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cadbren wrote:

What else would they be?

Italian and Greek.

Thats just an ethiopian Jesus done in the Byzentine style, they also invented the head scarf and inspired to this day the design of mosques and orthodox churches. Still dont explain the race change.

There really isn't an answer beyond that. Really. When you read a book and you envision a character what comes to your mind? Unless your specifically told what the character looks like you probably just envision someone who looks like you. It's the same deal. There's no grand conspiracy about a social-political issue that didn't even exist in that time period many of the depictions come from.

Someone was making a depiction of Jesus and it just naturally ended up that they made him look like them. Western Europeans came to increasingly dominate the church, and Italians in particular became very favored as artists so the European looking Jesus just spread in use as a result. It's something people probably just never put much thought in it.

Valid point about the Jesus fella there. The Byzantine stylings are kind of obvious, overpowering if you will.

Dont change the fact the nature of what Jesus is kind of “Evolved” over the centuries . All of you people who believe in Jesus now are sinners . Non of the stuff you do in your personal lives is OK with the Medieval Church, your God didnt give you a free pass because you were borne into an age were females were treated like humans or those times you ate meat when you shouldn’t have. Barbaric Hokum I say. I trust in morality not ancient homophobic child raping mysticism (yes I am looking at you God :( ) . **** that evil noise.

He's half god, he could look like anything and there were white looking people in that part of the world such as the Phillistines, Romans, Greeks etc.

And would also be half human. He would at least look Israeli. And I'm pretty sure that all of those nationalities listed above, especially back before the ease of cultural mixing, did not look like Anglo-Saxons from the British Isles.

There really isn't an answer beyond that. Really. When you read a book and you envision a character what comes to your mind? Unless your specifically told what the character looks like you probably just envision someone who looks like you. It's the same deal. There's no grand conspiracy about a social-political issue that didn't even exist in that time period many of the depictions come from.

Someone was making a depiction of Jesus and it just naturally ended up that they made him look like them. Western Europeans came to increasingly dominate the church, and Italians in particular became very favored as artists so the European looking Jesus just spread in use as a result. It's something people probably just never put much thought in it.

I agree with that as the obvious culprit, as well as most of the paintings of him come from a time that was dominated by Western Europe, who would hardly want him to look like "the other half" of the civilized world, who they were more than occasionally at war with.

 agnosto wrote:
Poor James. Why doesn't anyone ever talk about Jesus' brother?

Everybody knows that Jesus' brother is named Craig. Craig Christ.

Sometimes I wonder how Jesus the "Historical Man" rabble-rouser would feel about the fact that his "teachings" were now mainstream? I mean the guy was a radical, extremist, and fundamentalist for the times. He was a political dissadent and was constantly looking to upset the status quo. Now, his teachings ARE the status quo.

Of course, as the "Theological Man" and divinity I'm sure he would be pretty happy about the popularity and embrace of his "teachings".

 Lordhat wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Poor James. Why doesn't anyone ever talk about Jesus' brother?

Everybody knows that Jesus' brother is named Craig. Craig Christ.

Have an exalt my good sir!

 LordofHats wrote:

What you describe is similar to the Socratic Problem (well its the same thing really) but no one jumps to the conclusion Socrates is made up simply because his students can't agree on him and Plato made stuff up all the time.

I've had that conclusion presented to me. Hell, I've even had someone argue that Jesus was a fictional character based on an assembly of personnality traits from multiple ancient characters, one of which was Socrates. There was even a graffiti on the side of our Philosophy/Theology department building where it was written ; "Jesus died for your sins", with the Jesus crossed and replaced by "Socrates", which was then again crossed by some pissed off theology student, and on and on... The lulz we had

Anyway, the Socratic Problem really isn't one. Just look at the difference between the notes of two students attending the same course.

And Aristophanes was a douche.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
At the same time, Why do we not have more people who are "serious scholars" coming out with new "evidence" that Mohammed was made up? Or Buddha? I mean, what is it specifically about Christianity in America/Europe that is just so bad?

The historical evidence for a guy who founded a kingdom is a lot greater than it is for a man who led a few followers before being executed.


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 LordofHats wrote:
Textually there's more evidence that Jesus was a real person than Herodetus, Alexander the Great, most of Ancient China prior to the Han Dynasty, etc. Jesus stands alone in the level of scrutiny leveled against his existence.

I think, as Peregrine suggests, it's because of what that text asks us to accept. The idea that a guy once led Roman legions in to war against Gallic tribesman and won is fairly mundane, but the idea that the Son of God came to Earth and performed miracles is kind of out there.

So for people don't have faith, it's a fairly natural question to ask - beyond asking if any of those miracles took place, what evidence do we have that there was even a person called Jesus? And well, for a lot of people who don't know much about how limited the historical record really is, the lack of evidence for Jesus seems like evidence of non-existance. They don't realise that it would be extremely strange to have considerable evidence of a guy who was just a carpenter's son.


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cadbren wrote:
What else would they be? All the Italians and Greeks I've met look white or do you only consider scandanavians to be white or something?

I don't consider anyone to be or not to be white. Because it's a made up term with a very vague and very silly set of criteria.

Thing is, until very recently Italians weren't considered white. Nor were the Irish, incredibly enough.

In terms of immigration, it was only when those groups integrated and achieved the same level of socio-economic status as other groups that they came to be seen as white.

And in terms of nations, it was only when Italy managed to modernise in the post war period, and achieve something close to equality with the rest of Europe that they came to be considered as white.

Meanwhile the Greeks were typically thought of as white, a legacy of the reverence given to the classical age, and nothing to do with their skin colour, which is typically as dark as italians.


What I'm saying is that white, like all ethnic descriptors, is basically nonsense - there's this vague notion of physical differences but when you look at the history of it, what is and isn't white is determined more by social standing and economic prosperity - and as those change so does their 'whiteness'... even though the skin colour remains the same.


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 Cheesecat wrote:
In the 1800's Europeans would often base race off nationality like Italians, French, Russians, Irish, English,etc were consider different races but at some point in time Europeans got all lumped together as "white people" (and yes I know with stuff like immigration that not all Europeans are white). Even today the term "Indian" is based on just as much nationality as it is skin colour as I've found many Arabic, North African and some Mediterranean people to be quite similar in appearance to Indian people and could probably pass as one.

Yep. In fact India has its own rather famous caste system, which was formally in place until very recently, and still exists informally today. The idea that people would come to be considered simply as "Indian" is kind of incredible. Even more so for the minority Muslim population... who until very recent history would have been closely aligned with the Muslim groups that migrated to Pakistan during the seperation.


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 cpt_fishcakes wrote:
I trust in morality not ancient homophobic child raping mysticism (yes I am looking at you God :( ) . **** that evil noise.

Well I believe in respect for the religious beliefs of others, so as an atheist I'd ask you to stop that nonsense please.