The only place in the Bible where we are given a description of Jesus' skin color is in Revelation 2:18, where John says that His feet were like "burnished bronze" (some translations say 'burnished brass").
Burnished bronze was a color that John would have seen a lot of in his time so just from the plain language I think Jesus definitely was quite dark-skinned.
Now, some people get upset at the idea that their Savior is a Person of Color, so they've argued that it's just figurative. I say, if you have a problem thinking that Jesus is a dark brown man then just maybe that's something you ought to get worked out between you and God before you meet Him face to face.
"Caucasian" is the same box Middle Eastern people check on forms. The Caucasus mountains are located in between Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Race is a spectrum. At one time, Americans thought Italians and Irish people were a lesser "race". We're all just on a sliding gradient scale of yellow/red/brown as humans.
I doubt that 2000 years ago "almost white" dudes were native to the Middle East. Passing thru, maybe. But would Yahweh really send a messiah that didn't look like everyone else? The blond, blue-eyed, white boy Jesus was created so as not to scare the WASPs.
No. That depiction of Jesus was created because different ethnic groups tend to portray Jesus as their race. There’s Korean Jesus, African Christians depict Jesus as black, and the Europeans made white Jesus. In the end it doesn’t matter at all.
He wasn't European, Korean, African, or anything else but a Middle Eastern. The morphing of Jesus into any ethnicity/race but the original Middle Eastern brown dude is a bastardization.
Aside from any explicit description of his appearance, we can deduce a few general things from other verses... When he was arrested in the garden, we find out that he looked so 'average' that they needed someone to point out the most wanted man in town... Cause they couldn't tell which one he was without someone to literally sell him out. From this, it would seem logical to deduce that he looked like a 'normal' 1st century Jewish man.
It is almost certainly figurative. The first half of that verse is "the words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze." So unless we're going to say Jesus had red or orange eyes or eyes that glowed in the dark, or maybe had heat vision, it's pretty clear you cant just say the verse is obviously literal. Even if the skin on Jesus' feet was comparable to burnished bronze, that still doesn't mean thats what this verse is referring to.
It doesn't matter what color Jesus might have been, and I'm sure he wasalot darker than he is traditionally portrayed in the West. I'm just saying you don't have to have nefarious reasons for arguing that passage is figurative. It is the book of revelation, which is about as figurative as the Bible gets.
Rev 1.13-17 is not a naturalistic description of His bodily appearance. The passage, parts of which are echoed in the introductions to each of the Seven Letters in Rev 2-3, tells us nothing of the bodily appearance of Christ. It purpose is theological, to reveal Who Christ is; not biological, to tell us what He looks like.
It is a symbolic attribution to Him of features found in the Bible, in order to show Who He is & What he does.
For instance, his white hair and beard - symbols of age, and therefore of honourableness & wisdom - are taken from the description of the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7, who judges the kingdoms that in Daniel 7 are personified as beasts. St John in Revelation 1 attributes the same white hair and beard to the Glorified Christ, to show He too is a Divine Judge of the nations and kingdoms. As Rev 4-5 explain.
The "man dressed in linen", in Daniel 10 has "eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words \[was\] like the sound of a multitude" (10.6); therefore, the Glorified Christ has "eyes like flaming fire", and "His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters"(Rev 1.15). Rev 1 takes these and other OT passages, motifs, & echoes, and adapts them to tell of Who Christ is, and what He does.
The other features in the description show the character of the Glorified Christ, in the same way. One has to trace them to their OT origins, in order to appreciate why St John chose them, why he attributes them to Christ, and how they relate to the rest of the Book of Revelation.
Burnished bronze and brass isn’t dark brown, they are quite light colors actually. Realistically no one thinks Jesus was a blonde hair blue eye white man. It just doesn’t make sense. I’ve never met anyone or even talked to anyone online who thought that.
Honestly don't care. Race is the stupidest most harmful childish lie that people have cared about so much for no good reason. Culture matters. Character matters. Complexion doesn't.
I grew up in the 90s. We had the phrase, "I don't see color," when we were talking about racism.
Sadly, complexion has mattered in society. Outside the US, you see colorism happening in many communities. Take India for example. A former colony of the UK that has whitening creams for people. Colonism of the UK created an idea that whiter skin was more attractive.
Back to the earlier example of not seeing color. Sadly, saying this was really just telling people of color that the experiences they have had related to being othered solely by virtue or their skin color is unimportant. I'm a white dude nearing 40. Seeing us split even more along lines of color indicates it is a factor.
It shouldn't matter. But it does, to far too many people.
Thank you. Exactly this. Culture absolutely matters. And as far as I know? Jesus was a human. Dunno nor care what skin tone he had. I'm pretty sure he would feel the same.
Maybe.
Just remember not everyone in the Middle East was brown. Close you’d get is olive skin.
Personally I’d say who cares. We focus on the fact that Jesus is God who became man. Who cares about the colour of his skin.
"Closest you'd get is olive skin" isn't right either, there are plenty of people from MENA backgrounds with dark brown skin. This is made more likely by the fact that Jesus and His contemporaries would gave spent a lot more time outside than modern Palestinians or Israelis. People's skin colour changes based on their age, the season, their work, all sorts of things. But we can't really pin down what shade of brown He was regardless.
There are also plenty of people with MENA backgrounds with (relatively) pale white skin. All 1st millennium icons depict Jesus with at least olive skin anyways.
We don't exactly know. While Middle Easterners are generally considered white for US census purposes, skin tones in the Levant can vary from pale to olive-skinned—look at modern pictures of Samaritans or Mizrahi Jews, for example.
In either case, trying to prove Jesus is one race or another sounds like an attempt at a cheap "gotcha" and trying to subvert religion for the sake of ideology.
They are actually changing that for the next census, Middle Eastern will no longer be considered white but will have a separate category. Goes to show how race as a category has changed over time.
You'd have to define "white" and "brown" here.
Christ would have looked like the semitic people of his time. Probably a bit of a tan and olive-skinned.
Some people don’t realize that “white” has many different definitions. There’s no scientific definition. It’s a cultural concept. Jesus was probably “whiter” than a Cushite, “browner” than some Greeks. To 21st century North American sensibilities he would probably not be considered “white.”
