Misplaced Pages

#165834

98-550: Black Christ may refer to: Race and appearance of Jesus § African a black or blackened wooden sculpture of Jesus Christ, such as: Black Nazarene of Quiapo , Manila , Philippines Cristo Negro (Portobelo) , celebrated in the town of Portobelo in the Colón Province of Panama with a festival on October 21. Black Christ of Esquipulas Temple of Santa María Ahuacatlán, Valle de Bravo , Mexico Topics referred to by

196-508: 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 which were based on the belief that Jesus was black had also been proposed, but proponents of them did not claim that he belonged to a specific African ethnicity, based on the unsupported argument that as

294-502: A Northwest 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

392-519: 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 Historia arabum , chooses

490-469: 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. Cain Hope Felder has argued that New Testament passages such as Galatians 3:28 express a form of universalism which goes beyond race, ethnicity or religion . By the 19th century, theories which were based on

588-415: A flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. This vision is usually considered to refer to Jesus in heavenly form, not his appearance during his earthly life . Despite

686-516: A general Jewish ancestry, acknowledged generally by authors. The focus of many early sources was on the alleged 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 , who in turn often quotes from Ernst von Dobschütz ' monumental Christusbilder . Tertullian states that Jesus's outward form

784-605: A group, the Semitic ancient Israelites of Western Asia were originally black people, either in whole or in part. 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

882-478: 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

980-570: A major theme in the East and every Eastern Orthodox monk who took up iconography needed to start his craft by producing the icon of the Transfiguration. Whereas Western depictions aim for proportion, the abolition of perspective and alterations in the size and proportion of an image in Eastern icons aim to reach beyond man's earthly dwellings. The 13th century witnessed a turning point in the portrayal of

1078-604: A new attempt was made to discover what the true race and face of Jesus might have been, and it was documented in the Son of God documentary series. The study, sponsored by the BBC , France 3 and the Discovery Channel , used one of three first-century Jewish skulls from a leading department of forensic science in Israel . A face was constructed using forensic anthropology by Richard Neave ,

SECTION 10

#1732855245166

1176-420: A pattern that was then painted by artists. The depiction is now widely used among Catholics, and it has more than a hundred million followers worldwide. Despite the lack of biblical references or historical records, for two millennia a wide range of depictions of Jesus have appeared, often influenced by cultural settings, political circumstances and theological contexts. As in other forms of Christian art ,

1274-623: A period of centuries. Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections: the first five books or Pentateuch (which corresponds to the Jewish Torah ); the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon ; the poetic and " Wisdom books " dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world; and

1372-456: A professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Edinburgh , identifies the Old Testament as "a collection of authoritative texts of apparently divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing." He states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. By about the 5th century BC, Jews saw the five books of

1470-513: A retired medical artist from the Unit of Art in Medicine at the University of Manchester , in collaboration with other British scientists. The face Neave constructed suggested that Jesus would have had a broad face and large nose, and differed significantly from the traditional depictions of Jesus in renaissance art. Additional information about Jesus's skin color and hair was provided by Mark Goodacre ,

1568-592: A school known as biblical minimalism rejected the historical value of the Hebrew Bible for the study of ancient Israel during the Iron Age, "but this extreme approach was rejected by mainstream scholarship." The first five books— Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , book of Numbers and Deuteronomy —reached their present form in the Persian period (538–332 BC) , and their authors were the elite of exilic returnees who controlled

1666-472: A senior lecturer at the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham . Using third-century images from a synagogue – the earliest pictures of Jewish people  – Goodacre proposed that Jesus's skin color would have been darker and swarthier than his traditional Western image. He also suggested that he would have had short, curly hair and a short cropped beard. In

1764-610: A separate section called Apocrypha . The Old Testament contains 39 (Protestant), 46 (Catholic), or more (Orthodox and other) books, divided, very broadly, into the Pentateuch (Torah) , the historical books , the "wisdom" books and the prophets. The table below uses the spellings and names present in modern editions of the Christian Bible, such as the Catholic New American Bible Revised Edition and

