Imma be a total dweeb and give the correct answer. Jesus is just Josh in Greek. There’s many meticulous Roman records about messianic rebels in Judea, not a single Josh among them. One possible interpretation would be that the Romans were so invested I’m erasing Jesus from history, they removed the Joshes, but Christianity was a NON-factor before 77AD, so doubtful Roman clerks were furiously burning records to cover up a messianic figure nobody would give a shit about for a century.
The earliest 1st century CE images have Jesus portrayed like a little Harry Potter of indeterminate race, which seems weird since he’s supposed to be 30, but maybe it’s a Michael J Fox situation, where he points his magic wand at images of the miracles (like loaves and fishes) but it’s more likely he never existed (thus the absence of that Josh in the meticulous records).
Rome around this time was religiously divided between an ostensible state religion of the Roman pantheon we all know and love and various “cults” such as The Cult of Saint John, which predates Christianity – you can think of his appearance in Christianity like how Munch from Homicide: Life on The Streets carried over to Law & Order: SVU. Other cults were influential among various groups – Cult of Isis and Osiris was for the nerds, Mithraism was for the jocks, Cult of Cybele was for the ladies.
Constantine, when he came to power, desperately wanted to reboot the Roman state religion with more of that slick theocratic energy they saw in Judea, so he decided the answer was scrapbooking: He’d call the religion Christianity, but Jesus would be sexy Apollo, and God would be bearded Zeus, both of Greco-Roman imagery. The marriage ceremony would come from Isis and Osiris, and they shoehorn in mother imagery from Cybele and Skandamata, creating Mary iconography. Throw in a dash of baptism from John the Baptist and Mitraism’s bath in bull’s blood, and voila! Christianity as we know it.
So the tl;dr is that’s not your Jesus, that’s Sexy Apollo with a Jesus skin mod, and there never was a historical Jesus, he never existed
The non-historicity of Jesus has never had traction in scholarship. Mythicism is rejected by virtually all mainstream scholars of antiquity, and has been considered a fringe theory for more than two centuries. Mythicism is criticized on numerous grounds such as for commonly being advocated by non-experts or poor scholarship, being ideologically driven, its reliance on arguments from silence, lacking positive evidence, the dismissal or distortion of sources, questionable or outdated methodologies, either no explanation or wild explanations of origins of Christian belief and early churches, and outdated comparisons with mythology. While rejected by mainstream scholarship, with the rise of the Internet the Christ myth theory has attracted more attention in popular culture, and some of its proponents are associated with atheist activism.
I mean, there probably was a carpenter called Jeshua… But you could probably say the same today.
This is why I don’t take it seriously.
Was there a carpenter turned preacher named Jesus in ancient Judea? Sure why not.
Was there an accountant turned preacher named Bill in 1940s Alabama? Sure why not.
It’s such a mundane claim it’s not worth taking seriously.
There’s many meticulous Roman records about messianic rebels in Judea
No, there’s not. And the consensus of historians who actually study this is that Jesus was a historical person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
You’re repeating a fringe theory that has been examined and rejected by scholars.
You’re Joshin’ me…
Jesus: It’s because I’m not your god. I’m god of the people that colonized your country, took some of your people as slaves and made you all believe in me instead of your original black gods.
Because the Vorlons have programmed the younger species to view them as holy beings
I wonder what I’d see if I perceived a Vorlon. Bill Nye the Science Guy?
Is there a Why Files episode about this or something similar?
Aha! Thank you.
You know that there’s different depictions of Jesus in many races, right? Like, people in Africa have depictions of a black Jesus, for example.
“Black Jesus” is a deliberate response to the traditional white depiction of Jesus, arising out of an acrimonious colonial relationship with whites. We’re trying to discuss why Jesus was depicted as white in the first place.
Actually, Christianity in Ethiopia dates from the 4th century and is not the result of European colonialism.
Their Jesus usually looks pretty black.
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If anything, it’s stupid and bad for society to outright dismiss peoples faith. Faith and hope is a huge part of what drives humans in the first place.
You can still have faith and hope without religion though. I’m not religious and have faith that the good in humanity will prevail. I have hope for a better future created by humanity.