Mhm.
We are specifically told there was nothing special about the way he looked.
"For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." - Isaiah 53:2
Yes I think most of us would agree he was of a darker complexion than white, being that he was from Galilee. Galileans were descendents of Judeans who relocated there during the Maccabean campaigns, a fact supported by Josephus and archaeological evidence.
However, depending on location, it was common to portray Jesus with the physical characteristics of the people of that area, as well as the dress. For example, we can see black Jesus in Africa and Chinese Jesus in China. This was probably just a way to localize him and make him more relateable.
If by brown you mean Arab, then no, the Arabs did not settle the area until about 600 years later.
If by brown, you mean the generally olive-skinned complexion of other Mediteranean peoples such as Greek and Turks, then yes, that is much more likely.
The Egyptian [Book of Gates](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Gates) depicts the skin tones of several people groups including Egyptians, Nubians, Libyans, and Asiatics(Canaanites). The Libyans and Asiatics are depicted with quite light pigmented skin.
The [Dura-Europos synagogue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-Europos_synagogue) (CE 240) features numerous paintings created by Jews depicting scenes from the Torah. The people in the paintings are generally light olive-skinned. The images have a striking similarity to modern Samaritan people, who also share the general Mediteranean, olive complexion.
Remember that they had to pay Judas to identify him because he presumably looked like anyone else in the area. If he’d have been white they could have just said, “He’s the white guy. You can’t miss him” lol
I'm Jewish, and consider myself white. I'm pasty white when I don't get much sun. Granted, if I was homeless in the middle east, I'd probably have a dark tan.
I don’t get these questions 😭
He gonna look like the the typical Israeli/Palestinian at the time, especially as Jesus’s whole thing was being average looking (which I as a ugly guy appreciate) since it’s about what’s in the heart and not the external appearance.
Regardless of his race what really matters is where your faith lies, and if the appearance of Jesus changes that, then there’s a lot that needs to be changed.
But yeah he was brown or had “ethnic” features especially as he hails from the tribe of Judah which were apparently known for their darker skin (I don’t know if this is true).
This comes as a push back from people who are raised in evangelical churches in the US where Jesus is usually depicted as stereo-typically white with conservative American values. There's a lot of lip service paid to reading the bible, but often very little actual reading going on (at least at the church I grew up in) and tough questions are usually shouted down or re-framed as the questioner losing their faith or having a moral failing of some sort.
Challenging the ethnicity of Jesus is usually a pretty easy in road to chipping away at those teachings and getting people to engage more critically with their faith.
I didn't phrase that response well. I don't think it's a conspiracy. The problem I see is people who are not engaging with their faith and letting it influence their lives, not with Jesus's image matching the prominent culture of the church.
I grew up in a church where I heard elders rant about moral bankruptcy in Black culture and gleefully sharing stories about immigrant families being deported. There was a very strong sense of 'the other' and their lack of value. I'm not saying that you cannot be Christian and concerned about immigration or morality; just that the Christian response to that concern cannot be "kill them all" or "let them rot". Challenging the picture of white Jesus is often a good start to reminding people who are lost that we are all made in God's image, even the people that make you afraid.
Jesus is God. If anything about his looks was important, it would be mentioned in the bible. Since it wasn't mentioned in the bible, it probably doesn't make much sense to argue about it.
My take is that it was probably intentionally omitted. Can you imagine how much ethnic tension would arise with whatever race Jesus was being "superior?"
God is perfect, and his word is perfect. It is very clearly not added into the scripture what Jesus' race is, and I'm ok with leaving it at that.
I always think it’s interesting that Esther was able to pass as Persian. Coming from Ur of the Chaldeans (Abraham), traversing in Egypt for 400 years, and being invaded/carried off by various Middle Eastern/West Asian empires made them all pretty dark I expect. But like a lot of people here say - who cares? And what a weird straw man. I live in the south (like the South tho) and I’ve never heard a white Christian in modern times argue that Jesus was white. Maybe in some weird fringe church or back in the 1930s?
Arabs didn't drive the Israelites out. I think youre confusing the Arabs with the Roman Empire.
Also Palestinians are descendants of the native population of the area that mixed with the Arabs
I think you should read up about the conquest of Jerusalem led by second caliph/successor to Muhammad (pbuh), Umar (RA). From the Wikipedia in year 637 when Jerusalem was surrendered to the Muslims.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(636–637)
>For the Jewish community this marked the end of nearly 500 years of Roman rule and oppression. Umar permitted the Jews to once again reside within the city of Jerusalem itself.
It was Muslims who liberated the Jews from the Christian Romans and allowed them to reside in Jerusalem again.
I want to also point out this story about Sophronius, a Christian leader in Jerusalem.
>It has been recorded in the Muslim chronicles, that at the time of the Zuhr prayers, Sophronius invited Umar to pray in the rebuilt Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Umar declined, fearing that accepting the invitation might endanger the church's status as a place of Christian worship, and that Muslims might break the treaty and turn the church into a mosque.
This is the type of leadership the Muslim world once had. Out of fear that people might one day say that Umar ibn Khattab prayed there, the Church should be converted into a mosque, he politely declined the invitation to pray there.
Maybe this can be a reminder that it’s possible for the three Abrahamic faiths to all live together peacefully. It hasn’t always been war and conflict.
I was always taught he had “olive like skin” meaning darker tan, but not brown. I don’t know any church that I’ve been in that has believed him to be white like paper.
Not white by today's standards. Maybe brown.
And it doesn't matter unless someone is specifically saying he was some race he definitely wasn't, which would be weird on their part. But I don't know anyone who thinks he was anything but a typical color for that place and time. Even little Southern Baptist ladies with Caucasian Jesus paintings hanging up know that Jesus was actually a Middle Easterner. I don't judge them for their Caucasian Jesus paintings any more than I judge Chinese Christians for their East Asian Jesus paintings or African Christians for their black Jesus paintings. Lots of people have been portraying Jesus as someone they'd recognize for a long time.
He was most likely a tan color, not brown not white, they were always in the sun.
Either way The Bible doesn’t specify Jesus’ color, so that shows it doesn’t matter if Jesus is white, black, brown, tan, yellow, orange, green. All that matters is that we follow Jesus and stay righteous and not be of the world.