1862-521: A set period and be followed by the other-worldly age or World to Come . Some thought the Messiah was already present, but unrecognised due to Israel's sins; some thought that the Messiah would be announced by a forerunner, probably Elijah (as promised by the prophet Malachi , whose book now ends the Old Testament and precedes Mark 's account of John the Baptist ). However, no view of the Messiah as based on

1960-570: A significant amount of attention, e.g. Secondo Pia 's photograph of the Shroud of Turin , one of the most controversial artifacts in history. During its May 2010 exposition, the shroud and its photograph of what some authors consider the face of Jesus were visited by more than two million people. Another 20th-century depiction of Jesus, namely the Divine Mercy image , is based on Faustina Kowalska 's reported vision, which she described in her diary as

2058-509: 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." The Doctrine and Covenants describes

SECTION 20

#1732855245166

2156-543: Is ... part folklore and part record. History is ... written by the victors, and the Israelis , when they burst through [ Jericho ( c.  1400 BC )], became the carriers of history." In 2007, a historian of ancient Judaism Lester L. Grabbe explained that earlier biblical scholars such as Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) could be described as 'maximalist', accepting biblical text unless it has been disproven. Continuing in this tradition, both "the 'substantial historicity' of

2254-571: Is also described in First Nephi , a Latter-Day document, as "a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white" ( 1   Nephi 11:13 ). The early Latter-Day Saint church printed its first images of Jesus as a white man with blue eyes. According to Blum and Harvey, the blue eyes may have been intended to bolster Mormonism's image of whiteness and Americanness, distinguishing it from Protestant faiths. In his book The Forging of Races , Colin Kidd argues that

2352-669: Is based on the belief that the historical Jesus is also the Christ , as in the Confession of Peter . This belief is in turn based on Jewish understandings of the meaning of the Hebrew term Messiah , which, like the Greek "Christ", means "anointed". In the Hebrew Scriptures, it describes a king anointed with oil on his accession to the throne: he becomes "The L ORD 's anointed" or Yahweh's Anointed. By

2450-561: Is considered the first work of High Renaissance art due to its high level of harmony became well known for depicting Jesus surrounded by the varying emotions of the individual apostles at the announcement of the betrayal. Objections to depictions of Jesus have appeared, e.g. in 1850 John Everett Millais was attacked for his painting Christ in the House of His Parents because it was "painful" to see "the youthful Saviour" depicted as "a red-headed Jew boy". The first cinematic portrayal of Jesus

2548-434: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Race and appearance of Jesus#African 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. Many depictions are interpretations of spurious sources, and are generally historically inaccurate. By

2646-518: Is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists and that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus are examples of these Bibles. Together with the Peshitta and Codex Alexandrinus , these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles. There is no evidence among the canons of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on

2744-484: 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 that Jesus's ascetic and itinerant lifestyle and work as a tektōn ( Ancient Greek for an artisan-craftsman, typically a carpenter), entailing manual labour and exposure to

2842-594: Is neither read nor held among the Hebrews, but does not explicitly call it apocryphal or "not in the canon". The Synod of Hippo (in 393), followed by the Council of Carthage (397) and the Council of Carthage (419) , may be the first council that explicitly accepted the first canon which includes the books that did not appear in the Hebrew Bible ; the councils were under significant influence of Augustine of Hippo , who regarded

2940-444: Is that if Jesus's physical appearance had differed markedly from the appearance of his disciples, he would have been relatively easy to identify. James H. Charlesworth says that Jesus's face was "most likely dark brown and sun-tanned", and his stature "may have been between five feet five and five feet seven". In 2018 historian Joan Taylor published What Did Jesus Look Like? which traced portrayals of Jesus back through time from

3038-697: Is to be read." They are present in a few historic Protestant versions; the German Luther Bible included such books, as did the English 1611 King James Version. Empty table cells indicate that a book is absent from that canon. Several of the books in the Eastern Orthodox canon are also found in the appendix to the Latin Vulgate , formerly the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. Some of

