I was mean to the History Channel yesterday — I mocked them for portraying Satan as a dark-skinned man with a resemblance to Obama. But you know, that wasn’t fair. It’s not as if that show about the Bible is full of coded racist references to appeal to the yahoos of America.
Why, look here: they also include European white dudes! Racial diversity for the win!
That’s Jesus, by the way. After the Sermon on the Mount, I think he took a break to go surfing off Malibu.
Yup: God on Earth is a young, handsome white boy; Satan is a older black man with large pores and warts.
No racism here, no sirree.
Well, the History Channel is playing to their preferred audience. White evangelicals. Which is good. It’s about time that white evangelical Christians had a channel of their own.
Pretty sure that’s a Phish robe he’s wearing too.
As the SonOfGod ™ I see he get’s good dental
Ah, I was so worried that White Jesus wouldn’t make into that series.
#4
I was thinking the same thing. I didn’t know they had teeth whitener back then.
Yep. That’s exactly what a 1st century Palestinian jew would look like. NOT. Who the fuck do these mushwits think Yeshua bar Joseph/YHWH was? I bug the few religiturds I can tolerate with this question all the time. They get all butthurt and snivelly, but I never get anything resembling an answer.
Tooth decay was created by gawd to punish us for abandoning the Truth of the Gnostic Gospels.
You mean the “Gnathic” gospels, right? HAHAHAhahahaha… wait, where is everyone going?
You’re Lebowski. I’m The Dude.
carlie:
do you mean the “Gnawthic” gospels?
At least he’s not blond.
And I’m not sure the fussing about Jesus’ teeth is fair. He was in his 20s when he went preaching and probably didn’t eat a high sugar diet. With good genetic luck (and surely having god as your literal father must give you reasonable genes), he should have good teeth still at that age.
OTOH, he sure looks clean for an itinerant preacher in the bronze age. And how does he keep his skin from burning with that complexion?
And that there Jesus is pretty damn fair [9].
White Jesus – is there any other flavor? I mean, come on! Everyone knows that Adam and Eve were white, and that darker skin is the mark of Cain as punishment for killing his bro, and that you can tell how righteous a given population is based upon the color of their skin, and that if you do well in this life and are able to ascend to the highest level of Heaven you’ll be as lily-white as it is possible to be. With blue eyes.
Diversity is for the wicked.
Anyone wanna be wicked with me? I think we have more fun.
Oggie – I was just teaching about these. :)
Maybe a makeover would help, eh?
Oh, and a bath.
That jesus looks eerily like one of the Beatles from their Abbey Road days.
I can’t quite decide which one. George Harrison maybe?
Ah.
I am so glad those are not still around. Can you imagine trying to remove a fish hook from that and still keep all your fingers?
Jesus my main man! Got any weed?
Is there a larger version of this picture somewhere? That looks like a seriously deformed hand in front of JC’s right shoulder.
Uncool, bro. No fair walking out to where the GOOD waves are.
After the whole water into wine miracle, that one can’t be far behind. Just need some oregano and White Hippy Jesus.
I was going to say Party instead of Hippy, but that might read as something entirely different.
Jesus bears a startling resemblance to the 17 year old SonSpawn. Hmmmm…
I was thinking the same thing. I didn’t know they had teeth whitener back then.
Young folks don’t read Catullus anymore…
Dude! Where’s my cross?
@10 Rey Fox
Hey careful, man, there’s a beverage here!
You can tell it’s Jesus because he looks just like his white-bread tortilla!
{Toke}
But have you ever, like, really looked at Jesus’ hand?
{Toke}
Louis
Also, Randomfactor, 21. You win one internet. Please to be collecting it from the desk.
Louis
Jesus makes his way to the after-sermon buffet table for a nice bagel with cream cheese and lox.
That image looks to me like it has been manipulated to drain out all of the color except a certain pinkishness.
Was Jesus “really” that much taller than everyone else?
I predict that Judas and the High Priest will be subtly less white.
Those are some impressive white teeth. But then again, he is a god, so I suppose mere bacteria would not stand a chance against him. Kind of like Superman.
Surely this all stems from basic North American culture, i.e. cowboy films. In the same way as everybody who doesn’t like something just shoots it, the goodies all wear white hats and the baddies wear black ones.
hello: son of freakin god, man.
that, or he’s sitting on his ass.
