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Who can forget when the former Fox News host Megyn KellyĀ declaredĀ in 2013 that Jesus, like Santa Claus, āwas a White man, too,ā and āthatās a verifiable fact,ā a remark she later said was meant in jest.
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First, while the classic Nordic Jesus remains a popular image today in some churches, a movement toĀ replace the White Jesus has long taken root in America. In many Christian circles āĀ progressiveĀ mainline churches,Ā churches of colorĀ shaped by āliberation theology,ā and amongĀ Biblical scholarsĀ ā conspicuous displays of the White Jesus are considered outdated, and to some,Ā offensive.Ā In a rapidly diversifying multicultural America, more Christians want to see a Jesus thatĀ looks like them.
But in some parts of the country, the White Jesus never left. TheĀ spread of White Christian nationalism has flooded social media feeds withĀ imagesĀ of the traditional White Jesus, sometimes adorned with a red MAGA hat. Former President Trump is selling a āGod Bless the USA Bibleā with passages from the Constitution and Bill of Rights ā a linking of patriotism with Christianity that reinforces a White image of Jesus that is central to Christian nationalism.
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BlumĀ says the image of a White Jesus has been used to justify slavery, lynching, laws against interracial marriage and hostility toward immigrants deemed not White enough. When Congress passed a law inĀ the early 20thĀ centuryĀ to restrict immigration from Asia, Southern and Eastern Europe, White politicians evoked the White Jesus, he says.
āOne of the arguments was, āWell, Jesus was White,ā āā Blum says. āSo the theme was, we want America to be profoundly Christian or at least Jesus based, so we should only allow White people in this country.ā
The MAGA movement uses the image of a White Jesus to weaponize political battles, he says, pointing to signs at the January 6 insurrection displaying a White Jesus, sometimes wearing a red MAGA hat. To Blum, some Christian conservatives see a White MAGA Jesus as āan anti-woke symbol.ā
Not really. Look closer at the tzaraat āleprosyā where they are performing skin checks regularly looking for irregular and spreading marks:
https://www.thetorah.com/article/tzaraat-as-cancer
You can see there was a white ancestral minority population in ancient Judea given 2 Kings 5:27
But when we look at accounts before the captivity, a different picture emerges given Lamentations 4:7
In fact, in one of the Dead Sea scrolls (4Q534) it claimed Noah was a redhead.
Whatās probably going on is a revisionary rewriting of history shortly before the Bible as we know it is finalized. Josiah is allegedly introducing reforms opposing the traditions of Jeroboam (described as the son or grandson of a maternal leper), but the reforms appear anachronistic for Josiah given the communications between Elephantine and Jerusalem a century after his reign that donāt reflect them.
We can even see that in between the time the LXX (Greek version) is written and the later Masoretic version that thereās been rewriting of history around Jeroboam in 1 Kings 11-14 which has events attributed to him (sometimes doubled up) in the earlier version attributed to others in the later version. As Idan Dershowitzās book on the topic discussed, early Biblical edits may have been literally copy and pasted together, and one of the tells are duplicate stories.
Personally, I think thereās something to Hecateus of Adberaās claim that the history of the Jews had recently been edited and changed under Persian and Macedonian rule.
In particular, weāre now finding rather extensive evidence of sea peoples settlement and cohabitation around the early Israelites, with the Denyen as actually a great fit for the lost tribe of Dan, and there may well have been an endogamous matrilineal minority population in Judea that persisted throughout the ages.
And in general, you might be surprised at how ancient peoples might have looked in antiquity. Ramses II in his forensic report was described as having pale skin and red hair (not just dyed with henna but at the actual root), like the neighboring Libyan Berbers. Or the indigenous Ganache of an African isle.
We tend to mess up how we think people looked or underappreciate how diverse populations may have been because of anachronistic back projections.