COLUMN: Interpreting the Color of Jesus

From Jamil Smith's "Invisible Man," Fall '95 From Jamil Smith's "Invisible Man," Fall '95This past Sunday I was walking by the small brown magazine stand on the corner of 40th and Walnut when I saw an image that has always disturbed me. Taped to the front window of the stand was a portrait of Jesus Christ with long, flowing blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. I looked down and saw a similarly deceptive portrait depicting a white Jesus at "The Last Supper" next to some old books. I told the vendor he was selling a false image to the people and he laughed in agreement. Whereas many European scholars regard the assertion that Jesus was a man of color to be an adulteration of history, it is in fact a correction of it. It is not merely an effort by people of color to find a part of divinity in themselves, but to discover fact. According to James Cone, a professor at Union Theological Seminary, "Black scholars, for the first time -- certainly since the 1960s -- have begun to realize that they can challenge the dominant white theological establishment." Indoctrination passed off as scholarly biblical interpretation is ending as black biblical scholars begin to destroy this and other biblical myths that involve color. These myths have their foundation in color symbolism. According to Robert Hood, blackness during the formative years of the Christian church in the Roman Empire not only had a distinctly negative connotation attached to it, but it was also personified by the devil or Satan. In many passages in the Bible, light or whiteness is associated with goodness, innocence and divinity, while dark or blackness is construed as evil or carnal. Of course, these associations are not exclusively Biblical, but it is important to recognize that they have tainted historical events in the Bible. The biased teaching of important biblical events involving people of color has also affected the popular interpretation of verses from the Bible. Brenda L. Webber's article "A Colorful Translation" in the April 1995 issue of Emerge brought several events to my attention of which I had not previously been aware. For instance, it is not often taught that David, father of Joseph, was not only married to a black woman, but was the descendant of black people. It is not often taught that Simon of Cyrene, the man who was summoned to carry the cross of Jesus before the crucifixion, was of African birth. It is not often taught that the term "Christian" first came into use in the Church of Antioch in Syria and that it is recognized among many biblical scholars that the Christian faith traveled west from Palestine to Europe, contradicting the notion that Christianity was European in origin. All of this brings us to Jesus Christ. There are two passages in the Bible, Revelation 1:14-15 and Daniel 7:9, that describe the features of Jesus as being those common to African peoples. He is described as having "hairs?like wool" and "feet like unto fine brass." Aside from physical depictions, there is also geographical proof. The area where Jesus originated was a land in which the people had color. As Webber points out, the idea of Jesus and His divine family living as lone Nordics in the Holy Land is quite ludicrous. Also, according to the Rev. Cain Hope Felder, since the Virgin Mary was Afro-Asiatic and most likely looked like a typical Yemenite, Trinidadian or African-American of today, there is genealogical proof that Jesus was, if not a black man, then a man that had a brownish skin color. In order to hide this knowledge, several facts have been obscured. Many maps in common Bibles display very little of Africa. Webber points out that the map's legend is often placed in the space where Africa is, conveying insignificance. Other maps show only Israel or the Fertile Crescent, Rome, Greece and Asia Minor. Webber claims that this is inconsistent with biblical events since the mention of Africa and its nations (particularly Ethiopia and Egypt) serve as the sites for many of them. The hiding of knowledge is not of God's doing; it is of humankind's doing. It is our job to discover the truth and correct the wrongs that were committed against us. I say this not only to Christians, but to those of all faiths. Regardless of whether you believe that Jesus was the Son of God, you can use this as an example of how your own religion can lie to you. The underlying truths may remain the same, but a re-examination of the facts cannot help but produce a few inconsistencies. The Rev. Renita Weems of Vanderbilt University School of Divinity put it well: "[Correcting the conception of Jesus' color] is an understandable concern of African-Americans, given our history in this country and given the way the Bible and Scriptures have been used against us?We have been told our color is a curse, and all our images of God and biblical personalities have been European. [The correction] should be a concern, but I'm not sure it should be a preoccupation." Even if Jesus had been white as snow, I would still worship Him. However, it is necessary that everyone around the world recognize the deception that surrounds us. Unless we allow ourselves to question what we have been taught and pave the way for new planes of understanding, we will be destroyed by the misconceptions that have been taught to us.

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