They at the History Channel think “whatever sells America.” Apparently it’s working because the show is getting huge ratings. I think (FWIW) the Jesus character is mostly, if not entirely, myth, and in either case you’ll never deduce fact from fiction without considerable speculation because the only evidence we have is the story.
Clearly he has immaculate dentition.
Alkaloid, can I give you this sniny almost-new Internet? I only had it a few minutes.
That’s only a calculation based on the nativities The gospel of John say Jesus was not yet 50, so if he actually existed he may have looked more like a middle eastern PZ.
Obviously pre-cure.
I’ll get your
goatcoat.Not that I am a big fan of whitewashing Jesus so that white conservatives may not feel icky about having someone who probably looked like Yasser Arafat as a role model but…
Fair skinned middle-easterners do exist, you know. And I remember people jumping at me when I showed this picture, going all “They’re is NO WAY an Arab can look this white: fakefakefakefakeFAKEFAKEFAKEFAKEFAKEFAKE“
Still with the hair of a Frankish king, I see. The sign of a freeman, in direct contradiction to some epistle of Paul.
“Gnathic gospels” FTW!!!
Quick! Crucify him to save the world (again)!
…sorry.
Is… is that James Franco?
IIRC when it comes to sugar the amount doesn’t matter as much as long long it stays in your mouth. Nursing a sucker for an hour would do more damage than wolfing down a banana split if you followed it by rinsing out your mouth. The bacteria doesn’t have as much time to feed and cause tooth decay. They did have sweet baked goods in those days and not much idea about good dental hygine.
That’s not just racist, it’s shit casting. They seriously couldn’t find someone to play Jesus that didn’t look like a pot-head high school dropout? This is supposed to be Christ, King of the Jews: he looks like he works at a gas station at an incapacitating level of highness.
White Jesus looks like Johnny Depp’s character from Blow.
Jeez, this is obviously Biblically inaccurate. Screw whiteness, Jesus is supposed to be horrifically ugly.
Isaiah 53:1 is often cited as some sort of prophecy about Jesus. But if you think that applies to Jesus, and keep reading around for context:
Isaiah 53:2
“He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”
Or, just before that oft-cited verse:
Isaiah 52:14
“Just as there were many who were appalled at him
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—”
Isaiah 53:1 is cited in both the Gospels and in Romans, and I’ve known pastors to mention the contextual verses too (sort of a “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” thing).
Aka, if there’s one thing we know about Jesus, it’s that he was especially ugly.
/Bible-schooled
/ohfuckwhywon’tthisuselessshitgetoutofmyhead
Crap, meant to say:
“Aka, if there’s one thing we know about Jesus’ looks, it’s that he was especially ugly.”
There’s a Cyanide and Happiness comic somewhere in the archives about Jesus turning water into Bodacious Waves.
For that matter, Arafat isn’t that dark himself. He’s a lot paler than most of the Arabs I’ve known personally, at least.
I wonder if some people aren’t overestimating how dark Jesus (or “a randomly selected 1st-centuary Palestinian Jew”) would have been. Given the amount of invasions, migrations, slave-trading, etc that has happened in that part of the world, there must be a very diverse gene-pool there.
#49
That would be assuming the people of different nations mixed. Even with the invasions, etc I don’t think someone that white would have resulted. What you describe sounds like that part in Mythbusters when they say, “OK we’re going to give this story the best possible chance of success and assume all the conditions are optimal. Now let’s see if a busted gas main can cause an explosion big enough to send a car over the roof.”
Of course that Jesus is ugly. I mean, he looks like he hasn’t shaved for weeks. Beauty is a buzz cut. I wouldn’t give him a job in my Christian book store for sure. Awful young man!
I’ve been surfing a long time, and haven’t ever seen a surfer with hair like that.
it would get in the way too much, frankly.
Since this was before easter there weren’t any yucky candies to rot/stain the teeth.
I refute you thus.
(and, less impressively, thus)
Looks a bit like the Geico cavemen to me.
Gondor has no king. Gondor needs no king.
I always KNEW Chris Cornell was Jesus. He even wrote a song about posing like him once!
…Maybe I do need to read LOTR after all.
touche!
