Why do pictures of Jesus depict a white man?

Question

Have you schmucks SEEN what people from the Middle East look like?

Answer 1

It's just because that is the "western version" of Jesus.

that is the ONLY reason.

Answer 2

They don't. Have you SEEN what people in the Middle East look like? There are many fair skinned Middle Easterns and Jews. Jesus was Jewish.

As far as schmucks go, which "schmucks" are you referring to? I don't believe anyone here has recently posted a picture of Jesus as a white man. Your ignorance is showing.

Answer 3

Any picture of "Jesus" violates the 2nd Commandment.

Pictures of "Jesus" came about becuse of pagan influences that crept into the church and cumulated in the Roman Catholic church which worships idols like the crucifix, statues of mary and the saints and so forth.

Another example of this is when the Israelites asked Aaron to make them a golden calf to worship while Moses was on the mountain getting the Law from God.

Some people seem to need an idol, a visual tool, to feel spiritually grounded. The Bible condemns this time and time again.

Answer 4

This question has been done so many times but I will answer it AGAIN.

Are you talking about like in the movies? I think they make Jesus white so that he can "stand out".
I know that Jesus wasn't white with sparkling blue eyes; considering the area where he was born he would of had the dark curly hair of the middle east with dark brown eyes. His hair and beard would of been short if not as the roman wore their hair, then short out of neccessity because it was so curly.

Answer 5

I have a similar argument with the US Census Bureau . They tell me I'm white , I tell them I'm Mediterranean and I want my own ethnic group They laugh at me and think I'm a meshugener.
Seriously though , one of the functions of art is propaganda ; the use of visual images to convey political messages.
The current -John Lennon in 1968 - image of Christ says something very definitive; He's no longer Mediterranean or Jewish and in fact He's a Northern European. Considering that the Protestant Reformation was started by a German monk that makes sense.
The negative side of course is that a non-Jewish Jesus can make anti-Semitism easier for some to practice.

Answer 6

If you read your bible. you would see that Jesus was born to Jewish parents. The last I seen jews were of white skin. And yes this schmuck has seen people of the middle east. But GOD is a god to everyone and for everyone. He is of no race but of all races.

Answer 7

Every culture depicts Jesus as one of their own, and in a spiritual sense it is true - Jesus belongs to all of us, and all of us belong to Him. The historical reality that He was a dark, swarthy, Middle-Eastern Jew really doesn't matter in that regard. That was just the time and place in history that God decided He would take human form and appear on earth as mankind's Savior. He belongs to everyone of every race, nationality.

In Africa, African Christians show Jesus as a black man. In the Orient, Jesus has Oriental features. In Europe and North America, He appears as being caucasian.

Same with the Virgin Mary. In the mid 1500's, Mary appeared to an Indian peasant in Mexico as an Indian woman, and that apparition is known as Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The true Church is universal, and knows no national boundaries.........

Answer 8

Actually, as you go further east, Jesus looks less and less white and more and more like the people who portray him in paintings and portraits. People are comforted by portraying a picture of God in their own image. Western society is white and western culture predominates the different sects of Christianity, thus you are more incline nowadays to find Jesus portrayed as white, but that wasn't always the case.

Answer 9

I have only seen images of a handsome middle eastern man.
Kind of funny, how people think. Remember the picture is just the artist depiction of the situation.

Answer 10

It's crazy, i've asked the same question when I was a Christian. I've even seen pics with blue eyes. It's all about the commercialism of Christianity. Nobody talks about Jesus being a Jew with a big yenta nose and dark olive skin, heck if he comes back some might think he's a terrorist from the way he looks.

Answer 11

The artists drew from their own experience. It's hard to get it right if you don't have models with similar coloring and facial features to base the artwork on. If they had tried to make him more Semitic looking, it would have looked silly with the limited contact that most of the artists had with that part of the world. Try drawng a person who doesn't look like any of the people you know, maybe an Aleut, and see how hard it is.