How White Was My Savior?
stoney
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16125068/site/newsweek/?nav=slate
How White Was My Savior?
Why has the portrayal of Jesus in art drifted far from the likelihood he
was a brown-skinned Semitic Jew?
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Matthew Philips
Newsweek
Updated: 1:34 p.m. ET Dec. 9, 2006
Dec. 9, 2006 - Shopping for nativity scenes? At Macy’s you have two
options to choose from: "The Vatican Edition" and "The Byzantine
Edition." The first comes with a set of white figurines, including a
red-headed Mary, a brown-haired Joseph and a blue-eyed baby Jesus. In
the second, all three are black, as are the shepherd and three wise men.
Both cost $10, and more than likely, both are historically inaccurate.
While we can never be exactly sure of what Jesus, Mary and Joseph
actually looked like, we know they were not fair-skinned, flaxen-haired
Europeans. And, though an emerging fringe of historians would argue
otherwise, it’s fairly certain they weren’t black Africans. In all
likelihood, what they were was something in between: olive-skinned,
dark-featured Semitic Jews living in Israel. Yet depictions of them as
such are exceedingly rare compared to the countless number of images
that have proliferated through the millennia portraying them as
Caucasians.
Until now. With New Line Cinema’s new movie, “The Nativity Story,” we
finally get what many historians agree is a more accurate representation
of the Holy Family. Cast with a group of dark-haired, dark-complexioned
actors whose nationalities range from Guatemalan to Australian and Irish
to Israeli—those who aren’t Middle Eastern certainly look like they
could be—the movie strives for physical accuracy, and in doing so may
challenge some Christians’ notions of what the story’s central
characters looked like: the Angel Gabriel, for one, is played by
Sudanese actor Alexander Siddig, who you might have caught this time
last year playing the part of an Iranian prince in “Syriana.”
(Ethnically ambiguous baby Jesus gets only about a minute of screentime
at the end.)
To be sure, “The Nativity Story” is an anomaly. So,how did we end up
with a popularized image of Jesus that common sense tells us is not
accurate? For starters, the New Testament is conspicuously devoid of any
detailed physical description of Jesus—in the Book of Revelation, his
hair is compared to wool and his feet described as the color of burned
brass. This largely blank slate has essentially allowed us to imagine
him as we wish, which is exactly what we’ve done.
The mainstreaming of a white Jesus began in earnest during the early
Middle Ages in Europe, a time and place where darkness had a powerfully
negative connotation. Eighth and ninth century European theologians,
obsessed with the symbolism of the Passion, began ascribing blame to the
Jews. As such, Judas and King Herod and eventually Pontius Pilate came
to be represented in dark, sinister hues while Jesus became increasingly
white. “The oldest basis of all Christian art is the clash of good
versus evil, light versus dark,” said Colum Hourihane, director of the
Index of Christian Art at Princeton University. “This was particularly
the case in the ninth and tenth centuries, when basically the Jews
assumed a dark coloration [in art] while Christ became radiantly white,
illuminated.” This whiteness naturally extended to such secondary
characters as Mary and Joseph and the disciples.
Of course, it is a powerful human inclination to be drawn to people who
look like ourselves. As Christianity spread out of the Holy Land, across
the Mediterranean basin and west into Central and Northern Europe, the
image of Jesus morphed to mirror each new culture—he became more white
and less dark, more European and less Middle Eastern, more like an
Irishman and less like an Israelite. “The whole ideology of Christian
art is the remaking of Jesus in the mold of every subsequent generation
of converts in order to meet their need for identification,” says Dr.
Lawrence Schiffman, a professor of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York
University.
Many scholars agree that the adaptability of Christian art was integral
to the indoctrination of a largely illiterate, intransient population
because it allowed them to relate to the religion on a local level. “We
have to realize that in medieval Europe, travel, especially to somewhere
as far off as the Holy Land, was incredibly difficult for the vast
majority of the population,” says Holly Flora, curator of New York’s
Museum of Biblical Art. “People’s worldview was very limited to their
immediate surroundings, and so they projected those surroundings onto
their imagery of Christ and the holy family.”
