Jesus Was Not White

Jesus was not White.

He wasn’t Black, either.

Jesus was Middle Eastern.

Biblically, he was descended, not from Japheth, nor from Ham, but from Shem.

Historically, he lived, not in Europe, nor in Africa (though he did spend some time in Egypt as an infant), but in the Middle East.

A Galilean man

Physically, he probably had olive skin, brown eyes, and brown to black hair, similar to this modern reconstruction of a Galilean man created by forensic anthropologist Richard Neave. (See: What did Jesus really look like? By Joan Taylor, BBC News, 24 December 2015. See also: Wikipedia: Race and appearance of Jesus.)

Does this mean it’s wrong to picture Jesus as White, or as Black? Do we all have to start picturing Jesus as a Middle Eastern man?

I don’t think so. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The Hebrew Table of Nations

The sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was peopled. (Genesis 9:18–19)

This is the basis for the Hebrew Table of Nations. It is spelled out more fully in the genealogy in Genesis 10. As seen in this map, Shem was considered the ancestor of the Semitic peoples, Ham of the Hamitic or African peoples, and Japheth of the Indo-European peoples.

In simple terms, based on common present-day racial categories, if Jesus were White, he would have been descended from Japeth. If he were Black, he would have been descended from Ham. But Jesus was descended from neither of these. As covered extensively in biblical genealogies, Jesus was descended from Shem, meaning that in today’s terms, he was Middle Eastern.

It is true that Jesus lived in Canaan, which was originally populated with Hamitic peoples. However, as covered in Genesis 11:27–12:9, his people originally came from Chaldea, in present-day southern Iraq.

It is also true that there was some intermarriage with Hamitic peoples in the early lineage of the Jews. For example, in the book of Genesis the wife of Joseph, one of Jacob’s twelve sons, was Egyptian. This means that Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh, to whom two of the tribes of Israel trace their lineage, were half Egyptian (see Genesis 41:45, 50–52).

However, over time strictures developed against intermarrying with the existing inhabitants of the Land of Canaan. See, for example, Genesis 28:1, Deuteronomy 7:1–4. This tended to keep the Israelites distinct as a cultural and ethnic group. (But see also Deuteronomy 21:10–14, which does allow an Israelite man to marry a foreign woman under certain circumstances. There was not an absolute prohibition on intermarriage with people of other races and nations.)

As a people, the Israelites, and later the Jews, strongly identified with their Semitic heritage. Right up to New Testament times, and even to today, they see Abraham as their ancestor. And Abraham was descended from Shem, not from Ham or Japeth.

Jesus’ ancestry

This applied to Jesus as much as to any other Jew, as encapsulated in the very first verse of the New Testament:

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1)

It is true that the genealogy that follows (Matthew 1:1–17), and also the genealogy in Luke 3:23–38, are presented as genealogies of Mary’s husband Joseph—who, according to the accounts of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke, was not Jesus’ biological father. But Mary, his biological mother, was also an Israelite, likely from the tribe of Levi, since her relative Elizabeth was a descendent of Aaron, of the Levite tribe (see Luke 1:5, 36–40).

Bottom line: Jesus was a Jew, and the Jews were Semites, not Hamites or Japhethites. Or in today’s language, he was a Middle Easterner, not a Black or a White.

Today’s Jesus is not the son of Mary

Does this mean we must all picture Jesus as a Middle Easterner? Does it mean that all Christians must picture an olive-complected, brown-eyed, dark-haired Christ?

Once again, I don’t think so.

You see, the Jesus Christians pray to is not the Jesus who was the son of Mary.

Yes, he is the same Jesus who walked on our earth and spoke the words recorded in the Gospels, who was born of Mary.

But as the Bible tells us, and as I believe, Jesus went through a process of “glorification,” in which he became divine and one with the Father. In other words, by the time he rose from the dead and ascended to the Father, he was no longer human as we are, but was instead a divine human being. This necessarily meant leaving behind everything of the limited, created human nature he received from his human mother Mary. For more on this, please see:

What Does it Mean that Jesus was “Glorified”?

It was from Mary that Jesus received his biological heritage. It was from Mary, and from his adoptive father Joseph, that he was a Middle Easterner and a Jew.

In other words, although Jesus lived on earth as a Middle Easterner and a Jew, he no longer is. Now he is fully God, having become fully united with the divine soul (“the Father”) from whom he came, and which was his own inner self. And God is not limited by any race or ethnicity. God is the God of all people, of every race and nation. Jesus is the one God of heaven and earth. Please see:

Who is God? Who is Jesus Christ? What about that Holy Spirit?

Picturing Jesus

Jesus depicted as being of various races (image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org)

This means that although the historical Jesus was Middle Eastern, today we can picture Jesus in heaven as any race we want. Jesus is God. God encompasses all races.

Personally, being a White person of European stock, who grew up in a mostly White American church organization, all the artwork of Jesus I saw was of a white man, making it easiest for me to picture Jesus that way.

But that’s just me. When I was in fifth grade growing up in the state of Missouri, I had a Black teacher, Miss Evans. I vividly remember one day when she assigned us to read the short story, “The Boy who Painted Christ Black,” by John Henrik Clarke, which was originally published in 1940. In it, a boy in a school for Black children in the southern U.S. paints a beautiful picture of Jesus as a Black man. Even at that young age, I found this idea fascinating!

Ever since then, I have felt that it is perfectly fine for Christians of any race to picture Jesus as being of their own race, even though for most us, the historical Jesus wasn’t our own race. God can appear to us personally in whatever form we find most approachable, understandable, and lovable.

In fact, when Annette and I were living in Africa, I always thought it was strange to see pictures of a White Jesus on the walls of some of the Black churches there. It didn’t seem right. I understand historically how this happened. Christianity did become a predominantly European religion for many centuries. It was European and American missionaries who spread Christianity to Africa, bringing their White Jesus with them. But in its origins, Christianity was Middle Eastern, not European. And Jesus simply wasn’t a white man.

Christians can picture Jesus however they want. But when I see artwork of a Black Jesus in a Black church, it makes me happy. Jesus is speaking to the people of that church just as Jesus speaks to the people of the church in which I grew up: in their own culture and language.

For further reading:

• Who is God? Who is Jesus Christ? What about that Holy Spirit?
• What Does it Mean that Jesus was “Glorified”?
• A Swedenborgian in Dialog with Black Consciousness and Black Liberation Theology
• The Logic of Love: Why God became Jesus
• How does Jesus Appear to Us? Can We See God Face to Face?

About Lee

Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.