I never said that you can’t have faith or hope without religion. I’m not religious myself. But faith expresses itself differently for different people. And in the end, no one can really prove to the living that their answer to life was the truly correct one.
What is “prevailing”? What is “better”? What if I disagree with you? Etc etc. There is no justification for secular “morality”. It is mob rule.
Why would your beliefs affect my beliefs at all? I’m just showing that belief and hope are not dependent on religion.
Why would your beliefs affect my beliefs at all?
What beliefs? You haven’t stated, much less justified, them.
I’m just showing that belief and hope are not dependent on religion.
You’re showing that you can string words together to form a sentence but not much else.
The real Jesus was brown was he not?
Why don’t you make your point instead of appealing to other people?
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He was Palestinian.
Yeah, I think the far easier explanation is “people around the world depict their religious figures as looking like themselves”.
Humans depict god and his boy like a human, so yeh makes sense
How are we supposed to get outraged at that though?
Not seeing a lot of purple-skinned five-legged jesuses around here.
It’s about European churches using historical revisionism (depicting Jesus as a white European) to establish a sense of “superiority”.
Those churches are by far the most dominant
Frankly this comes off almost as a conspiracy theory. Christian art in Europe developed its typical imagery when the vast majority of Europeans could have no direct contact with non-Europeans, before colonialism or coherent ideas about racial identities, when far-off lands were thought to be occupied by one-legged giants…
You know that… Christianity developed in the Roman Empire? The Middle East (more exactly Palestine and Syria. Which were larger that today’s counterparts) wasn’t some magical place where giants lived, but a province of said Empire
Christianity developed in the Roman Empire?
I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the pictorial representation of Jesus, not when Christianity itself developed. Christian figurative art in Rome was rare and undeveloped, I highly doubt you have on your mind some examples of Roman portrayal of Jesus that actually support your idea. That’s why I described what I have found to be the situation in the middle ages, when the typical iconography zook shape - to the best of my knowledge, but maybe I’m talking with an actual art historian in which case you should have no problem with proving me wrong with examples.
I’m also confused about how you actually imagine the development of the supposedly racist Roman images of Jesus went about. At which stage did that happen, before or after Christianity became the state religion? Were Romans racist against the Middle East populations before Christianity too? Were Romans from the Apennine peninsula racist against them based on their darker skin colour, while themselves certainly being darker-skinned than e.g. Gauls?
Dude: ports exist, people trade, across the Mediterranean you can find lots of different skin colours and customs.
Nobility and their favoured travelled extensively, skilled tradespeople would undertake elaborate pilgramidge if they could afford it all the way to Jerusalem. Even serfs got to go on pilgrimage although usually not to Jerusalem but to other cathedrals.
Stop with this ahistorical nonsense. Maybe someone in the British isles might not have much contact of the greater world but the HRE? Spain? Italy? The eastern Roman empire? Of fucking course they did.
I prefer juiced up Korean Jesus. Does thy god even lift?
I had to check this out. Jesus!!!
Jesus the Barbarian, amazing ✨
Day it louder for the people in the back. This is how white supremacy works. One of capitalism’s most powerful tools.
I don’t feel very Supreme. I don’t even feel Gucci. I feel Private Selection at Kroger at best.
Is that better or worse than feeling like Kirkland from Costco? I’m needing a reference point for this scale.
Utz brand
Except Jesus is depicted as black, asian etc depending on where in the world they are worshiping him. Everyone in this thread is revising history to match with their contemporary race ideologies instead of just saying “Hmm maybe Jesus is depicted as white because that’s what made sense to the iconographers in Greece” One of the earliest icons of Jesus showed him as tawny with a robe and he looked Roman. People also assume he must be brown or black even though there are people in the levant that look super white. The reality is no one knows. This is a stupid thread.
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Dude bro that was so brave what you did there.
Time to add some transparency to Jesus.
I have accepted PNG Jesus into my photo editor.
Religion lost its use. In the past it was useful to form bigger communities by providing rules and a common sense of “what’s right”.
Nower days it’s quite the opposite. Just let it die already.
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We need to take action to see its demise.
Christians are no strangers to being persecuted.
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I’m going to pray for you and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. 🤣
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There is plenty of thought-provoking philosophical, epistemological and metaphysical discussions to be had around the existence of God but something tells me that you and I are not going to get there in this exchange.