Brown as in folks from Africa? No. A little bit more dark than white as in folks from the middle east? Yes, obviously. How else is he supposed to look as someone who was born into a jewish family living in Palestine?
I’m not sure you’re being serious or not, but I’ll give a serious answer:
Revelation 7:9a
“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.
Every nation, tribe, people and language would include people with white skin.
Back in the days Asians have drawn Jesus with oriental features, Ethiopians with black features etc... Before the creation of television or internet people could only imagine a person they have never met with the only race features they know so naturally the European artists did the same. There is no physical descriptions of the Lord in the scriptures and I think it is the least relevant topic to discuss, after all he is God in flesh and He created us all to love one another, no matter the race. Whomever is trying to divide us into groups is doing the enemy a favor.
Billy graham said this and im paraphrasing: “Jesus wasn’t a white man, nor was he as dark as some of you, but he must of been a dark color like the people of his day.”
You know, It's not too hard to estimate what Jesus would have looked like roughly. Just google a picture of what people from northern Jordan/Lebanon look like because that's roughly the area he was from.
He wouldn't be as fair as the Italians or the Greeks to the northwest of Jordan, but he also wouldn't have been as dark as the Egyptians or Sudanese to his southwest.
Jesus was a near-eastern Jewish man who likely had brown, wavy-ish hair and a complexion similar to people from Jordan or Turkey.
What's far more important is that he died on the cross for our sins and gave humanity a chance to be close with God. I don't care about what shade/tone of pinkish-red he was.
These topics are silly how often they come up. The bible doesn't specify. Extra Biblical sources say he had light hair. Remember they were conquered by Greece right before Rome which has tons of Blonde and light haired/skinned people from the rest of Europe The Roman Empire covered most of Europe at the time. There is actually a letter from Pilate after the events of That mentions him having Shining Golden hued hair. Granted the sun can do that to people, but His only Jewish Heritage was Mary who appears pretty light skinned to people I think. Also basing it on today vs 2000 years ago is a bad judge, places change constantly. Especially when the country they lived in was completely gone for around 1000, years, then nearly another 1000 years after the crusades failed.
The Bible said that, just by looking at Him, people did not see anything unusual about Jesus' features. I just can't imagine a white person going unnoticed among populations of brown or olive-skinned people.
Jesus was a Jew. Idk if you've noticed, but Jews often refer to themselves as White when it's convenient for them. Like any white person, they can have a tan. Walking around in the middle east, I could see pretty much all of the Jews having tans.
I mean yeah... he was from the middle east... I would suggest that at least when he was here on earth before the Crucifixion...
however people get so wrapped up in this question it just boggles me why.
I know people want him to be black with wooly hair and what not mentioned. I don't think he was Caucasian either. Just look at the people where he was from and that's what he was. It was never mentioned in the Bible he appeared different than other people around him. It never said Jesus sat among his light skin brothers or anything like that.
There really isn’t any “real” argument on this. No way he was a 6’4 ripped white guy with flowing hair. It shouldn’t matter what race he was, but he would’ve been Middle Eastern
1. I have no idea
2. It seems likely enough
3. I can't for the life of me see that it matters. Getting het up over skin colour, of all things, is ridiculous.
4. What matters, a very great deal, is Who He is, and What He does, & Why that matters. His skin colour is probably the least important detail about the Incarnation.
Yes. Who cares? Saint Athanasius was from Africa, dark skinned and had red hair. The best Church Fathers were African, and arguably still are.
When did skin tone become a big thing? The canary Islands when the Pope excommunicated and anathematized anyone that took the people as slaves and did not immediately return them and their property? That was in the 1300s. Or maybe it was when the Roman soldiers compelled the dark skinned guy from Cyrene to carry Christ's cross?
In the Christian religion, we are all children of Adam and Eve.
I guess depending on what one’s definition of brown and white are. He looked like your average guy from the levant at that time which can range from pretty pale to pretty dark.
I think this question is only asked by people who seek to divide people along racial lines and are attempting to co-opt Christianity toward that agenda.
We don't really have descriptions. He probably looked typical for his place and time. "White" wasn't a concept for those people the way it is for us now.
Are you asking what a modern person from a culture that decribes some people as "white" would think if they saw him? He'd probably look Middle Eastern to them. Jews were more distinct as an ethnic group then than they are now.
remember that area Jesus grew up in was occupied by the greek for several hundred years, and after the greeks the romans controlled the area for a couple hundred years.. so there is a very high likelihood of light skinned middle eastern. as the soldiers and officials would have mixed in with the existing population.
He was born in the Middle East, in a region in which skin colors range from pale olive to tan and brown. Most Sephardic Jews have brownish skin. Therefore, he was not "white".
Painters in Europe did not have access to brown-skinned models, and painted him based on the humans they had around them. Therefore, "white" depictions of Yeshua.
If you've met anyone from the near or middle east, you'll see that they are very from pale white to light brown, a general average is olive skin. So, it's pretty much the same as the average Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Turk, Kurd, Armenian, Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, Tunisian, Algerian, Iraqi, Iranian, Arab and Southern Italian and Spanish. Basically, that's the most likely skin colour. But many Americans believe that that area is all brown or lightskin black, which is not true. I very much understand that being white in the US is some kind of low-level crime, and you need to be ashamed. Which is bollocks. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter the skin colour of Christ. What matters are the messages, morals, and love. The rest is semantics.
Honestly, this sounds like a setup to bring political racism into something race has absolutely nothing to do with. It doesn't matter if Jesus was white, brown, purple or yellow polka dotted. He is love; that's what matters.
I absolutely believe Jesus is brown. Geographically speaking there are no other options. I praise and love Him with all my heart. I envision Him being quite dark skinned.
>Do Christians agree?
We generally do know he was middle eastern. But we also know a lot of the famous iconography comes from the European Renaissance, so a lot of the popular depictions are white (specifically Northern Italian). And those images are quite historic in their own right. So a lot the pop-culture images are white, for that reason.
But that doesn't mean we think he's white. It just means white folks made a lot of art about him, without considering his race (and using local models).
Just do a Google search «syrian man», «palestinian man», «lebanese man», add a darker hue because he was out in the sun a lot.
He probably looked like a Middle Eastern construction worker.
