Race And Appearance Of Jesus
The race and appearance of Jesus have been discussed on a number of grounds since early Christianity, although the New Testament includes no description of the physical appearance of Jesus before his death and its narrative is generally indifferent to racial appearances.
Despite the lack of direct biblical or historical references, from the second century, various theories about the race of Jesus were advanced and debated. 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. Now these documents are mostly considered forgeries. While many people have a fixed mental image of Jesus, drawn from his artistic depictions, these images often conform to stereotypes which are not grounded in any serious research on the historical Jesus, but are based on second or third hand interpretations of spurious sources.
By the 19th century theories that Jesus was European, and in particular Aryan, were developed, as well as theories that he was of black African descent. However, as in other cases of the assignment of race to biblical individuals, these claims have been mostly subjective, based on cultural stereotypes and societal trends rather than on scientific analysis. For two millennia a wide range of artistic depictions of Jesus have appeared, often influenced by cultural settings, political circumstances and theological contexts. Beyond being Jewish, there is no general scholarly agreement on the ethnicity of Jesus.
Read more about Race And Appearance Of Jesus: Biblical References, Early Church To The Middle Ages, Emergence of Racial Theories, Acheiropoieta and Reported Visions, Artistic Portrayals, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words race, appearance and/or jesus:
“Ethical and cultural desegregation. It is a contradiction in terms to scream race pride and equality while at the same time spurning Negro teachers and self-association.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The aim of science is to apprehend this purely intelligible world as a thing in itself, an object which is what it is independently of all thinking, and thus antithetical to the sensible world.... The world of thought is the universal, the timeless and spaceless, the absolutely necessary, whereas the world of sense is the contingent, the changing and moving appearance which somehow indicates or symbolizes it.”
—R.G. (Robin George)
“He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 8:3-8.
Scripture cited by Jesus when tempted in the wilderness.