..still, we always cut our hair because otherwise you had to tie it up or something else ridiculous. You point out a glaring hole in my perceptions of surfers though, in that I always went out to surf with MALE surfers.
the other sex never even crossed my mind when thinking about hair.
*sigh*
..and in a final note, it was likely a response based on the fact that the picture of Jesus there is indeed a male with really long hair, which is a rare thing amongst males in surfing from my experience, and was intended as a reaction to the stereotype of surfers as “long haired hippies”.
IOW… looking at that picture of Jesus, the LAST thing that would pop into my head is thinking he should be at Malibu surfing!
“Peter, make me a White Russian, man!”
@David Marjanović, I’ve always liked that line, but sadly it turns out that Boromir was wrong and Gondor did need a king. Also, calling a king a “steward” doesn’t fool me.
:-(
Does anyone know of a film or television show that has accurately portrayed Jesus? I would love to see the reaction to that.
This show is airing on History Canada as well and I have tried to stay far away from it. The few minutes I have seen have been pretty painful. For the most part the programs they air are terrible these days. When I am feeling pretty mindless I toss up my heels and perhaps leave Pawn Stars playing (sometimes I do see something interesting and my internet searches on that topic can actually be educational). For the most part the only interesting programs are the Canadian productions such as War Story or Air Aces and I largely ignore the rest.
Oh, it gets better. It gets so much fucking better I could just die.
Wanna know who the top advisers were on this steaming multi-hour bowel movement?
Rick Warren.
Joel Osteen
Focus on the family.
That’s right.
“I’m not the Christ. You’re the Christ! I’m the Dude. Or ‘his Dudeness’. Or ‘El Duderino’ if you’re not into that whole brevity thing…”
“I have a little doggie, and he says: ‘Barf! Barf! Barf!'”
well, that explains a lot.
I’m surprised they didn’t ask David Barton.
the question is unanswerable on the face of it, considering it’s still not clear that the man described in the various texts even existed.
It’s like asking if some has ever painted an accurate portrait of god.
that said, you will find your best video edutainment value in watching people like Hector Avalos:
http://mnatheists.org/component/option,com_seyret/Itemid,61/
oops, old link is busted.
How Archeology Killed Biblical History
Here is a serious attempt, based on historical research, to reconstruct something similar to what Jesus would have looked like.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/forensics/1282186
@stephen, from your article:
frankly, the images we have of TRex are much more reliable than that. At least we have bones to work with there, and even some occasional skin impressions.
Considering that there are exactly ZERO contemporary portraits of him, that would be a big fat “hell naw”!
Well, I take it back. He probably had hair; at least one finger on one hand at the end of one arm; a pelvis (in order to ride the ass); lips, tongue and (some) teeth, so any film or TV show that included those features is about as accurate as you could expect. Unless he didn’t exist.
I guess I should have been more clear. When I said historical accurate I mean more of a Jesus being portrayed in a manner that meshes up with biblical content, without leaving out inconvenient parts, as well as heavily leaning on our historical knowledge to portray the character properly within the context of the time and place, whether he was fictional or not.A portrayal that has more to do with our knowledge of the time as opposed to the biases many people have, such as those involved in the creation of this film. For example, I was thinking of something that looks at the work of a person like Phil Harland and his podcast series The Historical Jesus in Context to understand what the historical Jesus might have been like if he existed. I have a feeling that a Jesus character portrayed in this manner would disturb many Christians.
there are no descriptions of him, anywhere. period. Not in the bible, or any related texts, not in any roman or judaic text…. nowhere.
again, it is a completely unanswerable question. The best you can do is a guess based on the regions he supposedly spent time in, and even that can be argued could be entirely wrong.
that’s just it, sure it would, but their complaint that their version of Jesus is just as legit would actually be valid, since as mentioned 3 times now… there are no descriptions of him, anywhere.
I find this one more plausible.
Hot Jesus! If I was only 20 years younger…
that’s one way to cook pancakes.
Real Jesus
Ever seen dead air on a TV?
Never has “give him a job in my Christian book store” sounded so much like a euphemism for something dirty.
No. But when it comes to legendary characters, I like this reinterpretation the best.
@74: While that is technically true, it’s still conveniently ignoring the racist rationale behind choosing this specific kind of portrayal of Jesus over others. After all, if the lack of evidence for Jesus means he could look like anyone, why not make him Chinese?
