• Advertise
  • About us
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Contact us
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Australian Times News
  • News
    • Weather
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Business & Finance
      • Currency Zone
    • Lotto Results
      • The Lott
  • Lifestyle
    • Entertainment
    • Horoscopes
    • Health & Wellness
    • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Weather
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Business & Finance
      • Currency Zone
    • Lotto Results
      • The Lott
  • Lifestyle
    • Entertainment
    • Horoscopes
    • Health & Wellness
    • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia
No Result
View All Result
Australian Times News
No Result
View All Result
Home Lifestyle

Jesus wasn’t white: he was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew. Here’s why that matters

OPINION & ANALYSIS: How might it change our attitudes if we could see that the unjust imprisonment, abuse, and execution of the historical Jesus has more in common with the experience of Indigenous Australians or asylum seekers than it does with those who hold power in the church and usually represent Christ?

The Conversation by The Conversation
29-03-2018 11:01
in Lifestyle
Jesus white or brown or black

I grew up in a Christian home, where a photo of Jesus hung on my bedroom wall. I still have it. It is schmaltzy and rather tacky in that 1970s kind of way, but as a little girl I loved it. In this picture, Jesus looks kind and gentle, he gazes down at me lovingly. He is also light-haired, blue-eyed, and very white.

The problem is, Jesus was not white. You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you’ve ever entered a Western church or visited an art gallery. But while there is no physical description of him in the Bible, there is also no doubt that the historical Jesus, the man who was executed by the Roman State in the first century CE, was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew.

This is not controversial from a scholarly point of view, but somehow it is a forgotten detail for many of the millions of Christians who will gather to celebrate Easter this week.

On Good Friday, Christians attend churches to worship Jesus and, in particular, remember his death on a cross. In most of these churches, Jesus will be depicted as a white man, a guy that looks like Anglo-Australians, a guy easy for other Anglo-Australians to identify with.

Think for a moment of the rather dashing Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. He is an Irish-American actor. Or call to mind some of the most famous artworks of Jesus’ crucifixion – Ruben, Grunewald, Giotto – and again we see the European bias in depicting a white-skinned Jesus.

Does any of this matter? Yes, it really does. As a society, we are well aware of the power of representation and the importance of diverse role models.

After winning the 2013 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 12 Years a Slave, Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o shot to fame. In interviews since then, Nyong’o has repeatedly articulated her feelings of inferiority as a young woman because all the images of beauty she saw around her were of lighter-skinned women. It was only when she saw the fashion world embracing Sudanese model Alek Wek that she realised black could be beautiful too.

AlsoRead...

Will Smith

Will Smith speaks out about Oscars slap in new Instagram video

30 July 2022
Mirror

Mirror: Investigation follows after bands concert incident

30 July 2022

If we can recognise the importance of ethnically and physically diverse role models in our media, why can’t we do the same for faith? Why do we continue to allow images of a whitened Jesus to dominate?

Jim Caviezel in Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ.
IMDB

Many churches and cultures do depict Jesus as a brown or black man. Orthodox Christians usually have a very different iconography to that of European art – if you enter a church in Africa, you’ll likely see an African Jesus on display.

But these are rarely the images we see in Australian Protestant and Catholic churches, and it is our loss. It allows the mainstream Christian community to separate their devotion to Jesus from compassionate regard for those who look different.

I would even go so far as to say it creates a cognitive disconnect, where one can feel deep affection for Jesus but little empathy for a Middle Eastern person. It likewise has implications for the theological claim that humans are made in God’s image. If God is always imaged as white, then the default human becomes white and such thinking undergirds racism.

Historically, the whitewashing of Jesus contributed to Christians being some of the worst perpetrators of anti-Semitism and it continues to manifest in the “othering” of non-Anglo Saxon Australians.

This Easter, I can’t help but wonder, what would our church and society look like if we just remembered that Jesus was brown? If we were confronted with the reality that the body hung on the cross was a brown body: one broken, tortured, and publicly executed by an oppressive regime.

How might it change our attitudes if we could see that the unjust imprisonment, abuse, and execution of the historical Jesus has more in common with the experience of Indigenous Australians or asylum seekers than it does with those who hold power in the church and usually represent Christ?

The ConversationPerhaps most radical of all, I can’t help but wonder what might change if we were more mindful that the person Christians celebrate as God in the flesh and saviour of the entire world was not a white man, but a Middle Eastern Jew.

_____________________________________

Robyn J. Whitaker, Bromby Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies, Trinity College, University of Divinity

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

TOP IMAGE: By Hans Zatzka (Public Domain)/The Conversation, CC BY-ND

Tags: Easterreligion
DMCA.com Protection Status

SUBSCRIBE to our NEWSLETTER

[mc4wp_form id=”2384248″]

Don't Miss

The do’s and don’ts of playing Valorant

by Nikita Cloete
17 August 2022
The do's and don'ts of playing Valorant
Gambling

Valorant is a popular first-person shooter game that has attracted several players all over the globe.

Read more

How to make a Sports Resume?

by Alan Aldridge
17 August 2022
How to make a Sports Resume?
Business & Finance

If you're interested in working in the sports industry, you'll probably want to know how to write a sports resume....

Read more

Horoscopes: 17 August 2022 – Wednesday

by Adamu
17 August 2022
Free Daily Horoscope - Astrology
Horoscopes

Keep your karma positive with these daily free horoscopes!

Read more

Weather Forecast 17 August 2022

by Adamu
17 August 2022
May's Weather Forecast
Australia Weather

Be prepared for any weather with our daily weather forecast for Australia.

Read more

Can Nick Kyrgios convert his blistering form into Grand Slam wins?

by Alan Aldridge
16 August 2022
Can Nick Kyrgios convert his blistering form into Grand Slam wins?
Sport

The men’s rankings may not indicate as much right now, but Nick Kyrgios is fast becoming the best tennis player...

Read more

Weather Forecast 16 August 2022

by Adamu
16 August 2022
May's Weather Forecast
Australia Weather

Be prepared for any weather with our daily weather forecast for Australia.

Read more

Horoscopes: 16 August 2022 – Tuesday

by Adamu
16 August 2022
Free Daily Horoscope - Astrology
Horoscopes

Keep your karma positive with these daily free horoscopes!

Read more
Load More

Copyright © Blue Sky Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
australiantimes.co.uk is a division of Blue Sky Publications Ltd. Reproduction without permission prohibited. DMCA.com Protection Status

  • About us
  • Write for Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact us
  • T&Cs, Privacy and GDPR
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Weather
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Business & Finance
      • Currency Zone
    • Lotto Results
      • The Lott
  • Lifestyle
    • Entertainment
    • Horoscopes
    • Health & Wellness
    • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia

Copyright © Blue Sky Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
australiantimes.co.uk is a division of Blue Sky Publications Ltd. Reproduction without permission prohibited. DMCA.com Protection Status