Jesus Christ...

...what color were you?

 For pure LOL material, I prefer Dane-Jesus up there with the pale blue eyes and strawberry-blonde hair...

With Christmas rapidly approaching, I thought I'd take a minute to talk about Jesus. Let's ignore the fact that there's not even compelling record evidence to suggest that he even lived, as a corporeal person; and let's ignore the fact that he doesn't even arrive in Christian literature until a century after his death; and let's ignore that like about a dozen other virgin-born deities, parthenogenesis isn't possible with human beings; and let's ignore that if Jesus actually existed, he was likely not born in our December.


Let us, instead, think about what Jesus looked like. The above is my favorite one, because a pale, Teutonic Jesus just strips the entire veneer off of what Jesus ethnically was, and where he purportedly was born. Jesus was, if anything, a Jew...a Semitic male from Judea.Gonna' be hard for the Christians to accept this one, but he was meant to fulfill the line of David, to resore the Kingdom, to fulfill the Jewish prophecies and to break up the influence of the priest-class. If nothing, Jesus announced that he was the Messiah of Jewish prophecy.

So? ever seen a Semitic male, born in Palestine or Judea, to a Turkish mom? (Mary was from Ephesus in present-Turkey).

These lovely ladies are Turks...in present-day Ephesus.

...and....

This is a contemporary Semitic man, from the ancestral regions of Judea/Palestine...

So, how did we get the image of Jesus of as a Saxon warrior? I like to think it's a few products, really. One, is pure racism. For the same reason Jesus is always shown painted over in his genital region...a circumsized penis is too Jewish for the Christian class to handle. Another reason, I suppose, is that people want their gods to look like them (except for me...I prefer Cthulu, tentacles and all). Combine these two things: One a desire, and two a white-washing, and you get some odd results...

Crunk Jesus...

Welsh Jesus...

  Turko-Grecian Jesus (pretty damned close, probably).

and, what I think is most likely...this forensic reconstruction of a 1st Century Semitic Male....

This is your real jesus. An ethnic Jew of the 1st Century, with unkempt hair, curly beard, etc.  Let's see what the Bible thinks, shall we...RE: the family reunion in heaven.

DAD: His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

SON: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze

So, give our first century guy some white in his hair, and he is God. Take away the white from God's hair, and he is Jesus. Seems perfectly rational, and reasonable to me...Now, get over your pasty Jesus, people, and realize you are worshipping a very ethnic, very provincial desert god of prehistoric extraction. And, if you want, tell him happy birthday this Saturday...

1968 Sixty Minutes on Jesus' appearance. Anachronisms abound in this decidedly whiter America.

-d.s.