Black Christ - Misplaced Pages Continue

3136-423: Is to worship , or the one "true God", that only Yahweh (or YHWH ) is Almighty. The Old Testament stresses the special relationship between God and his chosen people , Israel, but includes instructions for proselytes as well. This relationship is expressed in the biblical covenant (contract) between the two, received by Moses . The law codes in books such as Exodus and especially Deuteronomy are

3234-582: The Septuagint (Latin for 'Seventy') from the supposed number of translators involved (hence its abbreviation " LXX "). This Septuagint remains the basis of the Old Testament in the Eastern Orthodox Church . It varies in many places from the Masoretic Text and includes numerous books no longer considered canonical in some traditions: 1 Esdras , Judith , Tobit , the books of Maccabees ,

3332-476: The Babylonian exile ) upon his people. The theme is played out, with many variations, in books as different as the histories of Kings and Chronicles, the prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah , and in the wisdom books like Job and Ecclesiastes. The process by which scriptures became canons and Bibles was a long one, and its complexities account for the many different Old Testaments which exist today. Timothy H. Lim,

3430-711: The Biblical apocrypha , a term that is sometimes used specifically to describe the books in the Catholic and Orthodox canons that are absent from the Jewish Masoretic Text and most modern Protestant Bibles. Catholics, following the Canon of Trent (1546), describe these books as deuterocanonical, while Greek Orthodox Christians, following the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) , use the traditional name of anagignoskomena , meaning "that which

3528-561: The Book of Wisdom , Sirach , and Baruch . Early modern biblical criticism typically explained these variations as intentional or ignorant corruptions by the Alexandrian scholars, but most recent scholarship holds it is simply based on early source texts differing from those later used by the Masoretes in their work. The Septuagint was originally used by Hellenized Jews whose knowledge of Greek

3626-569: The First Epistle to the Corinthians , Paul the Apostle says "Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?"; this was cited as support for this, the argument being that as Paul allegedly knew many of the disciples and members of Jesus's family, it is unlikely that he would have written such a thing had Jesus had long hair. Although it was not literally

3724-504: The Hellenistic time (332–198 BC), though containing much older material as well; Job was completed by the 6th century BC; Ecclesiastes by the 3rd century BC. Throughout the Old Testament, God is consistently depicted as the one who created the world. Although the God of the Old Testament is not consistently presented as the only god who exists , he is always depicted as the only God whom Israel

3822-461: 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

3920-540: The Passion began to appear, perhaps reflecting a change in the theological focus of the early Church. The sixth-century Rabbula Gospels include some of the earliest images of the crucifixion and resurrection. By the sixth century, the bearded depiction of Jesus had become standard, both in the East and in the West . These depictions of Jesus with reddish brown hair which is parted in

4018-565: The Temple at that time. The books of Joshua , Judges , Samuel and Kings follow, forming a history of Israel from the Conquest of Canaan to the Siege of Jerusalem c.  587 BC . There is a broad consensus among scholars that these originated as a single work (the so-called " Deuteronomistic History ") during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BC. The two Books of Chronicles cover much

Black Christ - Misplaced Pages Continue

4116-832: The Torah (the Old Testament Pentateuch) as having authoritative status; by the 2nd century BC, the Prophets had a similar status, although without quite the same level of respect as the Torah; beyond that, the Jewish scriptures were fluid, with different groups seeing authority in different books. Hebrew texts began to be translated into Greek in Alexandria in about 280 BC and continued until about 130 BC. These early Greek translations – supposedly commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus – were called

4214-550: 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

4312-400: The conversion of Constantine in the fourth century, Christian art found many wealthy donors and flourished. During this period, Jesus began to have more mature features, and he was also shown with a beard. A new development which occurred at this time was the depiction of Jesus without a narrative context; he was just depicted as a figure all by himself. By the fifth century, depictions of

4410-543: The gospel narratives are generally indifferent to people's racial appearance or features. The synoptic gospels include the account of the transfiguration of Jesus , during which he was glorified with "His face shining as the sun", but this appearance is considered to refer to Jesus in majestic, transfigured form. The Book of Revelation Rev 1:14-15 includes John's vision of the Son of Man : His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as

