From: mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate)
Subject: Re: Was Jesus Black?
Lines: 45

This subject seems to be incredibly inflammatory.  Those who subscribe to
_Biblical Archaeology Review_ will remember a spectacular letter battle set off when someone
complained about a Franklin Mint ad.  (_BAR_ is a great magazine, but the
contrast between the rather scholarly articles and the incredibly sleazy ads
is extreme.)  In this ad, they were hawking a doll with a head based on the
famous bust of Nefertiti, giving the face a typical doll-pink complexion.
The letter complained about this as a misrepresentation on the grounds that
Nefertiti was "a beautiful black queen."  This set off an exchange of
hotheaded letters than ran for several issues, to the point where they had
an article from an Egyptologist titled "Was Cleopatra Black?"  (The answer
to the title is "no"-- she was greek.)

I have to say that I hear a hysterical note in much of the complaining.  I
personally have seen only one blond-haired Jesus (in the National Shrine in
Wash. DC), and I found it very jarring.  Western representations vary
enourmously, but in general the image of is of a youngish male with dark
hair and beard, of a sort that can be found (modulo the nose) all up and
down the Mediterranean.

(Also, if what I remember is correct, the "Black Madonna" doesn't represent
a person with negroid features.  It is black because of an accident.  Joe
Buehler....?)

In the presence of all those marble statues, one is prone to forget that
greeks are rather likely to have black hair.  When one crosses the bosporus,
the situation breaks down completely.  Are Turks white?  How about Persians,
or various groups in the indian subcontinent?  Was Gandhi white?  How about
the Arabs?  Or picture Nassar and Sadat standing side by side.  And then
there are the Ethiopians....

Those of a white racist bent are not likely to say that *any* of these
people are "white" (i.e., of the racist's "race").  If I may risk a
potentially inflammatory remark, one undercurrent of this seems to be the
identification of modern jews as members of the oppressor race.  Considering
the extreme dicotomy between medieval religion on the one hand and medieval
antisemitism on the other, I don't think that this "Jesus was white" thesis
ever played the roles that some hold it did.

Representations of Jesus as black or korean or whatever are fine.  It seems
awfully self-serving to insist that Jesus belongs to one's own racial group.
-- 
C. Wingate        + "The peace of God, it is no peace,
                  +    but strife closed in the sod.
mangoe@cs.umd.edu +  Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing:
tove!mangoe       +    the marv'lous peace of God."