Ever notice that when you see a picture in a
church or some place of what
Jesus supposedly looked like, he is almost always
portrayed as
white? According to the Bible, Jesus' parents were from
Nazareth, which is in modern day
Israel.
Jesus was born in
Bethlehem, which is also in modern day Israel. Shortly after his birth, his parents fled with him to
Egypt where they lived for a few years, and then returned to Israel. Given the
climate of these
locales, and judging by the appearance of modern day
citizens of these countries, and also considering that people 2000 years ago were probably out in the
sun a lot more than modern day citizens, it is safe to assume with near certainty that Jesus was not
white.
In the movie Dogma, Chris Rock plays the character Rufus, the thirteenth apostle who was left out of the Bible because he was black. Rufus alleged that Jesus was black, but over the years he was portrayed as white due to racism or something, which also resulted in Rufus' exclusion from the Bible. Even though Dogma (and Rufus) is total fabrication, this theory might not be to far from the truth. While it is doubtful that Jesus was black like Africans are black, he most likely had dark skin. The Catholic church, which controlled most Christianity for hundreds of years, was predominantly ruled by (and continues to be ruled by) white Europeans. It is not doubtful that when commissioning an artist to paint a portrayal of Jesus that they told the artist to make Jesus have a more white appearance. After hundreds of years of this going on, I think it simply stuck and became traditional. Sometimes you will see a poster with the creed "Jesus Was a Black Man" printed on it. This probably isn't true, but is closer to the truth than the church's portrayal. What the poster should say is something like "Jesus ain't no Whitey"