So was the baby Jesus black or white?

[LynetteScavo]

DD has offered to take in one of her dolls to complete the nativity scene the teacher has set up in the classroom.

She was going to take baby George, who is white, but DS2 said baby Billy would be more appropriate because he's black.

They then both looked at me, and I think Jesus would be dark, but not black. We don't have a doll like that. So who gets the honour of being baby Jesus, George or Billy?

Apparently I have the final say in the morning.

Wasn't he Jewish?

Wasn't he somewhere in the range of dark olive? He supposedly came from the middle east so he'd be dark white with a tinge of north african, wouldn't he?

Hey, he was a real person with nice ideas but he wasn't white!

I would say he was probably pinky brown, could you give George a face paint?

Well, yes he was definitely Jewish.

Shall we send in Billy then?

He probably would've looked like a Palestinian would look, today. So neither would be right, really.

Why don't you draw names out of a hat? This would help to give the message that it doesn't really matter what colour skin someone has - even someone as important as the baby Jesus is to Christians.

Oh, I'm liking the skin colour isn't important.

The other question was should he wear a blue or pink nappy.

Definitely the pink. The messiah LOVED pink.

(Well documented fact)

I think he was wrapped in swaddling, so no nappy, but a length of Andrex.

Part baby Jesus... part Andrex puppy....

He was Jewish so I would think he would be olive skinned but then some Jewish people are fair skinned.

He was only Jewish on his mother's side though

Yes, what colour IS god?

Go for Billy, there are a lot more pink dolls around than black so they probably always had a pink Jesus, make him black for a change.

God's rainbow coloured

He should be all the colours. Can you cut all the dolls up into bits and see them back together?

Pink nappy for sure.

I like to think of god more as light thn colour I suppose. Could they perhaps take a torch instead of a doll?

Pull out the dolls eyes and ram a torch up his arse and then light will come forth from his eyes.

Twill be the talk of the school.

As a newborn, wouldn't his skin have been lighter in colour than it would be for the rest of his life? Did I imagine that darker-skinned babies are slightly paler when they're first born?

FWIW, when I visited an African hospital, the babies were each covered with a sheet & the proud mums pulled the sheets back to show us their babies - maybe you can get away with throwing a sheet over the doll & noone will know what colour skin it has!

I like pickles idea

the picture on the left is supposedly what jesus would have looked like had he been real

Strictly speaking neither doll would be the correct one. But since its symbolic then either would do!

Miss c, Jesus looks abut like Michael elphick?

I'd go for black

OMG antoinette God is gay?!? What's all the fuss about marriage then?!

Brown.