As a matter of fact, the Roman Empire did have a pretty performant dental care system.
http://suite101.com/article/dentistry-and-dental-care-in-the-roman-world-a389246
http://anthropology.osu.edu/news/insider/spring07/abstracts/aapa-peck.php
I find most of the conversation here, including the OP, more annoying/disturbing/choose fitting adjective than Jesus’s looks in the series. “No way a (first century) levantine would have looked like that! That’s totally a “white european dude!” Okey dokey, nothing we haven’t seen on eurocentric sites before, I guess. Now, let’s speculate: was it a settled Celt that made you look like this or a Crusader?
Just watched first episode of The Bible for giggles. Apparently Noah was a Scotsman.
@86: Excuse me?
[eurojesus]
This same came up last year (I quote myself):
These depictions of Jeebus stem from the Byzantine iconophiles. Jeebus was depicted in two (contradictory) ways. The first way was as “young jeebus”, in which he was depicted as the ideal of youthful masculine beauty in the form of a curly headed Arab boy. Post-puberty, “older jeebus” was depicted in the most beautiful ideal for a young adult man – which at the time was a castrated blond slave of Northern European extraction.
You need to turn on your Gibberish to English translator.
Whoever doesn’t even realize the Crusaders were well over a thousand years after jesus’s alleged death. They couldn’t have contributed to his ancenstry. Jesus was long dead and, among other reasons, they were trying to spread xianity.
The magic book says that jesus was a descendant of the House of David and Jewish.
I’ll rephrase since I guess I bungled that up: the talk about Jesus looking like a “white european dude” doesn’t seem to take into account what Levantines can actually look like today and could have looked like at that time, as well (for example, when I first saw this guy “surfer guy in California wasn’t what entered my mind at all). It reminded me a bit of other (actually, what seems like a majority) fora where Americans and Europeans have some preconceived notion of what people in a certain area “should” look like and any deviation from that look is “interesting” and “strange” (and obviously the result of this one historical event one learnt of in school). I realize the intentions and views here are different but it was still a bit uncomfortable.
Poor wording in my original post but that wasn’t in reference to the 1st century or to Jesus, obviously.
@theophontes
Interesting information. IIRC it’s not in Herrin so where does one go for more? :-) The latter reminds me of some early “good shepherd” depictions of Jesus.
But, but… wouldn’t he have had the cute little hat and the curls in front of the ears and the stripey scarf…?
I have no love for Mel Gibson, but he made an effort to get things like language authentic.
-If they want this stuff to be pop culture, why not give Satan a red jedi sword and enliven the narrative with a duel between Satan and Jesus?
The aliens that made a cameo appearence in “Life of Brian” would also be welcome. Suggestion: Their spaceship rescues Jesus and his parents from king Herod’s soldiers, after which Josef and Mary spend a couple of years peacefully raising Jesus at Easter Island…or Nazca. Before the family returns to Nazareth, the young Jesus travels widely, fighting evil wizards and dragons. During one of his quests, he learns who his true father is, which has a profound effect on his ambitions.
So am I the only one who things that actor (in that pic, anyway) has a striking resemblance to Ted Neely, who played JC in Jesus Christ Superstar?
Not that this is a trend or anything. (Or am I showing my age too much?)
If he really had wanted to make language authentic, everyone would have been speaking bastardized Classical Greek
birgerjohansson #93
Like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb:_The_Gospel_According_to_Biff,_Christ%27s_Childhood_Pal
—
Barefoot Bree #94
Yup. Ted Neely.
Instead, I’m told, Greek doesn’t occur in his movie at all. *facepalm*
Jesus looks like Zaphod Beeblebrox.
@mythbri
“Everyone knows that Adam and Eve were white, and that darker skin is the mark of Cain as punishment for killing his bro..”
Dude! You’re totally wrong. It was Noah punishing his son Ham for seeing Noah naked and drunk. Noah put a curse on his own grandson, son of Ham. That’s why dark skin and slavery exists.
Funny, I remember my priest complaining about The Mormons’ depiction of Jesus: “He looks like a surfer dude.” Mormon Jesus’ is white and his hair is sun-kissed sandy blonde.
This: http://www.happyplace.com/22379/graffiti-confuses-jesus-with-kenny-loggins
Footloose in the sand…