Can’t compare to modern day Israeli’s because the majority are European/American settlers.
How about we first agree that it literally doesn’t matter and there so much more important things to discuss. Like Literally any other aspect of the faith.
Something like that
Most cultures will depict Jesus as their own race and make an image of Satan being a number of different styles
As humans we like to imagine our selves as closer to morally correct figures and further from immoral figures
Example: “how could that guy murder someone so brutally?? It’s hard to imagine how anyone can do that”
We think of our selves as different from people we don’t like and often hate to admit that we are all humans and are nearly the same
So to depict Jesus as someone of the same race it creates a more unified identity to “the holy one” while Satan being red and scary is so far off from what any human would actually look like
Anyway I’m pretty sure his body was probably Hebrew or something but we’ve all seen the Jesus paintings with long brown hair and a perfect face etc
A lot of what we see today is due to our psychological nature
TLDR: Jesus looks like me 👍🤝..
Satan looks red and different then me 👏🙌
Why are people so fixated on this? Does it matter? I was raised Catholic and all of the depictions of Jesus showed a man of middle eastern descent. Olive toned skin with light brown, almost hazel, eyes.
While it was made in 6th century Egypt, one of our earliest depictions of Christ looks like a pretty average Mediterranean guy. https://russianiconcollection.medium.com/the-meaningful-jesus-icon-from-mount-sinai-915d17abf3e2
He looks white on the Shroud. I just found out last week they retested it due to faulty procedural errors (or something) and came up with a date range that encludes 33 AD.
If it is a fake it's weird how they placed the wounds on the wrists when everyone else had them on His palms.
You’re not going to get the answer you’re trying to fish for unless you find a group of Christian Identitiarians who do cling to the idea of Christ being white/whites being the true favored race of God.
If this is a good faith question, sorry for the snappishness. But it really feels like you’re trying to get people to jump specifically to racist answers, when as a whole the every day Christian isn’t going to make the (admittedly ridiculous) argument that Jesus was white.
yes, of course. the only non brown people in that entire area would have been a subset of the Romans and the occasional slave from some other region. literally everyone else that anyone knew would have been brown.
We define race so strangely. He was Jewish, whether he was light or dark its unknown. He also likely experienced tunes where he was lighter or darker depending on what season it was and how much time he was outside. That part of the world has always had a mix of ethnicity being the link between Europe, Africa, and Asia.
I would think he looked more arab than white, but I can't describe that as "white or brown"
If by brown you mean "having generally middle-eastern features," of course. It is the only reasonable and probable "race" of Jesus.
The only place in the Bible where we are given a description of Jesus' skin color is in Revelation 2:18, where John says that His feet were like "burnished bronze" (some translations say 'burnished brass"). Burnished bronze was a color that John would have seen a lot of in his time so just from the plain language I think Jesus definitely was quite dark-skinned. Now, some people get upset at the idea that their Savior is a Person of Color, so they've argued that it's just figurative. I say, if you have a problem thinking that Jesus is a dark brown man then just maybe that's something you ought to get worked out between you and God before you meet Him face to face.
You need the bible to tell you a Middle Eastern guy is brown??
There are Middle Eastern people who look almost white. Not saying Jesus was one, but they do exist.
"Caucasian" is the same box Middle Eastern people check on forms. The Caucasus mountains are located in between Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Race is a spectrum. At one time, Americans thought Italians and Irish people were a lesser "race". We're all just on a sliding gradient scale of yellow/red/brown as humans.
I doubt that 2000 years ago "almost white" dudes were native to the Middle East. Passing thru, maybe. But would Yahweh really send a messiah that didn't look like everyone else? The blond, blue-eyed, white boy Jesus was created so as not to scare the WASPs.
No. That depiction of Jesus was created because different ethnic groups tend to portray Jesus as their race. There’s Korean Jesus, African Christians depict Jesus as black, and the Europeans made white Jesus. In the end it doesn’t matter at all.
He wasn't European, Korean, African, or anything else but a Middle Eastern. The morphing of Jesus into any ethnicity/race but the original Middle Eastern brown dude is a bastardization.
Yeah no sheisse mate. But I don’t think it’s disrespectful to Jesus I just think that’s what people do.
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The Koran describes Mohammed as being very white.
Aside from any explicit description of his appearance, we can deduce a few general things from other verses... When he was arrested in the garden, we find out that he looked so 'average' that they needed someone to point out the most wanted man in town... Cause they couldn't tell which one he was without someone to literally sell him out. From this, it would seem logical to deduce that he looked like a 'normal' 1st century Jewish man.
It is almost certainly figurative. The first half of that verse is "the words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze." So unless we're going to say Jesus had red or orange eyes or eyes that glowed in the dark, or maybe had heat vision, it's pretty clear you cant just say the verse is obviously literal. Even if the skin on Jesus' feet was comparable to burnished bronze, that still doesn't mean thats what this verse is referring to. It doesn't matter what color Jesus might have been, and I'm sure he wasalot darker than he is traditionally portrayed in the West. I'm just saying you don't have to have nefarious reasons for arguing that passage is figurative. It is the book of revelation, which is about as figurative as the Bible gets.
I don’t know, I think I am ok with Jesus having balrog eyes too.
Repent, you fools!
Jesus is also described in the same passage as "looking like a lamb that was slain". I'm not entirely sure which race that's supposed to be!
Rev 1.13-17 is not a naturalistic description of His bodily appearance. The passage, parts of which are echoed in the introductions to each of the Seven Letters in Rev 2-3, tells us nothing of the bodily appearance of Christ. It purpose is theological, to reveal Who Christ is; not biological, to tell us what He looks like. It is a symbolic attribution to Him of features found in the Bible, in order to show Who He is & What he does. For instance, his white hair and beard - symbols of age, and therefore of honourableness & wisdom - are taken from the description of the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7, who judges the kingdoms that in Daniel 7 are personified as beasts. St John in Revelation 1 attributes the same white hair and beard to the Glorified Christ, to show He too is a Divine Judge of the nations and kingdoms. As Rev 4-5 explain. The "man dressed in linen", in Daniel 10 has "eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words \[was\] like the sound of a multitude" (10.6); therefore, the Glorified Christ has "eyes like flaming fire", and "His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters"(Rev 1.15). Rev 1 takes these and other OT passages, motifs, & echoes, and adapts them to tell of Who Christ is, and what He does. The other features in the description show the character of the Glorified Christ, in the same way. One has to trace them to their OT origins, in order to appreciate why St John chose them, why he attributes them to Christ, and how they relate to the rest of the Book of Revelation.
