Who was Jesus?

fitzgooble

Hi all,
I've an honest question but first I want to make something clear so people don't get the wrong idea, I strongly believe in the teachings of Jesus and try to live my day to day life by them. I'm not trolling I just want an honest answer to an honest question.

This is something thats been nagging me for a few years now and i thought this to be the appropiate place to ask:
Jesus was born over two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, the middle east, why is he portrayed as being a white caucasian bearded male in flowing robes and sandles? Should he not be dark skinned? something don't seem right?

Onesimus

The Question is not ''who was Jesus'' but rather ''who is Jesus''. And as that question you've asked has been one answered to a while back on the board I'll leave it to others who have more knowledge in that area than I to help you out.

Onesimus

Donatello

It's just different cultural and racial depictions of Jesus. I suppose it is a form of inculturation.

I like this one:



There was a thread about this some months ago. You might be able to find it by searching.

Fanny Cradock

There are many ethically centred representations of Jesus. It's a cultural thing. People identify more readily with a person who looks something like themselves. However, the reality was that Jesus was ethnically Jewish. Wander down the streets of Jerusalem and I'm sure you would get a better idea of what he would have looked like.

Pompey Magnus

The BBC made a composite image using skulls of middle aged Jewish men who lived around the time of Jesus and produced this:



So he may have been something like that, its impossible to tell though (unless we start using his appearances on toast as evidence)

alex73

Jesus Christ is the centre of faith in my Opinion. If you see him as just a historical figure, then nothing in religion makes sense. I see a poster about said its not who was Christ, but who IS Christ. As a Catholic I firmly believe he IS a real person present in Body in the Eurcharist. I'm not a person for making people believe, faith is a gift. To some my faith is historical nonsense, and to others a treasured truth. If you want to know about Christ, Read the gospels, they are not long.

alex73

For me this image from the Shroud of turin is the true physical face of Christ.

Fanny Cradock

Let's not go down the Shroud road again. We have had that already.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=69546812

fitzgooble

Thanks for the link mod, I'll have a good read off that.
The reason I titled it 'who was Jesus' as oppose to 'who is Jesus' is because I was refering to his physical form, it seems that many ancient civilizations, egyptians, sumarians, olmecs to name a few all speak of a white bearded man in flowing robes and sandles visiting them in great times of need and despair, just wondering also could it have been the same person?
Thanks again for your replies.

Fanny Cradock

Do they speak of such things? I have certainly never heard of a common theme of a white bearded man visiting during times of great need.

There is often an attempt to draw parallels between myths from different cultures. Sometimes this is justified, sometimes it's not. The Zeitgeist Movie is a perfect example of the latter.

According to Christianity, the incarnation happened once. So, the answer to your question is a firm "no". And I personally don't think you will find many Christians who believe anything contrary to this.

Onesimus

fitzgooble wrote: »

Thanks for the link mod, I'll have a good read off that.
The reason I titled it 'who was Jesus' as oppose to 'who is Jesus' is because I was refering to his physical form, it seems that many ancient civilizations, egyptians, sumarians, olmecs to name a few all speak of a white bearded man in flowing robes and sandles visiting them in great times of need and despair, just wondering also could it have been the same person?
Thanks again for your replies.

Ronnie Drew in his pyjamas maybe?

Jesus physical form is Divine also. So the question is still ''who is Jesus?'' He comes he goes but is unchangeable and always remains the same.

Onesimus

fitzgooble

Last time I saw Ronnie he was as bald as an egg.

Onesimus

fitzgooble wrote: »

Last time I saw Ronnie he was as bald as an egg.

Good man so he is and musician.

John_Rambo

I think he was a brilliant politician from what is now the Palestinian region.

alex73

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Let's not go down the Shroud road again. We have had that already.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=69546812

Just so I am 100% clear I'm not saying the shroud is the actual face of Christ. Its not part of the catholic teaching. Carbon dating on the edge of the shroud does not place it as 2000 years old. However the negative image would be very difficult to make in mediaeval times and there is still some confusion if other cloths were woven into the original one. Anyway there are many books on the topic.

What I mean to say there are many many images of Christ. There were no cameras in his day so all we have a icons paint from memory from early Christians.

