Race of Jesus

The race and appearance of Jesus has been a topic of discussion since the days of early Christianity. Various theories about the race of Jesus have been proposed and debated.''Racializing Jesus: Race, Ideology and the Formation of Modern Biblical Scholarship'' by Shawn Kelley 2002 pages 70–73 By the Middle Ages, a number of documents, generally of unknown or questionable origin, had been composed and were circulating with details of the appearance of Jesus. These documents are now mostly considered forgeries.''The Oxford companion to the Bible'' 1993 page 41''Making Sense of the New Testament'' by Craig L. Blomberg 2004 pages 3–4''Pontius Pilate: portraits of a Roman governor'' by Warren Carter 2003 pages 6–9

A wide range of depictions have appeared over the two millennia since Jesus's death, often influenced by cultural settings, political circumstances and theological contexts. The depiction of Jesus in art of the first Christian centuries gradually standardized his appearance with a short beard. These images are often based on second- or third-hand interpretations of spurious sources, and are generally historically inaccurate.

By the 19th century, theories that Jesus was non- Semitic were being developed, with writers suggesting he was variously white, black, Indian, or some other race other than those known to have been native to the Levant. However, as in other cases of the assignment of race to biblical individuals, these claims have been mostly based on cultural stereotypes, ethnocentrism, and societal trends rather than on scientific analysis or historical method.

Historical appearance

Research on ancient skeletons in Palestine suggests that Judeans of the time were biologically closer to Iraqi Jews than to any other contemporary population, according to specialist biohistorian Yossi Nagar. Thus in terms of physical appearance the average Judean of the time would have likely had dark brown to black hair, olive skin, and brown eyes. Judean men of the time period were on average about in height. Scholars have also suggested that it is likely Jesus had short hair and a beard, in accordance with Jewish practices of the time and the appearance of philosophers. The earliest depictions of Jesus from the Roman catacombs depict him as free of facial hair.

Historians have speculated over how Jesus's ascetic and itinerant lifestyle and work as a (Ancient Greek for an artisan/craftsman, typically a carpenter), with the manual labour and exposure to the elements that entailed, affected his appearance. It has been suggested that Jesus likely had a lean appearance.

Biblical references

The Old Testament

Old Testament references which are interpreted by Christians as being about a coming messiah have been used to form conjectures about the appearance of Jesus. Isaiah 53:2 refers to the scourged messiah with "no beauty that we should desire him" and Psalm 45:2–3 describes him as "fairer than the children of men". These passages are often interpreted as Jesus' physical description.

The New Testament

In the Gospels

The New Testament includes no descriptions of Jesus's appearance before his death, and the gospel narratives are generally indifferent to people's racial appearance or features.Robin M. Jensen "Jesus in Christian art", Chapter 29 of ''The Blackwell Companion to Jesus'' edited by Delbert Burkett 2010 page 477–502''The likeness of the king: a prehistory of portraiture in late medieval France'' by Stephen Perkinson 2009 page 30

The synoptic gospels include the account of the transfiguration of Jesus, during which he was glorified with "His face shining as the sun".''The Cambridge companion to the Gospels'' by Stephen C. Barton ISBN pages 132–133''The Content and the Setting of the Gospel Tradition'' by Mark Harding, Alanna Nobbs 2010 pages 281–282 but this appearance is considered to refer to Jesus in majestic, transfigured form.

Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation includes John's vision of the Son of Man:
This vision is usually considered to refer to Jesus in heavenly form, not his appearance during his earthly life.

Literary traditions

Early Church to the Middle Ages

Despite the lack of direct biblical or historical references, from the 2nd century onward, various theories about the appearance of Jesus were advanced. However, these focused more on his physical appearance than on his specific race or ancestry. Larger arguments of this kind have been debated for centuries.

Justin Martyr argued for the genealogy of Jesus in the biological Davidic line from Mary, as well as from his non-biological father Joseph.''The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined'' by David Friedrich Strauss 2010 pages 114–116 However, this only implies a general Jewish ancestry, acknowledged generally by authors.