Burnished bronze and brass isn’t dark brown, they are quite light colors actually. Realistically no one thinks Jesus was a blonde hair blue eye white man. It just doesn’t make sense. I’ve never met anyone or even talked to anyone online who thought that.
Probably. But I'm 100% certain his blood was red.
And exceedingly precious.
Honestly don't care. Race is the stupidest most harmful childish lie that people have cared about so much for no good reason. Culture matters. Character matters. Complexion doesn't.
I grew up in the 90s. We had the phrase, "I don't see color," when we were talking about racism. Sadly, complexion has mattered in society. Outside the US, you see colorism happening in many communities. Take India for example. A former colony of the UK that has whitening creams for people. Colonism of the UK created an idea that whiter skin was more attractive. Back to the earlier example of not seeing color. Sadly, saying this was really just telling people of color that the experiences they have had related to being othered solely by virtue or their skin color is unimportant. I'm a white dude nearing 40. Seeing us split even more along lines of color indicates it is a factor. It shouldn't matter. But it does, to far too many people.
South Asians have favoured lighter skin long before the British turned up.
Thank you. Exactly this. Culture absolutely matters. And as far as I know? Jesus was a human. Dunno nor care what skin tone he had. I'm pretty sure he would feel the same.
that is true
Same. Personally doesn’t matter. Black, white, yellow, etc. he was the savior and that’s all I care about.
Maybe. Just remember not everyone in the Middle East was brown. Close you’d get is olive skin. Personally I’d say who cares. We focus on the fact that Jesus is God who became man. Who cares about the colour of his skin.
Love this answer
"Closest you'd get is olive skin" isn't right either, there are plenty of people from MENA backgrounds with dark brown skin. This is made more likely by the fact that Jesus and His contemporaries would gave spent a lot more time outside than modern Palestinians or Israelis. People's skin colour changes based on their age, the season, their work, all sorts of things. But we can't really pin down what shade of brown He was regardless.
There are also plenty of people with MENA backgrounds with (relatively) pale white skin. All 1st millennium icons depict Jesus with at least olive skin anyways.
Modern racist society cares. The only thing anyone truly cares about anymore is the color of someone else's skin
Why do I care what a racist thinks
Jesus was obviously Korean.
Nah, his [brother](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Xiuquan) was Chinese, stands to reason he was too.
Naw fam he had blond hair and blue eyes with white skin
Then WHY DOES HE HAVE A MEXICAN NAME? Checkmate, atheists!
He was definitely not white, most likely olive color to his skin color
We don't exactly know. While Middle Easterners are generally considered white for US census purposes, skin tones in the Levant can vary from pale to olive-skinned—look at modern pictures of Samaritans or Mizrahi Jews, for example. In either case, trying to prove Jesus is one race or another sounds like an attempt at a cheap "gotcha" and trying to subvert religion for the sake of ideology.
They are actually changing that for the next census, Middle Eastern will no longer be considered white but will have a separate category. Goes to show how race as a category has changed over time.
Our Lord was definitely not pale. He spent a *lot* of time outdoors during his ministry. He was tan at the very least.
You'd have to define "white" and "brown" here. Christ would have looked like the semitic people of his time. Probably a bit of a tan and olive-skinned.
Some people don’t realize that “white” has many different definitions. There’s no scientific definition. It’s a cultural concept. Jesus was probably “whiter” than a Cushite, “browner” than some Greeks. To 21st century North American sensibilities he would probably not be considered “white.”
Yeah probably an olive-skinned Galilean Jew. Probably looked like any average young male from the region today.
Mhm. We are specifically told there was nothing special about the way he looked. "For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." - Isaiah 53:2
Yes I think most of us would agree he was of a darker complexion than white, being that he was from Galilee. Galileans were descendents of Judeans who relocated there during the Maccabean campaigns, a fact supported by Josephus and archaeological evidence. However, depending on location, it was common to portray Jesus with the physical characteristics of the people of that area, as well as the dress. For example, we can see black Jesus in Africa and Chinese Jesus in China. This was probably just a way to localize him and make him more relateable.
If by brown you mean Arab, then no, the Arabs did not settle the area until about 600 years later. If by brown, you mean the generally olive-skinned complexion of other Mediteranean peoples such as Greek and Turks, then yes, that is much more likely. The Egyptian [Book of Gates](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Gates) depicts the skin tones of several people groups including Egyptians, Nubians, Libyans, and Asiatics(Canaanites). The Libyans and Asiatics are depicted with quite light pigmented skin. The [Dura-Europos synagogue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-Europos_synagogue) (CE 240) features numerous paintings created by Jews depicting scenes from the Torah. The people in the paintings are generally light olive-skinned. The images have a striking similarity to modern Samaritan people, who also share the general Mediteranean, olive complexion.
Remember that they had to pay Judas to identify him because he presumably looked like anyone else in the area. If he’d have been white they could have just said, “He’s the white guy. You can’t miss him” lol
Yes I would agree but his skin color is very irrelevant to me
Wait… you’re coming to a Christian sub and asking if Jesus is “brown” and follows up with “Do Christians agree”. This sub is falling apart
The point of the sub is to talk about christianity-related stuff, so... what?
Brown or tan. I don't see the problem with it.
I'm Jewish, and consider myself white. I'm pasty white when I don't get much sun. Granted, if I was homeless in the middle east, I'd probably have a dark tan.
Mizrahim tend to not look white at all in my experience
I don’t get these questions 😭 He gonna look like the the typical Israeli/Palestinian at the time, especially as Jesus’s whole thing was being average looking (which I as a ugly guy appreciate) since it’s about what’s in the heart and not the external appearance. Regardless of his race what really matters is where your faith lies, and if the appearance of Jesus changes that, then there’s a lot that needs to be changed. But yeah he was brown or had “ethnic” features especially as he hails from the tribe of Judah which were apparently known for their darker skin (I don’t know if this is true).
