My children’s Bible. An Easter morning query.

[Tinkerbell456]

So,here I am in Oz at 4.30am eating Easter Egg.Don’t judge me🧐. My question is, when I was a child, I received a beautiful Children’s Bible. My issue is that in all the artwork, Christ was depicted as having golden blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Did anyone else receive such depictions of Christ?

Yes - he was always a white man, with mid- length hair. Sometimes blonde and sometimes brown though. Always pale and interesting, rather than rugged though - guess the illustrators of children's Bibles weren't much into muscular Christianity!

No but I'm aware that Jesus has often been portrayed as white when he was a Middle Eastern Jew and this not Nordic and blonde.

Christs image was based on Greek writings, primarily imagery of Alexander the Greek who was blond and blue eyed.

O/T Northern India is very 'arayan' and a lot of the Afghani tribe are also blond blue eyed. There are Viking graffiti/inscriptions in the Hag Sophia in Turkey.

Our modern day appearance of Christ is based on Cesare Borgia.

Like this?

Well, Cesare Borgia would be closer in my imagination to Christ, but still not Middle Eastern. Mind you, he was a Pope, albeit a corrupt one if memory serves. May I recommend dark choc red tulip egg by the way?

I think most art of Jesus depicts him as looking like the locals in the area, Jesus in old coptic churches in Turkey and Egypt looks Eastern Mediterranean in some old Ethiopian churches he definitely looks darker more African, in 14th century Italy he looks like a 14th century Italian
the older art would definitely be choosing to look like locals so people felt that Christ in his humanity looked like us ( not other) and historically when most people seldom travelled more than 30 miles from where they were born it was fine, however today we are more multicultural so seeing Jesus portrayed looking like someone from the Levant is no surprise
I believe this is the reasoning behind the no portrayals of God and Christ in some Protestant traditions if there is no picture of Jesus no one can think that Jesus is different to them no one can accurately portray Jesus as there is no physical description of him, not everyone in Roman Palestine had dark hair and dark eyes and medium brown skin, some were fairer King David was described as Ruddy ( red haired) but I think it is highly unlikely he looked either like a Scandinavian blonde or a Nigerian he is much more likely to look like the King of Jordan or someone from Saudi Arabia or Iran many of them are quite pale

A lot of religious art was made for a specific location so now when it is on a white wall in a gallery it is already out of place and less accessible for the purpose for which it was intended

Just like the blonde blue eyed girls chosen every Christmas to play Mary in the nativity.

Good point Teacup. Actually, any road, does it really matter I suppose? Mere musing on my part. Happy Easter to those that celebrate and just happiness to those who don’t.😀

Jesus was depicted as chestnut haired, sad eyed and white skinned in my bible. Mind you, he was also depicted as bringing the dead back to life and turning water into wine, so it may not be 100% accurate in either instance.

At our church at Christmas one year they had a quiz in the newsletter where you had to match the picture of Mary and baby Jesus with the country it was drawn/painted in. It was really interesting because in each one they were completely different styles, and always closely resembling the way people looked in that country.

Yes, to Teacup's post. There was a fascinating TV series about Christian art a while ago, Seeing Salvation. and one of the very interesting things was seeing art from around the world. I particularly remember a Peruvian Madonna and child with black skin. It's one of the ways that Christianity became a global religion. Because the message of the incarnation is 'God became one of us', it made sense for people to translate that into images of someone who looked like them.

In Western culture, of course, that meant white-skinned Europeans. And since in the Western world we are still dominated by that tradition, we still get those images. I think it's pretty important now, in the light of modern politics and conflicts, that we focus more on a racially accurate depiction of Jesus than on seeing him like us.

@MotherForkinShirtBalls

I'm brunette with hazel eyes, and I was Mary...

But yes, in the pictures I've seen Jesus and Mary tend to be depicted as pretty western looking!

Why did he always have sad eyes I wonder? Surely his life was not an unrelenting vale of tears? The wedding at Cana for a start. Friends who would and did eventually die for him.

Why did he always have sad eyes I wonder?

He carried the sorrows of the WHOLE WORLD! Like when Christopher carried him across the water and he grew heavier and heavier because by carrying christ he was also carrying all the sins of the world. And he knew he would be betrayed by his mate.

I like to think he'd have been a laugh, but there are no guarantees. Jim Jones, for example, had lots of followers and you wouldn't describe him as exactly hilarious.

It’s a fable so open to interpretation I’m assuming.

You mean like this?!

The smouldering Jesus in the Bible calendar is particularly weird