Ugh, this is something my FB friends need to see, but I can’t post to FB because they’re touchy.
It’s not only Jesus, but it’s religious figures too. Muslims do the same to depictions of their saints, they should always look like “us”.
Majority of Muslims actively avoid portrayals of religious figures. They would rather have the persons head glowing or something like that to avoid misrepresentation.
Yes, despite that there are pictures from saints (imams) and paintings at least in Iran, which are purely imaginary and look like Iranians.
Jesus, what do you mean by “you people”?
Nah, not Jesus too 😭
Well he’s talking to a little black girl about race, so it’s either black people or all of not white people.
There should be a black Jesus, just like there is a black Santa or a black Barbie.
There is.
Of course search engines are all shitted up with the TV show and ai slop.
Or hear me out, most depictions are from the renaissance when “Not being white” was a relatively new concept to Painters?
Jesus is white and ripped because of several very prominent renaissance painters using their hot twink lovers as their models
Unironically this!
There’s also evidence that White Jesus originated as a Borgia pope, it’s not nearly that cut and dry
shhhhhhh op feels smart. he used big words and everything.
This is a pretty flawed understanding of history.
Humans have always travelled, in Europe even serfs would hope to go on pilgrimage and Lords generally had to allow it. Although it may only be to a nearby cathedral. Italy was a trade hub, and a relatively short trip by boat to north Africa.
European painters knew that people came in different shades. As proof, go look at the school of Athens painting.
The average peasant in medieval Europe would certainly never see an African person in his lifetime.
Across all of Europe and all of the middle ages? Sure probably. Never hear of them, see them in art? I dunno, it’s hard to say because we don’t have a lot of documentation on what normal people’s lives were like.
In the cosmopolitan cities like Prague you probably would. Also any major Mediterranean trade port. Anyone who went on pilgrimage to those places, or along them, probably would. Cutting off Jerusalem to pilgrimage being such a big political deal indicates that many people went there or wanted to, and people loved sharing stories of places.
The average peasant in medieval Europe wasn’t painting commissions for cathedrals
The renaissance is heavily linked to white racial superiority
Are you trying to say any historical event involving white people is racist in and of itself (As opposed to it merely being limited to the tragically high amount of ones directly linked to the exploitation of minorities) or that you are racist and believe renaissance era artwork to be proof of white racial superiority? Which brand of idiocy am I dealing with?
Demand fuels supply. Art style reflects a population. It’s not hard to guess where the Renaissance is hinting at when everything is ripped white dudes.
Race as a concept and part of Renaissance life, however, has not been a central conversation in scholarship on Italy. This has made it difficult [189] for instructors to know where to start if they do want to bring the subject of race to the classroom. But the primary sources are brimming with racialized references: Petrarch extolled a white beauty, Dante condemned Mohammed to Hell, and Ariosto and Tasso both marshaled crusading themes and deified the violent expeditions of Christopher Columbus in their respective epics (and Tasso borrowed from the Aethiopica to create his heroine Clorinda, a white woman born to Black Ethiopian royalty). Racialized narratives around non-Italians, especially Muslims, Jews, and Black Africans, as well as the violent oppression of ethnic and religious minorities throughout the city-states, influenced this cultural production, and are important parts of Italian Renaissance history.
Are there a plethora of examples of black artwork depicting ripped white dudes? Or are we just saying that White Racism existed in a vacuum?
Click the article I linked if you need more context. God transforming into a white man is no coincidence.
Yeah I get that, what I’m saying is: I bet it’s global. Africans probably painted Africans, Asians probably painted Asians. I don’t think white man was exclusively racist.
I was thinking the same. It’s white people painting for rich white people, why would they EVER even think about the color of his skin? The right color is the color of whoever is paying you to paint it.
Jesus became white when Christianity spread in Europe and became a European religion. Earlier Jesus paintings had him a few shades darker. Palestinians are still light skinned and the dark skin is mostly acquired from working in the field.
Jesus is depicted as black in the Ethiopian Orthodox church and is shown as Japanese in some Japanese Orthodox churches.
Ethiopian Jesus looks like an east African.