4508-495: The image of Edessa . The Veil of Veronica was accompanied by a narrative about the Passion of Jesus. A number of descriptions of Jesus have been reported by saints and mystics who claim that they have seen Jesus in visions . Reports of such visions are more common among Roman Catholics than they are among members of other Christian denominations . By the 20th century, some reports of miraculous images of Jesus began to receive

4606-597: 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: 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

4704-600: The protocanonicals . The Talmud (the Jewish commentary on the scriptures) in Bava Batra 14b gives a different order for the books in Nevi'im and Ketuvim . This order is also cited in Mishneh Torah Hilchot Sefer Torah 7:15. The order of the books of the Torah is universal through all denominations of Judaism and Christianity. The disputed books, included in most canons but not in others, are often called

4802-627: The 19th century, theories that Jesus was non- Semitic were being developed, with writers suggesting he was variously white, black, 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 . Research on ancient skeletons in Palestine suggests that Judeans of

4900-720: The 24 books of the Tanakh , with some differences of order, and there are some differences in text. The greater count of books reflects the splitting of several texts ( Samuel , Kings , Chronicles , Ezra–Nehemiah , and the Twelve Minor Prophets ) into separate books in Christian Bibles. The books that are part of the Christian Old Testament but that are not part of the Hebrew canon are sometimes described as deuterocanonical books . These books are ultimately derived from

4998-423: The Christ , Jesus was portrayed by Jim Caviezel , who wore a prosthetic nose during filming and had his blue eyes digitally changed to light brown to give him a more Middle Eastern appearance. According to designer Miles Teves, who created the prosthesis: "Mel [Gibson] wanted to make the actor playing Jesus, James Caviezel, look more ethnically Middle Eastern, and it was decided that we could do it best by changing

SECTION 50

#1732855245166

5096-431: The European Jesus of western art to Jesus himself. By working with Yossi Nagar, an Israeli anthropologist who was able to prove that the physical characteristics of the bones of Jews which date back to the time of Jesus have similarities to the bones of contemporary Iraqi Jews , Taylor concluded that Jesus had honey/olive skin, brown eyes and brown or black hair. As for the honey/olive description, Taylor writes that his skin

5194-461: The Greek world of the appearance of the many itinerant charismatic philosophers. Although some images of Jews exist in the synagogue in Dura-Europos , and such images may have been common, in theory, Judaism forbade images, and its influence on the depictions of Jesus remains unknown. Christian depictions of Jesus which were produced during the 3rd and 4th centuries typically focused on New Testament scenes of healings and other miracles. Following

5292-426: The Hebrew Masoretic Text . For the Orthodox canon, Septuagint titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions. For the Catholic canon, the Douaic titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions. Likewise, the King James Version references some of these books by the traditional spelling when referring to them in the New Testament, such as "Esaias" (for Isaiah ). In

5390-488: The Hebrew, Greek and Latin versions of the Hebrew Bible are the best known Old Testaments, there were others. At much the same time as the Septuagint was being produced, translations were being made into Aramaic, the language of Jews living in Palestine and the Near East and likely the language of Jesus : these are called the Aramaic Targums , from a word meaning "translation", and were used to help Jewish congregations understand their scriptures. For Aramaic Christians, there

5488-423: 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". In contrast, Abd Allah ibn Abbas says Jesus

5586-499: 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 ) In keeping with the political climate of the 19th and 20th centuries, Latter-Day Saint founder Joseph Smith envisioned Jesus as white, as reflected in Latter-Day Saint texts and portrayals of Jesus. Mary, mother of Jesus

5684-405: The Old Testament predicted a Messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of all people. The story of Jesus' death, therefore, involved a profound shift in meaning from the Old Testament tradition. The name "Old Testament" reflects Christianity's understanding of itself as the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy of a New Covenant (which is similar to "testament" and often conflated) to replace

