If you ask anyone in the world today to describe what a Jewish man born in Jerusalem and raised in the region is supposed to look like, you would probably get a description like “medium built man with clear light brown skin, dark brown or black hair and dark from eyes”. If you know anything about human races, you can probably tell that it is as far from being a description of a white or Caucasian man as it gets. However, today everyone on the planet believes that Jesus Christ was Caucasian and had very pale skin, curly golden locks and blue eyes. We examine the reasons behind that odd belief.
Renaissance artists imagined Jesus in their own image
Some of the most beloved and popular depictions of Jesus come from the renaissance period. During this period, depictions of Jesus are shown to be while. A number of artistic masters including Leonardo Da Vinci portrayed Jesus as a nearly-white man.
The New Testament offers no description of Jesus’ ethnicity
The New Testament of the Holy Bible only tells us that Jesus was born to Jewish parents. There is literally no description of Jesus’ physical self which makes creating an accurate image of him very difficult indeed. This meant that over the centuries, artists, theologists and men of god have had the liberty to draw up an image of image as they pleased.
European imperialism
One of the key reasons why most people believe Jesus to be a white man is that during the establishment of European imperialism, Christian missionaries brought European ideas of Jesus to the natives. For a very long time, the bible wasn’t even available in a language that the common man understood which means that people believed whatever their local pastor described Jesus as.