For me Dali's Christ on the cross is one of the most impressing image of Christ (if I was to pick for all the art done on Christ)

JimiTime

John_Rambo wrote: »

I think he was a brilliant politician from what is now the Palestinian region.

Not to be provocative, but on what basis to you say this? this is similar to the 'he was a wise teacher' assertion. To say he wasn't the person described in the Gospels, i.e. the Son of God, but rather a smart bloke or 'brilliant politician', what source to you use to form this opinion?

hinault

It' an interesting question.

As a RC, I am intrigued by the portrayal of Jesus Christ from the Bible. We don't actually know much about Him despite the Bible.
We don't know anything about His physical appearance for example. Similarly we have a limited insight to His personality.

We know of His qualities - His forgiveness, His charity, His tolerance, His patience. We also know that He had a temper (the moneychangers in the Temple, for example). We know of His wisdom.

It is an enigma wrapped in a riddle.
So many things remain unknown though. We know that He worked with his father, Joseph, and helped him work as a carpenter. But we don't know much about His childhood.

It is a fascinating question.

John_Rambo

JimiTime wrote: »

what source to you use to form this opinion?

Just an opinion. That's what I think he was, one of the best politicians ever, clever, popular, humble, charismatic, handsome, manipulative, got on with everyone from the wise sages to the hookers on the street, won the people over, but like most of the good ones, got put down like a dog in the end.

Died a martyr, then the silly stories started, walking on water, ghosts, water to wine etc...

fitzgooble

True, the Romans started intertwining storys of Jesus with myths of other religions and beliefs, thats when it starts to become distorted.

Fanny Cradock

fitzgooble wrote: »

True, the Romans started intertwining storys of Jesus with myths of other religions and beliefs, thats when it starts to become distorted.

What do you mean?

fitzgooble

Well a few years back I got semi obsessed with the origins of the Roman Catholic church, personnel reasons really. I done a lot of reading up on it at the time but gave up after a while because it's hard to find definative truths about it. The main thing was the teachings of Jesus were carried through to today but the then emperor, name escapes me, around 3-400ad, formed the catholic church to bring unity to Rome between the peoples of pagan beliefs and christians. A lot of important dates in the catholic calender coincide with important dates of the pagen calender, winter/summer solstice, spring/autumn equinox. Just one underlying truth I found in common between a lot of the books was that for example Jesus was born around March/April not Dec 25th, I'll have to dust off a few books to come up with better examples, again it's hard to get definative truths but it does make you think.

Slav

fitzgooble wrote: »

Well a few years back I got semi obsessed with the origins of the Roman Catholic church, personnel reasons really. I done a lot of reading up on it at the time but gave up after a while because it's hard to find definative truths about it. The main thing was the teachings of Jesus were carried through to today but the then emperor, name escapes me, around 3-400ad, formed the catholic church to bring unity to Rome between the peoples of pagan beliefs and christians.

Classic.

fitzgooble

sorry I left my photographic memory in my other pants.

Pompey Magnus

fitzgooble wrote: »

Just one underlying truth I found in common between a lot of the books was that for example Jesus was born around March/April not Dec 25th, I'll have to dust off a few books to come up with better examples, again it's hard to get definative truths but it does make you think.

Nobody knows the year Jesus was born, never mind the month. For all we know he could have been born in December.

fitzgooble

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Nobody knows the year Jesus was born, never mind the month. For all we know he could have been born in December.

You're right, then why do we have to believe it's Dec 25th?

Slav

fitzgooble wrote: »

sorry I left my photographic memory in my other pants.

That's absolutely fine. It's a waste of memory to keep in cache something that you don't really need. It's just demonstrates the average quality of research on the subject that people usually do for themselves and the general level of training in history.

PDN

fitzgooble wrote: »

You're right, then why do we have to believe it's Dec 25th?

We don't. The 25th is a convenient date to celebrate the Incarnation. Jesus was probably born in October or thereabouts.