5782-400: The Old Testament. Of the remainder, the books of the various prophets— Isaiah , Jeremiah , Ezekiel , and the twelve " minor prophets "—were written between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, with the exceptions of Jonah and Daniel , which were written much later. The "wisdom" books— Job , Proverbs , Ecclesiastes , Psalms , Song of Songs —have various dates: Proverbs possibly was completed by

5880-446: The Protestant Revised Standard Version and English Standard Version . The spelling and names in both the 1609–F10 Douay Old Testament (and in the 1582 Rheims New Testament ) and the 1749 revision by Bishop Challoner (the edition currently in print used by many Catholics, and the source of traditional Catholic spellings in English) and in the Septuagint differ from those spellings and names used in modern editions which are derived from

5978-451: The Septuagint ( 3 Ezra and 3 and 4 Maccabees are excluded); the Anglicans after the English Civil War adopted a compromise position, restoring the 39 Articles and keeping the extra books that were excluded by the Westminster Confession of Faith , both for private study and for reading in churches but not for establishing any doctrine, while Lutherans kept them for private study, gathered in an appendix as biblical apocrypha . While

SECTION 60

#1732855245166

6076-459: The Septuagint's, and Theodotion's. The so-called "fifth" and "sixth editions" were two other Greek translations supposedly miraculously discovered by students outside the towns of Jericho and Nicopolis : these were added to Origen's Octapla. In 331, Constantine I commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople . Athanasius recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans . Little else

6174-419: The Western Church, specifically as the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate , while the Churches in the East continued, and continue, to use the Septuagint. Jerome, however, in the Vulgate's prologues , describes some portions of books in the Septuagint not found in the Hebrew Bible as being non- canonical (he called them apocrypha ); for Baruch , he mentions by name in his Prologue to Jeremiah and notes that it

6272-411: The assignment of race to biblical individuals has been a subjective practice which is mostly 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 that the assignment of a specific race to Jesus has been

6370-449: The belief that Jesus was a member of the so-called "Aryan race", and in particular, theories which were based on the belief that his appearance was Nordic , were developed and later, they appealed to advocates of the new racial antisemitism , who did not want to believe that Jesus was Jewish , Semitic or Western Asian . Houston Stewart Chamberlain posited that Jesus was of Amorite -Germanic extraction, although Amorites were themselves

6468-503: The books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God. The books that compose the Old Testament canon and their order and names differ between various branches of Christianity . The canons of the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches comprise up to 49 books; the Catholic canon comprises 46 books; and the most common of the Protestant canons comprises 39 books. There are 39 books common to essentially all Christian canons. They correspond to

6566-417: The canon as already closed. In the 16th century, the Protestant reformers sided with Jerome; yet although most Protestant Bibles now have only those books that appear in the Hebrew Bible, the order is that of the Greek Bible. Rome then officially adopted a canon, the Canon of Trent , which is seen as following Augustine's Carthaginian Councils or the Council of Rome , and includes most, but not all, of

6664-417: The canon. However, Jerome (347–420), in his Prologue to Judith , claims that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures". In Western Christianity or Christianity in the Western half of the Roman Empire , Latin had displaced Greek as the common language of the early Christians, and in 382 AD Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome ,

6762-399: The earlier Septuagint , the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and are also Jewish in origin. Some are also contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls . In general, Catholic and Orthodox churches include the deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament. Most Protestant Bibles do not include them in their canon, but some versions of Anglican and Lutheran Bibles place such books in

6860-478: The earliest depictions date to the late second or early third century, and they are primarily found in Rome . In these early depictions, Jesus is usually shown as a youthful figure who does not have a beard but does have curly hair, sometimes he is shown with features which are different from the features of the other men in the scenes, e.g. his disciples or the Romans. However, bearded depictions also appear very early on, perhaps drawing on an existing stereotype from

6958-500: The elements, affected his appearance. It has been suggested that Jesus likely had a lean appearance. Old Testament references which Christians interpret 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." This passage interprets Jesus' physical description. The New Testament includes no descriptions of Jesus's appearance before his death , and

