White-Washing Jesus

Oftentimes it seems to me like Americans are convinced Jesus was White, America is the promised land, and the Bible was written in English (the King James Version, to be exact).

Evangelicals sometimes have a very ethnocentric view of Christianity. Meaning, we've made Christianity look and sound like us, and we get mad when people disagree with how we think it is.

I remember one time showing a group of predominantly White Evangelical Christians a slideshow of images of Jesus from around the world. There was a Black Jesus and a Jamaican Jesus and a motorcycle Jesus and Jesus wrapped in a rainbow flag. They were unbelievably uncomfortable with these images. You could tell by their body language and the "tsks" they were making and the way they shifted in their seats. I could practically hear the thoughts in their heads, thinking that the images themselves were sacrilegious, disrespectful, or dishonoring to Christ.

Then I showed some of the more common images of Jesus, images they were likely used to. In these images, Jesus is generally depicted with light brown, long flowing hair, light-colored eyes, and white skin. He has a docile, smiling face. He looks gentle. Peace-giving. Kind.

With these images, there were appreciative comments, and even murmurs of, This one’s my favorite, or, I have this one on my wall. 

They didn't know I was setting them up.

Because then of course I asked them, are these images what Jesus really looked like? Remember, Jesus is God, and Jesus was also a man who lived within history and walked this Earth.

There was a pause. A hesitant, well, maybe not, but we don't really know what He looked like...

It is true there is no known image of Jesus. For a reason. The early church, born from Judaism, didn't believe in having images or icons or statues for concern these would become idols. There weren't images of Jesus created, therefore, until Constantine embraced Christianity nearly two hundred years after Jesus' death. Interestingly, the long flowing hair was common in the earliest drawings we have - likely because of Greek and Roman influence. The gods of Greek and Roman folklore were often displayed with long hair.

It was later, during the Renaissance era, that Jesus' image became that of a white European, rather than a dark-skinned Middle Easterner. This may have been influenced by European kings who commissioned paintings and wanted images that fit them and their culture. It may also have been a reflection of White caste systems, and of using Jesus and religion to subjugate other, non-White races.

Our pictures of a White Jesus as just as incorrect - historically - as the other pictures I shared. They were made in the image of ourselves.

Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jewish man born 2000 years ago. He was not White, but likely brown-skinned. His hair was likely short and black. His eyes were likely a dark brown. He likely had a beard. You can google this to see images of what a man of his time and culture would have looked like and you'll see - not a White European, for sure.

When I showed those images to this group, considering what was normative for a man in that time. there was that discomfort again, and a lot of wiggling in their seats. And then somebody said, But it doesn’t really matter what image we hold of Jesus, does it?

I don't know... does it?

Maybe not for one’s personal faith, but certainly if we are whitewashing Jesus and our religion, and that makes us again… ethnocentric. If it means we believe we are better than everyone else, because Jesus is White like us. Or if we are criticizing others for making Jesus more relatable to them, when we are doing the same thing. Or if we are using a White Jesus to justify racism or caste systems or white privilege or white supremacy. Then, the color of Jesus matters A LOT.

Here's another issue we whitewash over. 

The Bible, as hopefully you are aware, was not written in English. The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

The majority the Old Testament is written in Hebrew. This makes sense because it was written by the Jewish people, and their main language was Hebrew.  (This is why they are also called the Hebrew people.) The Old Testament, though it's not called that, is also one of the sacred Jewish Scriptures.

By the time the New Testament was written, Rome had taken over, and almost everyone spoke Greek. Hebrew was still spoken, but the common law street language was more likely to be Greek. Since the New Testament was written to early believers - Jewish and Gentile (non-Jewish) - in predominately Roman territory, it was written in Greek.

Parts of the Old and New Testament are also written in Aramaic. Aramaic is a sister language to Hebrew and was known to the Hebrew people. There are other Jewish texts written entirely in Aramaic.

Jesus likely spoke Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. He didn't speak English. English as a language wasn't even a thing until four hundred plus years later.

The Bible was written to a certain people of a certain time and place and culture. It must be read within that context. Which doesn't mean it doesn't hold value or a message for us today - it most certainly does. It is God's Word. But, in order to interpret its message and meaning properly, we need to take into consideration the original context.

One of the earliest translations was from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. Today in 2023, we now have the complete Bible in approximately 800 languages and the New Testament in twice that many. 

If the Bible was not written in English, how can we trust it was translated correctly? Bible and Biblical language scholars, who studied for years and years and were experts in the field, are responsible for translating the Bible into the other languages of the world. They studied not only Biblical texts but other works of similar time periods in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, to understand how the language was used and understood in that time period.

Obviously, anyone who has done any type of translation knows that when you go from one language to a second language, you can't do a word to word translation. Sentence structure, expressions, jargon, - a lot of that doesn't translate exactly. So, you have to translate the meaning as well as the words.

Teams of people have come together to produce the translations that we read. Most translations come from the original Hebrew and Greek. Some come from the Latin. A few are translations of translations - those are generally less reliable to the original text. The entire team had to get on the same page - no pun intended - over every word, every verse, every chapter - to try to come up with the most accurate translation they could.

Everyone seems to have their own favorite Bible version. If you google, Which Bible translation is the most accurate?, you'll get a variety of answers. Honestly, the best version of the Bible is the original Hebrew and Greek. If you can't read that (I know I sure can't), an interlinear Bible with the translation under the original is helpful. Or, have a few different translations around so you can compare and contrast.

All of this to say... Jesus wasn't White, the Bible wasn't written in English, and America most certainly is NOT the promised land. When we whitewash Jesus and Christianity, we lose its meaning. We lose sight of our purpose and start to follow other paths... paths which lead only to destruction.

When the end of your life comes, if you are not expecting a brown Jesus, you might be in for a surprise. At the gate of Heaven, God is not going to ask you if you made America great again or what your political affiliation is or who you voted for or what you did for "White" people. He's going to ask you about Jesus. What did you do with Jesus, and what did you do for others.

What will you say?