Does Jesus’ Skin Color Matter?

So, I watched this YouTube video where this Conservative Christian Black dude was trying to call out the hosts of the View for bringing up to the star of The Chosen—a series about the ministries of Jesus and the Disciples—that they were appreciative that in the show Jesus Christ was not blonde haired and blue eyed.

The Black dude also tried to play it up like the View was playing into some liberal agenda for saying that and for showing a clip of the show where the Jesus character chastised the religious leaders for being more concerned about offerings than showing justice in the community they supposedly served. Yes, the View is largely liberal. But, this was not a conspiracy.

Curious about how people were responding to this non issue, I looked at the comments and was surprised to see all of these folks saying that they are White and have never seen Jesus portrayed as being blonde haired and blue eyed.

That’s strange to me since I grew up in Black churches and into adulthood and there was always a blonde haired blue eyed Jesus there on the walls and the funeral home fans. We even had a picture of him in our house growing up. One of the first things that got people mad at me in my all Black church in AZ was saying that I didn’t think Jesus was White and that I thought that Black peoples worshiping a blonde haired blue eyed savior was messing us up psychologically.

Anyway, I ended up commenting, and most folks reasserted that they’ve never seen a blonde haired blue eyed Jesus. Wild. But wilder still is that one person in “support” of my claim that blonde hair blue eyed Jesuses abound, said that since Jesus was a descendant of David and David was White and blonde, Jesus was more than likely blonde haired and blue eyed as well. They followed it with, “@makeitlight (that’s me) I speak Spanish in my bible it says in spanish he was blonde. Reading the English version it says he was ruddy. I understand ruddy is a redhead. Anyway he will be white. Because blondes and redheads are white.”

Thanks?

Here’s my response.

“In the KJV it says “His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.” Also says his hair was white like wool. It’s interesting that ancient folks from the Middle East, Palestine specifically, were not and aren’t now blonde, blue eyed, or even demonstrably White. And when Jesus was a refugee, they hid out in Egypt where folks also were not white or blonde. It seems to me that the only white blonde kid with brown parents would be easy to find and Herod wouldn’t have had to kill all of those other kids trying to find him. What do you think about that? Isn’t it weird that Herod had to kill all of those brown kids when Jesus would have likely stood out with his blonde hair and blue eyes?”

He responds, “I wouldn’t use Revelation as a source to know how Jesus was on earth, cause revelations reveals Jesus in his glorified body and not necessarily in the body he had when he was on earth. 1 Corinthians 15 even says we will have a different body when we get to heaven. And that notion that Israelites were dark skin I don’t think that’s totally true. Egyptians also. Cleopatra was a white woman for instance. [And] @makeitlight Mary and Joseph were Israelites also so they were the same as Jesus. (Implying they were White too.)

I retort @commenter I could see your point. So you’re saying that Jesus was white in his corruptible body and Brown in his glorified body. I’ve never heard anyone argue that before. (I was joking and the corruptible body is a biblical reference.)

Others in the thread say that his race doesn’t matter just that he died for their sins. One says something so asinine it’s almost unfathomable, “Jesus was for justice. Not social justice. There’s a difference.”

What does that even mean?

I then said a bunch of stuff about how Egypt is next to Sudan where people are straight up Black. So how can they think that right next door folks were blonde haired and blue eyed back in Jesus’s day. I acknowledge that Egypt was conquered by Rome yadda yadda yadda and I basically end with“And I can tell you that Jesus’s race wouldn’t matter if racists didn’t make it matter and use the symbolism of a White savior to oppress people all over the planet.

Of course the Latino person I’m talking to says that White Jesus never did anything to them. And that’s when I drop the back and forth. I was already warm anyway because some kid was bullying my 6 year old daughter and I was processing that.

But this is what I am getting off my chest that I don’t feel like saying to them.

In a racialized world, Jesus’s skin color matters to me just as much as it matters that he was Jewish, a manual laborer, that he hung out with the marginalized people of his time, that he was a refugee, and any other particularities that contributed to how he engaged the world. And it matters that people painted him as a blonde hair blue eyed White dude who grants wishes to Americans at the expense of everyone and everything on the planet. And that people who are clearly racist, misogynistic, and hyper capitalistic sincerely think Jesus blesses the rich and scorns the poor. If his color didn’t matter why did people change it? Why did enslavers create a “Slave Bible” that cut out everything that could inspire Black folks to liberate themselves? Why were indigenous people all over the place removed from their lands in his name and called savages and forced to give up their identities under the banner of a White Jesus—blonde hair blue eyed or otherwise? I think it is disingenuous for an entire global system to make everything about race and then when the people most affected by those policies and religious structures point out the discrepancies and inconsistencies decide to call it out and speak up, for the people who benefit from it to then say not everything is about race. And I think it is sad when someone who has been racialized like the Black YouTuber and the Latino commenter to try to defend their own marginalization.

But, this is the world we’re in.

I know some people will take this in the most offensive way possible because so many of us have been good students when it comes to historic erasure. But I’m saying all of this because I don’t like how people are being harmed by this incomplete narrative. Regardless of our races, or even our religions, just making up histories and narratives that make us feel better is not serving any of us. Human history is complicated enough as it is. We don’t need to make it more crazy by just ignoring the parts that make us uncomfortable or not to question what makes very little sense.

Besides, it’s 2024. We have access to all manners of information. They literally could’ve googled “blonde haired blue eyed Jesus” instead of saying things like “In my 60 years, I’ve never seen it or heard of a blonde haired blue eyed Jesus.” Some even claimed they never saw a White looking Jesus. An Australian guy said, “In our country, he wasn’t White. He always just looked Mediterranean.” The only folks who were saying they saw a White blonde haired blue eyed Jesus were Black and Latino. How is that possible? The rest in effect were saying that they didn’t see color. It reminds me of my friend’s brother who tried to say he never noticed President Obama was Black. He just didn’t like his policies. Good Lord!

IMO, I think these commenters were either gaslighting or they didn’t go to church.

In fact, I went to the quora site and found an Australian who identified as a theology enthusiast who answered the question, “Was Jesus white skinned with blonde hair and blue eyes?” like this:

“Almost certainly not.

Jesus blended in with the rest of the population, or at least with his followers, enough so that Judas had to identify him for the guards who were coming to arrest him after the Last Supper.

This was in Roman occupied Jerusalem, and the Roman Empire was very cosmopolitan, but someone who would have looked more at home on the opposite side of the empire would have stood out – particularly in a group of people from Galilee.”

Anyway, even though it might not inform anyone who isn’t interested, here is a scientific examination into the question of what Jesus might have looked like from an article entitled “A Scientist Showed Us What Jesus Really Looks Like” found on the Attn: website. https://archive.attn.com/stories/4692/what-jesus-looks-like and this article from the UK Sun goes into it more. https://www.thesun.co.uk/…/scientist-shocks-the…/ The Sun is kind of tabloid-ish. But, it gets some things right.

“In fact, a forensic anthropologist named Richard Neave developed a image of the Christian figure that is pretty far removed from the face we’re used to—but one that was informed by historical evidence and computerized tomography.

Neave is an expert in forensic facial reconstruction, and by taking three Semitic skulls from Israeli archeological sites (near where Jesus is believed to have been born), he was able to use computerized x-ray and ultrasound techniques to construct a model of Jesus’ face. Based on anthropological and genetic data, he came up with the image pictured above.”

Here is a video by biblical scholar Dan McClellan who explains where some of the blonde hair blue eyed Jesus imagery came from.