This box: view • talk • edit The race of Jesus has been a subject of debate since at least the nineteenth century. The physical appearance of Jesus of Nazareth was debated by theologians from early on in the history of Christianity, though with no explicit emphasis on race.
Different societies have depicted Jesus and most other biblical figures as their own ethnicity in their art; for example he is primarily white in the West. The current dominant opinion among historians and scientists is that he was most likely a Galilean Jew and thus would have features which resemble modern-day persons of Middle Eastern or Semitic descent. Others, however, have suggested other possible racial backgrounds. For some Christians the question is complicated by the belief that his birth was a unique miracle, an "incarnation in flesh of divine substance."
Theories about the race of the historical Jesus
Jesus in the Bible
Contemporary textual evidence on Jesus' life is scarce, and specific descriptions of his appearance even more so. There are no direct references to his appearance during his physical lifetime, though Revelation 1:13–16 describes his features as he appears in his heavenly form, as seen in a vision by John the Divine. These have sometimes been used in modern arguments concerning Jesus' race,
Revelation is generally taken as highly symbolic, and this passage is no exception, especially since the remainder of the description clearly cannot be interpreted as being a natural description. Nonetheless this passage has been used to argue that Jesus was black, based on the description of his hair as being "like wool", which is interpreted to refer to hair that is tightly coiled, as many people of African descent have.. Although the phrase in revelations speaks of his head being white, In the Book of Daniel 7:9 the phrase is echoed, describing his Ancient of days did sit, whose garment white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool . It is also comparable to language used in the Apocalypse of Abraham, which describes the angel Yahoel as having a body "like sapphire" a face "like chrysolite" and "the hair of his head like snow".
The "feet of fine brass" line has also been used to argue for a dark-skinned race, but many often leave out burnished and glowing . Additionally, the references to having a white "head" and a countenance that is "as the sun shineth" has been used to argue for Jesus being racially white.
However, all of these descriptions are full of vague poetic imagery, seeming more like attempts to glorify the heavenly body of Jesus than to accurately describe his appearance when on earth. There is also debate whether John the Divine , the author of Revelation, was actually John the Apostle, who knew the earthly Jesus, or even if he was John the Evangelist (see authorship of the Johannine works). The relatively late date ascribed to Revelation by modern scholarship leads many scholars to argue that it seems unlikely that someone who had personally seen Jesus in life wrote the description.
There are also many other later descriptions of Jesus from saints and others who claim they have seen him in a vision.
Early theological debates
Most early theological debate about Jesus' appearance arose from interpretations of Messianic prophecies and on the assumption that his physical form was the result of a miraculous virgin birth and so was determined rather more by divine will than ordinary biology. However, there were complex Christological debates about mechanisms of the divine incarnation into human flesh and about how Jesus may have inherited his mother's characteristics and the lineage of King David (since prophecies stated that the Messiah should be David's descendent). This debate originated a dispute about the nature of Jesus' physical connection to the Jewish people, an issue that was later expressed in more racialized form.
Following Isaiah 53:2, most early theologians, such as Justin Martyr, insisted that Jesus was physically unprepossessing, with "no beauty that we should desire him." The anti-Christian author Celsus states that he was "short and ugly", an assertion that his Christian opponent Origen does not dispute. Whether these early debates reflect a purely scriptural view or a continuing oral tradition about his actual physique and physiognomy is not known.
In later centuries this early view was reversed. The Church Fathers Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine of Hippo argued that Jesus must have been ideally beautiful in face and body. For Augustine he was "beautiful as a child, beautiful on earth, beautiful in heaven."
Supposed descriptions of Jesus
By the Early Middle Ages the positive view of Jesus' looks was bolstered by a number of descriptions of him purporting to date from his lifetime. Nicephorus quotes a description of him as tall and beautiful with fair wavy hair and dark eyebrows that met in the middle. He had an olive-tinted complexion, "the color of wheat." One Publius Lentulus is supposed to have described him as perfectly beautiful in features, with "hazel-coloured" hair that flowed to his shoulders, and a forked beard. His eyes continually "change their color." Epiphanius Monachus provides a similar description, in which Jesus is six feet tall, golden haired, with black eyebrows, light brown eyes and swarthy skin "like David's."
Almost all modern authors dismiss these descriptions as medieval fabrications. They were, however, copied in many Western artistic portrayals
Emergence of racial theories
While the early descriptions of hair, skin and eye color clearly have implications for defining Jesus' "race", they are not explicit in their desire to ascribe a racial identity to him in the modern sense. By the 19th century, however, theological arguments were increasingly replaced by more secular biological ones, as attempts were made to envisage Jesus in the context of the people and culture of the Middle East. While some writers stressed his Jewishness, the growth of anti-Semitic racial theory led others, such as Emile Burnouf and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, to argue that he was racially an "Aryan." This led to portrayals of Jesus as a blond Nordic individual, a concept that was taken up by the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg and by Hitler. Hitler argued that Jesus was of Celtic ancestry, on the grounds that "Galilee was a colony where the Romans had probably installed Gallic legionaries, and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew."
In more recent times the fact that the Middle East was a meeting point of cultures and races has led to suggestions that Jesus may have been African or Arabian. The ancient Near East was the primary means of access for traders and travelers seeking to access Africa via the adjoining Levant. Hence, the bordering Roman provinces of Judea and Galilee (Jesus' home region) witnessed multiple waves of immigrants passing through those primarily Semitic lands. As such, it is conceivable that Jesus' lineage could have borne traces of Arab, Aramean, Berber, Roman, Greek, Black African, Persian or Indian ancestry. The aggressive policy of territorial expansion and forced conversion to Judaism practiced by John Hyrcanus a century before Jesus' birth may also have affected the ethnic make-up of the local Jewish populations.
It is most commonly argued that Jesus was probably of Middle Eastern descent because of the geographic location of the events described in the Gospels, and, among some modern Christian scholars, the genealogy ascribed to him. For this reason, he has been portrayed as an olive-skinned individual typical of the Levant region. A team of forensic scientists recently attempted to recreate what Jesus may have looked like based on human remains from the area where and time period when Jesus is believed to have existed. However, this image does not reveal any specific details about what Jesus looked like; it is intended only to give a view of the typical person living in Jesus' time and place. In the December 2002 edition of Popular Mechanics, Jesus was shown as looking like a typical Galilean Semite. Among the points made was that the Bible records that Jesus' disciple Judas had to point him out to those arresting him. The implied argument being that if Jesus' physical appearance differed that markedly from his disciples, then he would have been relatively easy to identify.
More recently the claim that Jesus was black has gained some currency among African American religious movements, either as a historical hypothesis often rooted in Afrocentric doctrine or as a symbolic statement of Black Pride. Groups such as Black Hebrew Israelites claim that black peopl
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