Q. Was Jesus Black?
(Submitted by: Trifari)
A. Since this Web site recognizes the Bible as the only real, authoritative source of information about Jesus, I will have to answer your question with "I cannot be certain." The Bible gives us almost no physical description of Jesus at all. Jesus, the God who became a man, was a Jew, a member of the tribe of Judah. He was a descendant of David, king of Israel, who was "ruddy":
"And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy [Hebrew - 'admoniy' - meaning "reddish of the hair or complexion], and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he. " (1Samuel 16:11-12)
Note also that Jesus' ancestor was "of a beautiful countenance and goodly to look to", although having beautiful ancestors is certainly no guarantee of how a person looks.
Isaiah gives us the best description of the physical appearance of Jesus:
"For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. " (Isaiah 53:2-3) |