The focus of many early sources was on the physical unattractiveness of Jesus rather than his beauty. The second-century anti-Christian philosopher Celsus wrote that Jesus was "ugly and small" and similar descriptions are presented in a number of other sources as discussed extensively by Robert Eisler,Eisler, Robert. ''The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist''. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1931. who in turn often quotes from Ernst von Dobschütz' monumental . Tertullian states that Jesus's outward form was despised, that he had an ignoble appearance, and the slander he suffered proved the 'abject condition' of his body. According to Irenaeus, he was a weak and inglorious man, and in the Acts of Peter he is described as small and ugly to the ignorant. Andrew of Crete relates that Christ was bent or even crooked and in the Acts of John he is described as bald-headed and small with no good looks.

As quoted by Eisler, both Hierosolymitanus and John of Damascus claim that "the Jew Josephus" described Jesus as having had connate eyebrows with goodly eyes and being long-faced, crooked and well-grown. In a letter of certain bishops to the Emperor Theophilus, Jesus's height is described as 3 cubits (four foot six), which was also the opinion of Ephrem Syrus (320–379 AD): "God took human form and appeared in the form of three human ells (cubits); he came down to us small of stature." Theodore of Mopsuestia likewise claimed that the appearance of Christ was smaller than that of the children of Jacob (Israel). In the apocryphal Lentulus letter, Jesus is described as having had a reddish complexion, matching Muslim traditions in this respect. Jesus's prediction that he would be taunted "Physician, heal yourself" may suggest that Jesus was indeed physically deformed ("crooked" or hunch-backed), as claimed in the early Christian texts listed above. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Ambrose considered lack of physical attractiveness in Jesus as fulfilling the messianic prophecy Suffering Servant narrative of Isaiah 53.

The more mainstream, theological perspective, as expressed by Church Fathers Jerome and 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". These theological arguments were further extended in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas in his based on his analysis of the perfection of Christ, reasoning that Jesus must have embodied every possible human perfection.

By the Middle Ages, a number of documents, generally of unknown or questionable origin, had been composed and were circulating with details of the appearance of Jesus:

* Around the 9th century, Epiphanius Monachus referred to a tall angelic figure, which has at times been interpreted as Christ, but scholars consider it an unlikely reference to Jesus. Other spurious references include the Archko Volume and the letter of Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar, the descriptions in which were most likely composed in the Middle Ages.
* The Letter of Lentulus, a forged letter supposedly written by Publius Lentulus, the Governor of Judea, to the Roman Senate, according to most scholars was composed to compensate for the lack of any physical description of Jesus in the Bible.
* In the 14th century, Nicephorus Callistus quoted an unnamed antique source that described Jesus as tall and beautiful with fair, wavy hair, but his account was most likely without basis and was inspired by the prevailing artistic images of Jesus.

Quranic and Muslim traditions

Quranic and hadith traditions such as Sahih Bukhari as well as tafsir have given an oral depiction of what Jesus looked like, although some accounts do not match, such as his being both curly-haired and straight-haired. The hadith refer to Muhammad's account of the Night Journey, when he was taken up to heaven by the angel Gabriel (Jibra'il), where he saw Jesus and other prophets. Most versions of this say "Jesus had curly hair and a reddish complexion." Others say his face was flushed as if he just had a bath ("a reddish man with many freckles on his face as if he had just come from a bath"). In another account from Bukhari, Jesus is seen in a dream near the Kaaba, as "a man of a wheatish complexion with straight hair. I asked who it was. They said: This is the Messiah, son of Mary." However, other narrations give variations in the color. Salim ibn Abd-Allah reports from his father Abdullah ibn Umar that the prophet "did not say that Jesus was of red complexion", rather he was "a man of brown complexion and lank hair".Bukhari, ''Kitabul Ahadlth al-Anbiya'', Hadith 3185. In contrast, Abd Allah ibn Abbas says Jesus was of "moderate complexion inclined to the red and white colors and of lank hair". According to Hanafi Madhab, contradictions in hadith may be resolved through multiple methods, one being the number of times a narration has been made and the number of chain of narrations and the character of those in the chain of narration or the narrator themselves. There are four hadiths in Bukhari stating Jesus had a brown complexion and three hadiths in Imam Muslim. However, the most prominent narrator is from Salim ibn Abdullah ibn Umar, descendant of Caliph Umar, with a chain of narration that stated: "a man of brown complexion and lank hair".