PDN

fitzgooble wrote: »

Well a few years back I got semi obsessed with the origins of the Roman Catholic church, personnel reasons really. I done a lot of reading up on it at the time but gave up after a while because it's hard to find definative truths about it. The main thing was the teachings of Jesus were carried through to today but the then emperor, name escapes me, around 3-400ad, formed the catholic church to bring unity to Rome between the peoples of pagan beliefs and christians. A lot of important dates in the catholic calender coincide with important dates of the pagen calender, winter/summer solstice, spring/autumn equinox. Just one underlying truth I found in common between a lot of the books was that for example Jesus was born around March/April not Dec 25th, I'll have to dust off a few books to come up with better examples, again it's hard to get definative truths but it does make you think.

This is pretty well irrelevant to the discussion of who Jesus was (or is). Our beliefs on who Jesus is are based on the writings of the New Testament, which were all written long before any Roman Emperor had any say in Church affairs.

If you're going to dust off any books then I would strongly recommend more proper history books and less of the Davinci Code stuff.

fitzgooble

PDN wrote: »

If you're going to dust off any books then I would strongly recommend more proper history books and less of the Davinci Code stuff.

Yea you're right there, when I first starting reading up on it, it was after The DaVinci... the mind began to unravel and I just didn't know whether I was reading fact or fiction so I stopped, love history though and recently started reading about ancient civilisations and the question has popped up again in the oul noggin 'who was Jesus?'
I think it's a facinating subject and was hoping to find direction anonymously from fellow catholics on boards as oppose to asking anyone in the parish.

Pompey Magnus

fitzgooble wrote: »

Well a few years back I got semi obsessed with the origins of the Roman Catholic church, personnel reasons really. I done a lot of reading up on it at the time but gave up after a while because it's hard to find definative truths about it. The main thing was the teachings of Jesus were carried through to today but the then emperor, name escapes me, around 3-400ad, formed the catholic church to bring unity to Rome between the peoples of pagan beliefs and christians.

Emperor Constantine certainly didn't "form the catholic church" and he also didn't instruct the church to accept only the books that he approved of as Dan Brown would have people believe (Athanasius had already declared the 27 books of the New Testament as being the final, authoritative canon in 367), however what he did do was, as Michael Portillo once put it: "Rather than Constantine converting the Empire to Christianity, it might be more accurate to say that he converted Christianity to his needs as an Emperor."

The small communities of clandestine Christian believers meeting in private rooms to worship and pray together, who preached pacifism and denounced the accumulation of Earthly power and possessions as their Messiah had done, quickly disappeared once Constantine converted to be replaced with a religion whose adherents met in enormous cathedrals rich in marble and gold, commanding enormous armies who, instead of loving their enemy and turning the other cheek they would rather kill their enemy and then pray for them.

Constantine did not force this abuse of power on the Christian Church, he simply provided it with the opening and, once it was presented, the Church gladly took the opportunity to enjoy the full benefits of power and wealth. It really is remarkable how quickly Christianity adjusted to power and really does show the genius of Constantine in seeing the potential as many in his position would justifiably have regarded as inevitably disastrous the promotion of a pacifist cult which rejected the divinity claims of an Emperor. Constantine correctly thought otherwise however.

So forget all the Da Vinci Code stuff, its a load of nonsense, the truth is far more interesting.

Keylem

Update on Shroud of Turin.

The Biggest Carbon 14 dating mistakes.

http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/Shroud-of-Turin-Carbon-14-Dating-Mistake.pdf

http://www.shroudstory.com/

The Shroud of Turin images may not be the direct result of a miracle, at least not in a traditional sense of the word. But they are not man made either.

yawha

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

The BBC made a composite image using skulls of middle aged Jewish men who lived around the time of Jesus and produced this:



So he may have been something like that, its impossible to tell though (unless we start using his appearances on toast as evidence)

But Mary was impregnated by non-physical means.

A pretty important question if we are to determine what Jesus looked like is did god fertilize an egg of Mary's, or did he implant a special egg into Mary?

If the former, then Jesus would be guaranteed to have some Jewish genes, if the latter, then, there is no way of telling what Jesus might have looked like, as his genes would have been entirely decided by God.

It prompts an interesting question - what genes did God choose for Jesus, and why?

Also, for any Christians believing in guided evolution, Jesus represents a very interesting specimen, as since he was created at least in part by divine intervention he potentially had entirely unique genes, not derived from any other person.

Slav

yawha wrote: »

did god fertilize an egg of Mary's, or did he implant a special egg into Mary?

The latter is a christological heresy.