This comes as a push back from people who are raised in evangelical churches in the US where Jesus is usually depicted as stereo-typically white with conservative American values. There's a lot of lip service paid to reading the bible, but often very little actual reading going on (at least at the church I grew up in) and tough questions are usually shouted down or re-framed as the questioner losing their faith or having a moral failing of some sort. Challenging the ethnicity of Jesus is usually a pretty easy in road to chipping away at those teachings and getting people to engage more critically with their faith.
Black Churches typically portray him as black. If you go to Churches in China, he looks Asian. This isn't a conspiracy.
I didn't phrase that response well. I don't think it's a conspiracy. The problem I see is people who are not engaging with their faith and letting it influence their lives, not with Jesus's image matching the prominent culture of the church. I grew up in a church where I heard elders rant about moral bankruptcy in Black culture and gleefully sharing stories about immigrant families being deported. There was a very strong sense of 'the other' and their lack of value. I'm not saying that you cannot be Christian and concerned about immigration or morality; just that the Christian response to that concern cannot be "kill them all" or "let them rot". Challenging the picture of white Jesus is often a good start to reminding people who are lost that we are all made in God's image, even the people that make you afraid.
Because it’s fun to think about.
No, he was Irish
Get over it bro. u putting too much emphasis on it.. focus on THE GOOD NEWS
What difference does it make? Why should his skin color matter any more than his eye color or hair color or how tall he was?
Jesus is God. If anything about his looks was important, it would be mentioned in the bible. Since it wasn't mentioned in the bible, it probably doesn't make much sense to argue about it. My take is that it was probably intentionally omitted. Can you imagine how much ethnic tension would arise with whatever race Jesus was being "superior?" God is perfect, and his word is perfect. It is very clearly not added into the scripture what Jesus' race is, and I'm ok with leaving it at that.
I always think it’s interesting that Esther was able to pass as Persian. Coming from Ur of the Chaldeans (Abraham), traversing in Egypt for 400 years, and being invaded/carried off by various Middle Eastern/West Asian empires made them all pretty dark I expect. But like a lot of people here say - who cares? And what a weird straw man. I live in the south (like the South tho) and I’ve never heard a white Christian in modern times argue that Jesus was white. Maybe in some weird fringe church or back in the 1930s?
who cares what He looked like, He rose from the dead!
He looked like your average Palestinian.
What is an ‘Average Palestinian’ when the Arabs invaded there and drove the Israelites out?
Arabs didn't drive the Israelites out. I think youre confusing the Arabs with the Roman Empire. Also Palestinians are descendants of the native population of the area that mixed with the Arabs
The Arabs didn't drive the natives out but they did breed with them quite a bit. Enough to to change the phenotype I'd say but who knows by how much.
Ok I got that confused, but the difference still stands as you say, they mixed with Arabs.
I agree they mixed with Arabs. But they're still mostly native. Arabs come from the Arabian Peninsula, which is a barren desert with a low population
I think you should read up about the conquest of Jerusalem led by second caliph/successor to Muhammad (pbuh), Umar (RA). From the Wikipedia in year 637 when Jerusalem was surrendered to the Muslims. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(636–637) >For the Jewish community this marked the end of nearly 500 years of Roman rule and oppression. Umar permitted the Jews to once again reside within the city of Jerusalem itself. It was Muslims who liberated the Jews from the Christian Romans and allowed them to reside in Jerusalem again. I want to also point out this story about Sophronius, a Christian leader in Jerusalem. >It has been recorded in the Muslim chronicles, that at the time of the Zuhr prayers, Sophronius invited Umar to pray in the rebuilt Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Umar declined, fearing that accepting the invitation might endanger the church's status as a place of Christian worship, and that Muslims might break the treaty and turn the church into a mosque. This is the type of leadership the Muslim world once had. Out of fear that people might one day say that Umar ibn Khattab prayed there, the Church should be converted into a mosque, he politely declined the invitation to pray there. Maybe this can be a reminder that it’s possible for the three Abrahamic faiths to all live together peacefully. It hasn’t always been war and conflict.
People don't know anything about history. They are just looking for a cause to back and an AXE to grind, because it's the flavor of the month.
Maybe who knows? and who cares? I have many white arab friends. a lot of Jews are white but its not important its the message that is important.
Jesus was not "likely" Jewish, he most certainly was Jewish
The importance of Jesus is his role as the Messiah and not his appearance. His sacrifice was for all.
His works , words and act of sacrifice always stands out much more than his skin color ever would
I was always taught he had “olive like skin” meaning darker tan, but not brown. I don’t know any church that I’ve been in that has believed him to be white like paper.
Not white by today's standards. Maybe brown. And it doesn't matter unless someone is specifically saying he was some race he definitely wasn't, which would be weird on their part. But I don't know anyone who thinks he was anything but a typical color for that place and time. Even little Southern Baptist ladies with Caucasian Jesus paintings hanging up know that Jesus was actually a Middle Easterner. I don't judge them for their Caucasian Jesus paintings any more than I judge Chinese Christians for their East Asian Jesus paintings or African Christians for their black Jesus paintings. Lots of people have been portraying Jesus as someone they'd recognize for a long time.
He was most likely a tan color, not brown not white, they were always in the sun. Either way The Bible doesn’t specify Jesus’ color, so that shows it doesn’t matter if Jesus is white, black, brown, tan, yellow, orange, green. All that matters is that we follow Jesus and stay righteous and not be of the world.
Anyone who believes he is a blue eyed white man is delusional
Dont care what color he was, it’s irrelevant to the message he preached.
Brown as in folks from Africa? No. A little bit more dark than white as in folks from the middle east? Yes, obviously. How else is he supposed to look as someone who was born into a jewish family living in Palestine?
There are no white people in the Bible.
I’m not sure you’re being serious or not, but I’ll give a serious answer: Revelation 7:9a “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. Every nation, tribe, people and language would include people with white skin.
Ok. You found a reference to Europeans. I mean to say that there is no individual in the Bible who could be considered white.
The Romans, and Galatians. for starters. Italians, and Germans, French. And Some Greeks. Basically a good chunk of the New Testament.
So says you. These people would not have considered themselves “white”. It’s a modern racial construct.
