Was Jesus white?

…does it matter? If so, why?

he was jewish in my experince most jewish ppl are white

He was from the middle east so I’m sure he had a good tan.

He was born in Jerusalem, making him
Middle-eastern. If he was middle-eastern he certainly wouldn’t he white

I would imagine he would look much like a modern day Palestinian.

Let’s ask Mel Gibson. If anyone would know about this issue, and be open-minded about it, it would be him.

I’m not sure Jews are part of the white race. I believe middle eastern people are considered Asian, but I could be wrong. Anyway, Hitler definitely would say the Jews are not part of the white race.

I don’t believe in race. I think it’s all a load of crap.

Statistically, approximately 1/3 of people in the U.S. who consider themselves “white” and who look “white” according to others, have at least one ancestor who was actually African or Native American. Are those “white” people then actually African American or Native American? (The question is rhetorical. You dont have to try to answer it. Really.)

If you’re asking if Jesus had blond hair and blue eyes, there is an astronomically high probablility that the answer is, “no”, but who among us really knows?

@Tiny. Not to threadjack, but Hitler didn’t have an opinion on white skin color, per se. He believed in the superiority of the Aryan race (which we equate with blond hair and blue eyes), which actually included Europeans as well as Persians. Middle Eastern people are believed to be Semitic (this blurs the line between linguistics and culture). In any event, modern genetics tells us that “race” as we know it is a poorly constructed description of people.

He was not, the ethnicity of most middle eastern tribes does not resemble a “white” person, tanned skin, black hair and beard, not very tall and brown eyes could have been his physical characteristics, like most Iraqi males are…

Ok. I agree that race is a social construction.

Weren’t the whites at that time period anglo-saxons, normans, germanic tribes and nordics, scandinavians tribes of europe? Not israelis and people from that area.

that’s the phrase i was looking for tiny! “social construction” somehow ‘load of crap’ doesn’t sound quite as eloquent ;-)

The blond haired, blue eyed Jesus is a Western conceit.

I lost hope for any kind of an intelligent discussion on this when Eambos’ quip that Jesus was “born in Jerusalem” was GA’d… twice.

well i was just giving nods at anything resembling a big fat ‘NO’

@all
I’m with sys, I mean, we all see what we want to see, so the crusaders represented Jesus just in the way they wanted him to look like, just like them… like the way Matt Groening represents Jebus…

@robmandu
Where is the masked man?

@aisnya: Jews come in all colours. Maybe you live in a mostly white culture, but I can assure you natives of the middle East have swarthy skin.

Skn color was directly related to the intensity of the sun’s rays. The closer one gets to the equator, the darker the skin of the indigenous population.

See Buster ^^. He is describing people who lived at northern latitudes with less intense sun, or very little sun at all.

@aisnya, By far, most Jews and throughout the 20th century if not further back are descendants of European and Caucasus communities that migrated from the Middle East beginning prior to 1,000 AD, which, I assume, accounts for the differences in skin tones as gail suggested.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ethnic_divisions:

Despite this diversity [of Jewish ethnicities] , Ashkenazi Jews represent the bulk of modern Jewry, approximately 70% of Jews worldwide (and up to 90% prior to World War II and the Holocaust). As a result of their emigration from Europe during the wartime periods, Ashkenazim also represent the overwhelming majority of Jews in the New World continents and in countries previously without native Jewish communities, such as the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil and South Africa.

@flameboi, look closer. Thanks for noticing.

Does anyone know if he could dance?
That might help solve this puzzle.

No one knows what he looks like. Frankly, I don’t see why it matters either. For all we know he could look like George Costanza I would assume he has darker skin though, because he was born in the middle east and his family business was carpentry so he probably was outside a lot growing up.

No, he wasn’t.

Yes, he was (just for argument’s sake).
Because, see jasonjackson (^), the question doesn’t mean anything.
Some people used to call the Irish immigrants in New York “black”.
Fugeddabbadit.

Jesus was an olive tone complexion since he was of Jewish descent.
But that shouln’t matter, what should is what he was. God bless.

Black Irish now means a person of Irish descent with black hair and blue eyes.

Jesus was undoubtedly similar to those who lived around him and was likely not “white” as we visualize that today.
It’s highly unlikely that he had blue eyes an a very light skin tone.

Picture the average population in the Middle East and their skin tone today and it would have more than likely been the same at the time of Jesus however it is more important to focus on the bigger picture about Jesus rather than if he took a nice tan.