This is particularly true in the case of the evolution of nativities and
Christmas plays. The invention of the nativity, or crèche, is attributed
to St. Francis of Assisi, who, in 1223, on a hill near a church in
Greccio, Italy, conceived and re-enacted the first nativity with an ox,
donkey, a hay-filled trough, and, of course, real people. Soon, the
tradition of the living nativity spread across Italy and the rest of
Europe, and over time, the living scenes were replaced by miniaturized
dioramas displayed in churches at Christmastime. By the sixteenth
century, miniature crèches were ubiquitous in homes throughout much of
continental Western Europe, seen as symbols of a certain blissful
domesticity and a source of pride.
With the Renaissance was in full swing, white Jesus became been firmly
entrenched in the European consciousness. This is the image that made
its way to the New World, taking root along with the first seeds of
American culture. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed Jesus reached his painted
zenith with the oeuvre of twentieth century Christian artist Warner
Sallman, whose iconic 1940 oil painting, “The Head of Jesus,” would
become inescapable via mass-production. More than 500 million copies
have been printed. “It’s the image of Jesus that every American soldier
took with them to World War II,” says Diane Apostolos-Cappadona,
professor of religious art and cultural history in the Alwaleed Center
for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.
Even today, in our increasingly global community, Western Christians are
more likely than ever to simply assume the Holy Family was white and
Jesus looked like Barry Gibb. Which is what makes the movie “The
Nativity Story,” so refreshing to so many. So on your trip to Macy’s,
instead of playing eeny-meeny-minie-moe between the black and white
crèches, you might want to ask the clerk, “Do you have anything in
between?”
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
Michael Gray
- Refer: <7k9mn25nf74u9vvdr...@4ax.com>
>With fiction non-entities can become whatever the viewer wishes.
>
>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16125068/site/newsweek/?nav=slate
>
>How White Was My Savior?
>Why has the portrayal of Jesus in art drifted far from the likelihood he
>was a brown-skinned Semitic Jew?
It's like two children squabbling over the colour of Harry Potter's
eyes!
(Except that there are no Harry Potter suicide bombers, yet)
--
Free Lunch
Michael Gray <mike...@newsguy.com> wrote in
<31jmn2p3iommh6hjv...@4ax.com>:
Well, European/American Christians don't want to admit that Jesus looked
like those suicide bombers, it might force them to confront their
prejudices.
Sara Brum
news:7k9mn25nf74u9vvdr...@4ax.com...
> With fiction non-entities can become whatever the viewer wishes.
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16125068/site/newsweek/?nav=slate
>
> How White Was My Savior?
> Why has the portrayal of Jesus in art drifted far from the likelihood he
> was a brown-skinned Semitic Jew?
>
> WEB EXCLUSIVE
> By Matthew Philips
> Newsweek
> Updated: 1:34 p.m. ET Dec. 9, 2006
>
> Dec. 9, 2006 - Shopping for nativity scenes? At Macy’s you have two
> options to choose from: "The Vatican Edition" and "The Byzantine
> Edition." The first comes with a set of white figurines, including a
> red-headed Mary, a brown-haired Joseph and a blue-eyed baby Jesus. In
> the second, all three are black, as are the shepherd and three wise men.
> Both cost $10, and more than likely, both are historically inaccurate.
>
> While we can never be exactly sure of what Jesus, Mary and Joseph
> actually looked like
Oh, come on. I know exactly what they looked like. Here's a picture of
them:
Uncle Vic
made the light shine upon us with this:
Oh come on! No attachments! This ain't no binary group!
--
Uncle Vic
aa Atheist #2011
Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped
chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department.
Proud member of Earthquack's "Ghost fulla holes" convict page
Mark K. Bilbo
If Jesus returns, he'll be on the No Fly List...
--
Mark K. Bilbo
------------------------------------------------------------
If their omnipotent, omniscient (so they say) god wants me to
believe in him, then he should know what would prove his
existence to me. He hasn't done so yet, so there is no reason
to believe in him.
-Woden
GoDrex
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16125068/site/newsweek/?nav=slate
>
> How White Was My Savior?
> Why has the portrayal of Jesus in art drifted far from the likelihood he
> was a brown-skinned Semitic Jew?
um... because racist idiot whites can't be worshiping some dark skinned jew.
Though it is funny that they allow him to still look like a hippy, even
though many hate it when men have long hair (and beard).
Michael Gray
wrote:
- Refer: <bakmn2d0ohlc3briu...@4ax.com>
Not much chance of that happenning.
They have perfected the art of dual orthogonal morality.
--
bowman
> Though it is funny that they allow him to still look like a hippy, even
> though many hate it when men have long hair (and beard).