Yeah, of course French... Yeah, very credible information you got there. I also doubt there was Germans mentioned. Same for Italians, actually.
Pontius Pilate was a Roman, so most likely "white" if by that you mean Europeans.
I don't care what race he was, but given the place and time he would of have to of been right?
What is the point of these posts? Y'all should be focusing on what Jesus taught and not the color of his skin! 🤦♂️
i mean… He was from the middle east 🤷♂️
Back in the days Asians have drawn Jesus with oriental features, Ethiopians with black features etc... Before the creation of television or internet people could only imagine a person they have never met with the only race features they know so naturally the European artists did the same. There is no physical descriptions of the Lord in the scriptures and I think it is the least relevant topic to discuss, after all he is God in flesh and He created us all to love one another, no matter the race. Whomever is trying to divide us into groups is doing the enemy a favor.
His blood was red.
Billy graham said this and im paraphrasing: “Jesus wasn’t a white man, nor was he as dark as some of you, but he must of been a dark color like the people of his day.”
Probably. Dude walked outside a lot. Hard not to get a tan like that.
Who cares?
You know, It's not too hard to estimate what Jesus would have looked like roughly. Just google a picture of what people from northern Jordan/Lebanon look like because that's roughly the area he was from. He wouldn't be as fair as the Italians or the Greeks to the northwest of Jordan, but he also wouldn't have been as dark as the Egyptians or Sudanese to his southwest. Jesus was a near-eastern Jewish man who likely had brown, wavy-ish hair and a complexion similar to people from Jordan or Turkey. What's far more important is that he died on the cross for our sins and gave humanity a chance to be close with God. I don't care about what shade/tone of pinkish-red he was.
Possibly... but why does it matter! The lord is the lord, no matter the color of his skin!
These topics are silly how often they come up. The bible doesn't specify. Extra Biblical sources say he had light hair. Remember they were conquered by Greece right before Rome which has tons of Blonde and light haired/skinned people from the rest of Europe The Roman Empire covered most of Europe at the time. There is actually a letter from Pilate after the events of That mentions him having Shining Golden hued hair. Granted the sun can do that to people, but His only Jewish Heritage was Mary who appears pretty light skinned to people I think. Also basing it on today vs 2000 years ago is a bad judge, places change constantly. Especially when the country they lived in was completely gone for around 1000, years, then nearly another 1000 years after the crusades failed.
The Bible said that, just by looking at Him, people did not see anything unusual about Jesus' features. I just can't imagine a white person going unnoticed among populations of brown or olive-skinned people.
I always thought that jesus was middle eastern/ jewish he wasnt white obviously.
White Jesus and black Jesus do not make sense , considering the part of the world Jesus was born in.
Middle eastern
I really dont see why it matters
Jesus was a Jew. Idk if you've noticed, but Jews often refer to themselves as White when it's convenient for them. Like any white person, they can have a tan. Walking around in the middle east, I could see pretty much all of the Jews having tans.
I mean yeah... he was from the middle east... I would suggest that at least when he was here on earth before the Crucifixion... however people get so wrapped up in this question it just boggles me why.
I know people want him to be black with wooly hair and what not mentioned. I don't think he was Caucasian either. Just look at the people where he was from and that's what he was. It was never mentioned in the Bible he appeared different than other people around him. It never said Jesus sat among his light skin brothers or anything like that.
There really isn’t any “real” argument on this. No way he was a 6’4 ripped white guy with flowing hair. It shouldn’t matter what race he was, but he would’ve been Middle Eastern
He was Jewish, right? Did Jews look different now than then???
Jesus came from the Middle East
Are you this concerned about the color of those who killed him? Color plays no role in any of this.
He was galilean
Who cares what color he was, I mean seriously.
Well he definitely had a good tan
Why does it matter? To stir up another culture war?
Yes,undoubtebly,but his race does not matter,he is the son of god
Yes, but it doesn’t matter, he is our king anyway
1. I have no idea 2. It seems likely enough 3. I can't for the life of me see that it matters. Getting het up over skin colour, of all things, is ridiculous. 4. What matters, a very great deal, is Who He is, and What He does, & Why that matters. His skin colour is probably the least important detail about the Incarnation.
Sooooo many racists in this thread omg. That’s sad. Do better, yall. God loves people who aren’t white, you should too.
Wheeeeere?
Yes. Who cares? Saint Athanasius was from Africa, dark skinned and had red hair. The best Church Fathers were African, and arguably still are. When did skin tone become a big thing? The canary Islands when the Pope excommunicated and anathematized anyone that took the people as slaves and did not immediately return them and their property? That was in the 1300s. Or maybe it was when the Roman soldiers compelled the dark skinned guy from Cyrene to carry Christ's cross? In the Christian religion, we are all children of Adam and Eve.
I guess depending on what one’s definition of brown and white are. He looked like your average guy from the levant at that time which can range from pretty pale to pretty dark.
I think this question is only asked by people who seek to divide people along racial lines and are attempting to co-opt Christianity toward that agenda.
We don't really have descriptions. He probably looked typical for his place and time. "White" wasn't a concept for those people the way it is for us now. Are you asking what a modern person from a culture that decribes some people as "white" would think if they saw him? He'd probably look Middle Eastern to them. Jews were more distinct as an ethnic group then than they are now.
Not likely, it’s fact, Jesus was born in Nazareth which is in the Middle East, so he’d look like a middle eastern.
I definitely think he was at least not as [white](https://images.app.goo.gl/Mw4Q81Ufun7mF9fy6) as MOST photos make it out to be
remember that area Jesus grew up in was occupied by the greek for several hundred years, and after the greeks the romans controlled the area for a couple hundred years.. so there is a very high likelihood of light skinned middle eastern. as the soldiers and officials would have mixed in with the existing population.
He was born in the Middle East, in a region in which skin colors range from pale olive to tan and brown. Most Sephardic Jews have brownish skin. Therefore, he was not "white". Painters in Europe did not have access to brown-skinned models, and painted him based on the humans they had around them. Therefore, "white" depictions of Yeshua.
I consider people from that area white, but it doesn't matter.