7056-477: The face of Jesus, the result of the study determined that Jesus's skin would have been more olive-colored than white or black, and it also determined that he would have most likely looked like a typical Galilean Semite of his day. Among the points which were made in the study was the fact that the Bible says that Jesus's disciple Judas Iscariot needed to point him out to those who were arresting him. The implied argument

7154-480: 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. However, this only implies

7252-570: The leading scholar of the day, to produce an updated Latin Bible to replace the Vetus Latina , which was a Latin translation of the Septuagint. Jerome's work, called the Vulgate , was a direct translation from Hebrew, since he argued for the superiority of the Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds. His Vulgate Old Testament became the standard Bible used in

7350-487: 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 Summa Theologiae based on his analysis of

7448-445: The middle and almond shaped eyes remained consistent for several centuries. At this time, various legends were developed in order to validate the styles of the depictions, e.g. the image of Edessa and later the Veil of Veronica . The Byzantine Iconoclasm acted as a barrier to developments in the East, but by the ninth century, art was again permitted. The Transfiguration of Jesus was

7546-402: The patriarchs" and "the unified conquest of the land" were widely accepted in the United States until about the 1970s. Contrarily, Grabbe says that those in his field now "are all minimalists – at least, when it comes to the patriarchal period and the settlement. ... [V]ery few are willing to operate [as maximalists]." In 2022, archaeologist Avraham Faust wrote that in the 1990s

7644-502: The powerful Kyrios image of Jesus as a wonder worker in the West , as the Franciscans began to emphasize the humility of Jesus both at his birth and at his death via the Nativity scene as well as the crucifixion. The Franciscans approached both ends of this spectrum of emotions and as the joys of the Nativity were added to the agony of the crucifixion, a whole new range of emotions

7742-435: The region of Galilee was supposedly inhabited by non-Jews who spoke an unknown Indo-European language, but this theory has not gained scholarly acceptance – Galilee was inhabited by a significant non-Jewish minority, but its members spoke various local Semitic languages. In his book Anacalypsis (1836), Godfrey Higgins suggested that Jesus was a dark, brown-skinned Indo-Aryan from North India . In 1906,

7840-518: The same material as the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic history and probably date from the 4th century BC. Chronicles, and Ezra–Nehemiah , was probably finished during the 3rd century BC. Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments contain two (Catholic Old Testament) to four (Orthodox) Books of the Maccabees , written in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. These history books make up around half the total content of

7938-421: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Black Christ . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Black_Christ&oldid=1194503450 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

8036-649: The shape of his nose." Old Testament The Old Testament ( OT ) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon , which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible , or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Israelites . The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament , written in Koine Greek . The Old Testament consists of many distinct books by various authors produced over

8134-674: The spirit of ecumenism , more recent Catholic translations (e.g. the New American Bible , Jerusalem Bible , and ecumenical translations used by Catholics, such as the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition ) use the same "standardized" (King James Version) spellings and names as Protestant Bibles (e.g. 1 Chronicles as opposed to the Douaic 1 Paralipomenon, 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings instead of 1–4 Kings) in those books which are universally considered canonical:

8232-552: The stories of the Pentateuch may derive from older sources. Scholars such as Andrew R. George point out the similarity of the Genesis flood narrative and the Gilgamesh flood myth . Similarities between the origin story of Moses and that of Sargon of Akkad were noted by psychoanalyst Otto Rank in 1909 and popularized by 20th-century writers, such as H. G. Wells and Joseph Campbell . Jacob Bronowski writes that, "the Bible

8330-544: The term to refer to a pledge. Further themes in the Old Testament include salvation , redemption , divine judgment , obedience and disobedience, faith and faithfulness, among others. Throughout there is a strong emphasis on ethics and ritual purity , both of which God demands, although some of the prophets and wisdom writers seem to question this, arguing that God demands social justice above purity, and perhaps does not even care about purity at all. The Old Testament's moral code enjoins fairness, intervention on behalf of

8428-491: The terms of the contract: Israel swears faithfulness to God, and God swears to be Israel's special protector and supporter. However, The Jewish Study Bible denies that the word covenant ( brit in Hebrew) means "contract"; in the ancient Near East, a covenant would have been sworn before the gods, who would be its enforcers. As God is part of the agreement, and not merely witnessing it, The Jewish Study Bible instead interprets