1 Corinthians 11:4 in the Nearly Inspired Version has a footnote that the
passage might be translated as: "Every man who prays or prophesies with
long hair dishonors his head." I think even most bible scholars gag on that
rather creative translation.
Is another example of Unintelligent Design or did God design in job security
for barbers rather than make the male of the species with suitable fur?
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johac
stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
Exactly. If they ever existed and were alive today, they would be
indistinguishable from the people living In the West Bank or Gaza.
European artists usually painted them as fair skinned and fair haired
because that's all they knew. I still find it amusing that many artists
had their blond mistresses pose for the BVM.
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
Denis Loubet
"Uncle Vic" <add...@withheld.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9894B417...@66.75.164.119...
Besides, it's obviously been photoshopped!
--
Denis Loubet
dlo...@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
http://www.ashenempires.com
Michael Gray
<gm...@com.mkbilbo> wrote:
- Refer: <BPydnWcnnY3N-ubY...@giganews.com>
>On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 00:15:20 +0000, Free Lunch wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:23:08 +1030, in alt.atheism
>> Michael Gray <mike...@newsguy.com> wrote in
>> <31jmn2p3iommh6hjv...@4ax.com>:
>>>On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 13:16:38 -0800, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>>> - Refer: <7k9mn25nf74u9vvdr...@4ax.com>
>>>>With fiction non-entities can become whatever the viewer wishes.
>>>>
>>>>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16125068/site/newsweek/?nav=slate
>>>>
>>>>How White Was My Savior?
>>>>Why has the portrayal of Jesus in art drifted far from the likelihood he
>>>>was a brown-skinned Semitic Jew?
>>>:
>>>
>>>It's like two children squabbling over the colour of Harry Potter's
>>>eyes!
>>>
>>>(Except that there are no Harry Potter suicide bombers, yet)
>>
>> Well, European/American Christians don't want to admit that Jesus looked
>> like those suicide bombers, it might force them to confront their
>> prejudices.
>
>If Jesus returns, he'll be on the No Fly List...
They'd cross him off.
--
Michael Gray
- Refer: <1165731...@corp.com>
>GoDrex wrote:
>
>> Though it is funny that they allow him to still look like a hippy, even
>> though many hate it when men have long hair (and beard).
>
>1 Corinthians 11:4 in the Nearly Inspired Version has a footnote that the
>passage might be translated as: "Every man who prays or prophesies with
>long hair dishonors his head." I think even most bible scholars gag on that
>rather creative translation.
What?
I've not seen that version before.
The Greek is so different from that sentence that it is hardly
recognizable!
My translation goes something like:
"Either nature itself teaches you that if truly/surely a male has long
hair, it is a shame to himself."
In other words: "Long-haired louts should get a hair-cut and real job"
--
Pangur Ban
lol
--
Pangur Ban - nonchristian theist
Christopher A.Lee
<mike...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>>> Well, European/American Christians don't want to admit that Jesus looked
>>> like those suicide bombers, it might force them to confront their
>>> prejudices.
>>
>>If Jesus returns, he'll be on the No Fly List...
>
>They'd cross him off.
You hit the nail on the head.
Geoff
news:u83on2tb24dad26b0...@4ax.com...
Thorny issue to be sure.
Michael Gray
<ca...@optonline.net> wrote:
- Refer: <u83on2tb24dad26b0...@4ax.com>
I'm the Bomber, and so is my wife.
--
stoney
alt.atheism
EEEK! Now *thats'* fugly!
na...@snet.net
Michael Gray wrote:
> On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 13:16:38 -0800, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
> - Refer: <7k9mn25nf74u9vvdr...@4ax.com>
> >With fiction non-entities can become whatever the viewer wishes.
> >
> >http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16125068/site/newsweek/?nav=slate
> >
> >How White Was My Savior?
> >Why has the portrayal of Jesus in art drifted far from the likelihood he
> >was a brown-skinned Semitic Jew?
> :
No WASP would be caught dead worhshiping this guy.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1282186.html
Marvin
<na...@snet.net> wrote in message
news:1166801273....@h40g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Nor would most African Americans, I suspect. I had a student expound to me
at length about having found "nappy" in some description of Jesus. As I
recall, the word "ruddy" was in the same piece, but this student wouldn't
consider the idea that Jesus could have had curly red hair.
Marvin
Michael Gray
wrote:
- Refer: <544ac$458c0734$943fe1b6$20...@STARBAND.NET>
Nor a Kilt!
--