depiction we have in the West of Jesus was cemented. For about 200 years, his skin got lighter until it was white, his hair was parted, and he had a beard. He is also quite tiny. The Byzantine artists knew this wasn’t how Jesus looked, but it didn’t matter in the same way that how Plato looked didn’t matter, as the image wasn’t meant to show the physical appearance, but to portray who they really were, and this was accomplished by standard artistic tools. Someone looking at that depiction, for instance, would see the long hair and beard and know that Jesus must have been wise.
This is the view that would move northward. A white-looking Jesus is easier to identify with for white people. It’s also easier to sell as artwork.
But elsewhere, the depictions were quite different. The earliest known depiction of Jesus in Israel, which dates to the sixth century, shows him Jewish, with darker skin, short curly hair, and a beard. When looking at depictions of Jesus in Egypt and the Syria-Palestine region, this is the common manner in which Jesus was depicted.
As Christianity moved into Asia, his skin color once again changed. He would be depicted in standard Indian fashion, or Chinese fashion. Often, his long hair would remain, but his beard would be fashioned in various other ways. You move south, and he gets darker and is more depicted as an African in African societies.
In general, the manner in which Jesus was depicted conformed to the area’s dominant racial identity. This is true for most religious figures because it allows that group to more easily connect with the individual, and it allows for the art to be sold more easily. The actual depiction is seldom meant to show how the figure historically looked. That wasn’t the point. So race didn’t matter. What was being depicted were theological constructs. The skin color generally just followed whatever skin color was dominant in that area.
The race of Jesus was something that didn’t really matter throughout most of church history. The early church fathers said Jesus was Jewish, and that was fine enough. Most discussion about his appearance was more focused on the view that he was an ugly, short man. Tertullian, for instance, said that the outward appearance of Jesus was despised. The Acts of John describes him as bald, small, and ugly. It was generally agreed that he was small, at only about 4 foot 6 inches. When his skin color is mentioned, it is generally said to be reddish, or basically Middle Eastern.
The first view of Jesus was that he was some ugly, short man who was probably deformed in some manner, and may have been bald. That was the focus, that outwardly, he was a mess. Personally, I love that. That view did change around the 13th century though, where theologians began arguing that Jesus must have been beautiful in every sense. But his race didn’t come into play. He was still often referred to as being reddish. He was darker.
In the 19th century, we do see a push for Jesus being of the Aryan race. That he was Nordic in appearance, that there was nothing Jewish about him. That view went along with the anti-Semitic rhetoric at the time. It was the view of the Nazis. But that was just one of the views. Godfrey Higgins argued that Jesus was brown and was from North India. The German Theodor Plange also claimed that the Gospel of Jesus came from India.
By the time the race of Jesus really became a question, there was a wide array of arguments. Some claimed he was white, some Indian, and others argued he was black because the ancient Israelites were supposedly black. Interestingly enough, Martin Luther King Jr was a proponent of the Black Christ movement.
The depiction of Jesus really just went in line with the culture that was depicting him. And often, it had nothing to do with what race Jesus was, as that didn’t matter. It was more theological in nature. It’s not until relatively recently that this fascination with the skin color of Jesus popped up, and while some pushed for a white Jesus, many pushed for everything but.
My main problem with such a meme though is that it is nothing more than propaganda that is attempting to cause further division and hate. It’s historically bankrupt, but being historically bankrupt doesn’t have the specific intention to spread hate and division. But as this meme shows, it can be a tool to spread such propaganda.