These variations have been explained in various ways, and have been co-opted to make assertions about race. For example, Ana Echevarría notes that medieval Spanish writer Jiménez de Rada, in his , chooses a version to emphasise that Jesus is whiter than Muhammad, quoting the Ibn Abbas version: "I saw Jesus, a man of medium height and moderate complexion inclined to the red and white colours and of lank hair." Echevarría comments that "Moses and Jesus are portrayed as specimens of a completely different 'ethnic type', fair and blond; 'ethnic' or 'racial' differences between them and Muhammad are thus highlighted." Furthermore, most accounts of hadith say Moses was of dark complexion, i.e. Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 607, Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 648, Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 650. There is almost universal agreement that Moses was of dark complexion by 6th-century Hijazi standards.

Mormon depictions

The Doctrine and Covenants describes the Lord appearing to Joseph Smith: "His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters..."
D&C: 110:3

Mary, mother of Jesus is described in First Nephi as "a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white"
1Nephi 11:13
.

Emergence of racial theories

According to the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was a descendant of King David. One argument against this claim is the contradiction which is contained in Jesus's genealogies: Matthew says he is descended from King Solomon, while Luke says he is descended from Solomon's brother, Nathan. John of Damascus taught that there is no contradiction, for Nathan wed Solomon's wife after Solomon died in accordance with (the mitzvah that a man must marry his brother's childless widow).

In his book ''The Forging of Races'', Colin Kidd argues that the assignment of race to biblical individuals has been a mostly subjective practice which is based on cultural stereotypes and societal trends rather than scientific methods. Kidd reviews a number of theories about the race of Jesus, including a white "Aryan" Jesus and a black African Jesus.

In his book ''Racializing Jesus'', Shawn Kelley says the assignment of a specific race to Jesus has been a cultural phenomenon which has been emanating from the higher levels of intellectual circles within societies, and he draws parallels between the different approaches within different settings.''Racializing Jesus: Race, Ideology and the Formation of Modern Biblical Scholarship'' by Shawn Kelley 2002 pages ii-xi Cain Hope Felder has argued that New Testament passages such as Galatians 3:28 express a universalism going beyond race, ethnicity or even religion.

By the 19th century, theories that Jesus was a member of the so-called "Aryan race", and in particular, theories that his appearance was Nordic, were developed and later appealed to advocates of the new racial antisemitism, who wanted nothing Jewish, Semitic or West Asian about Jesus. Houston Stewart Chamberlain posited that Jesus was of Amorite-Germanic extraction, although Amorites were themselves a Northwest Semitic people. The Amorites were actually a Semitic people. Madison Grant claimed Jesus for the Nordic race. This theory found its most extreme form in the Nazi theology of Positive Christianity. Scholars who supported the radical Aryan view also argued that being a Jew by religion was distinguishable from being a Jew by race or ethnicity. These theories usually include the rationalization that Jesus was an Aryan because the region of Galilee was supposedly inhabited by non-Jews who spoke an unknown Indo-European language, but this theory has not gained scholarly acceptanceGalilee was inhabited by a significantly non-Jewish minority, but its members spoke various local Semitic languages.''Jesus and the origins of Christianity'' by Maurice Goguel, New York, Harper, 1960 page 255

In his book ''Anacalypsis'' (1836), Godfrey Higgins suggested that Jesus was a dark, brown-skinned Indo-Aryan from North India. In 1906, a German writer named Theodor Plange wrote a book titled ''Christ-an Indian?'' in which he argued that Jesus was an Indian and the Christian gospel originated in India.

By the 20th century, theories that Jesus was black had also been proposed, but they did not claim he belonged to a specific African ethnicity, based on the unsupported argument that as a group and in whole or in part, the Semitic ancient Israelites of West Asia, were originally black people."The Black Christ" Chapter 25 of ''The Blackwell Companion to Jesus'' edited by Delbert Burkett 2010 pages 410–420 Martin Luther King Jr. was a proponent of the "Black Christ" movement and he identified the struggle of Jesus against the authorities of the time with the struggle of African Americans in the United States, as he questioned why the white church leaders did not voice concern for racial equality. For some, this blackness was due to Jesus's identification with black people, not to the color of his skin, while others such as the black nationalist Albert Cleage argued that Jesus was ethnically black.

A study which was documented in the 2001 BBC
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