8526-532: The time of Jesus, some Jews expected that a flesh-and-blood descendant of David (the " Son of David ") would come to establish a real Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem, instead of the Roman province of Judaea. Others stressed the Son of Man , a distinctly other-worldly figure who would appear as a judge at the end of time . Some expounded a synthesised view of both positions, where a messianic kingdom of this world would last for

8624-451: The time were biologically closer to present-day Iraqi Jews than to any other modern population, according to specialist bio historian Yossi Nagar. Thus, in terms of physical appearance, the average Judean of the time would have likely had brown or black hair, honey/ olive - brown skin, and brown eyes. Judean men of the time period were on average about 1.65 metres or 5 feet 5 inches in height. Scholars have also suggested that it

8722-457: The vulnerable, and the duty of those in power to administer justice righteously. It forbids murder, bribery and corruption, deceitful trading, and many sexual misdemeanours . All morality is traced back to God, who is the source of all goodness. The problem of evil plays a large part in the Old Testament. The problem the Old Testament authors faced was that a good God must have had just reason for bringing disaster (meaning notably, but not only,

8820-546: Was "a darker hue consistent with the skin tone of people of the Middle East" (p. 163). Taylor thinks the BBC's reconstruction is "quite speculative" because reconstruction of cartilage (noses, etc.) is guesswork. During the Middle Ages , a number of legendary images of Jesus began to appear; at times, they were probably constructed in order to validate the styles of the depictions of Jesus which were reported during that period, e.g.

8918-577: Was Jewish" and beyond generally agreeing that he was from Western Asia, there are no contemporary depictions of Jesus that can be used to determine his appearance. However, John Elliott argues that Jesus always identified himself as Israelite in the New Testament. His co-ethnics identified him as Israelite, Galilean or Nazarene whilst outsiders identified him as Judean/Jewish, due to Hellenistic-Roman culture, which grouped all people in Judea as Judean. In 2001,

9016-501: Was a Syriac translation of the Hebrew Bible called the Peshitta , as well as versions in Coptic (the everyday language of Egypt in the first Christian centuries, descended from ancient Egyptian ), Ethiopic (for use in the Ethiopian church , one of the oldest Christian churches), Armenian (Armenia was the first to adopt Christianity as its official religion), and Arabic . Christianity

9114-533: Was better than Hebrew. However, the texts came to be used predominantly by gentile converts to Christianity and by the early Church as its scripture, Greek being the lingua franca of the early Church. The three most acclaimed early interpreters were Aquila of Sinope , Symmachus the Ebionite , and Theodotion ; in his Hexapla , Origen placed his edition of the Hebrew text beside its transcription in Greek letters and four parallel translations: Aquila's, Symmachus's,

9212-748: 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 non-canonical 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

9310-723: 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 series Son of God attempted to determine what Jesus's race and appearance may have been. Assuming Jesus to be a native West Asian Galilean Semite , the study concluded in conjunction with Mark Goodacre that he would have appeared 'Middle Eastern' and his skin would have been "olive-coloured" and "swarthy"  – these results were criticised by some media outlets for being "dismissive" and "dumbed down". In academic studies, beyond generally agreeing that "Jesus

9408-454: Was in the 1897 film La Passion du Christ produced in Paris, which lasted five minutes. Thereafter cinematic portrayals have continued to show Jesus with a beard in the standard western depiction that resembles Renaissance images. More recent artistic and cinematic portrayals have also made an effort to characterize Jesus as an ancient Middle Eastern resident. In the 2004 movie The Passion of

9506-456: 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

9604-409: Was ushered in, with wide-ranging cultural impact on the image of Jesus for centuries thereafter. The Renaissance brought forth a number of artistic masters who focused on the depictions of Jesus and after Giotto , Fra Angelico and others systematically developed uncluttered images that focused on the depiction of Jesus with an ideal human beauty. Leonardo da Vinci 's The Last Supper which

#165834