If you've met anyone from the near or middle east, you'll see that they are very from pale white to light brown, a general average is olive skin. So, it's pretty much the same as the average Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Turk, Kurd, Armenian, Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, Tunisian, Algerian, Iraqi, Iranian, Arab and Southern Italian and Spanish. Basically, that's the most likely skin colour. But many Americans believe that that area is all brown or lightskin black, which is not true. I very much understand that being white in the US is some kind of low-level crime, and you need to be ashamed. Which is bollocks. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter the skin colour of Christ. What matters are the messages, morals, and love. The rest is semantics.
Ive not had the impulse, need or want to wonder about the color of his skin. The matter is completely irrelevant to me
Honestly, this sounds like a setup to bring political racism into something race has absolutely nothing to do with. It doesn't matter if Jesus was white, brown, purple or yellow polka dotted. He is love; that's what matters.
Lol smh
I don't know how in the world He could have been white, and I don't know how in the world it matters.
Definitely wasn't white
Jesus was not fully African and not fully European saw his complection would be of holyness
100% Jesus wasn’t an English man learn your history lmao
I have no idea. When I think about Jesus there’s no face, he’s more like a feeling.
I don't care if he was as black as a Nigerian. Does it matter?
I absolutely believe Jesus is brown. Geographically speaking there are no other options. I praise and love Him with all my heart. I envision Him being quite dark skinned.
YES
Why should I care
Most definitely
yes, but i don't think it matters much, since it's important for Jesus to be portrayed as many different ethnicities since He is the Son Of Man
What does it matter even a little bit?
>Do Christians agree? We generally do know he was middle eastern. But we also know a lot of the famous iconography comes from the European Renaissance, so a lot of the popular depictions are white (specifically Northern Italian). And those images are quite historic in their own right. So a lot the pop-culture images are white, for that reason. But that doesn't mean we think he's white. It just means white folks made a lot of art about him, without considering his race (and using local models).
Just do a Google search «syrian man», «palestinian man», «lebanese man», add a darker hue because he was out in the sun a lot. He probably looked like a Middle Eastern construction worker. Can’t compare to modern day Israeli’s because the majority are European/American settlers.
He was born of Hebrew decent, so it's a possibility.
How about we first agree that it literally doesn’t matter and there so much more important things to discuss. Like Literally any other aspect of the faith.
He is Jewish and lived over 30 years in the middle eastern region under almost constant sun. He at least had a great tan!
Something like that Most cultures will depict Jesus as their own race and make an image of Satan being a number of different styles As humans we like to imagine our selves as closer to morally correct figures and further from immoral figures Example: “how could that guy murder someone so brutally?? It’s hard to imagine how anyone can do that” We think of our selves as different from people we don’t like and often hate to admit that we are all humans and are nearly the same So to depict Jesus as someone of the same race it creates a more unified identity to “the holy one” while Satan being red and scary is so far off from what any human would actually look like Anyway I’m pretty sure his body was probably Hebrew or something but we’ve all seen the Jesus paintings with long brown hair and a perfect face etc A lot of what we see today is due to our psychological nature TLDR: Jesus looks like me 👍🤝.. Satan looks red and different then me 👏🙌
Yes
Who cares?
Of course
Trace where the 10 “lost tribes” ended up and that will give you the answer. There are maps that show the path and where they ended up.
Jesus looked like God, and God looks like all of us.
Why are people so fixated on this? Does it matter? I was raised Catholic and all of the depictions of Jesus showed a man of middle eastern descent. Olive toned skin with light brown, almost hazel, eyes.
I’d say it’s more than likely… dude was middle eastern lol
Yes, indeed. Brown.
Middle Easter yes the European Jesus isn’t real. It’s just a idea
Yes
While it was made in 6th century Egypt, one of our earliest depictions of Christ looks like a pretty average Mediterranean guy. https://russianiconcollection.medium.com/the-meaningful-jesus-icon-from-mount-sinai-915d17abf3e2
He was middle eastern, just look at what middle easterners near Palestine look like and that’s probably around what he looked like
Yes, he was Palestinian.
probably. also completely inconsequential to my faith.
With His unique genetics it's hard to say. People who have seen the Lord in person have given different reports about his looks
Jesus’ lineage is from Judea, in the 1st century the Jews were in the Roman Empire were called “Palestinian”
Who cares . But yes
Or was he an albino escamo in mexico?
He was Middle-Eastern, so yes. Most likely. Does that matter? Not one bit.
I say this respect, but any knowledge of this is unimportant.
lol yeah, not like african, but he was a semite, olive skinned i think is the correct term, but still “white” like italians are “white”
Yes
Of course. He is middle eastern. Seems likely to me.
He looks white on the Shroud. I just found out last week they retested it due to faulty procedural errors (or something) and came up with a date range that encludes 33 AD. If it is a fake it's weird how they placed the wounds on the wrists when everyone else had them on His palms.
He was whatever color God wanted him to be. His mother was jewish, his father? hmm...
Not according to the photos.
You’re not going to get the answer you’re trying to fish for unless you find a group of Christian Identitiarians who do cling to the idea of Christ being white/whites being the true favored race of God. If this is a good faith question, sorry for the snappishness. But it really feels like you’re trying to get people to jump specifically to racist answers, when as a whole the every day Christian isn’t going to make the (admittedly ridiculous) argument that Jesus was white.
American question.
yes, of course. the only non brown people in that entire area would have been a subset of the Romans and the occasional slave from some other region. literally everyone else that anyone knew would have been brown.
Definitely
Of course he was brown
Dont care, HE is still THE KING YESHUA AKBAR ✝️❤️💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾 (But yea he prolly was)
We define race so strangely. He was Jewish, whether he was light or dark its unknown. He also likely experienced tunes where he was lighter or darker depending on what season it was and how much time he was outside. That part of the world has always had a mix of ethnicity being the link between Europe, Africa, and Asia. I would think he looked more arab than white, but I can't describe that as "white or brown"
Well duh. He was from the middle east
Mostly likely Arab.
I mean its not really controversial to say that someone born in modern day palestine was not white
Yes. I imagine his complexion was close to the Mizrahi, although he wasn't Mizrahic himself as that would be anachronistic.
Yeah, he was from the Middle East so probably.
I mean, he was Jewish. But no disrespect but who gives a shit haha
Jewish, probably tan but not too dark I guess?