Was Jesus black? Is God black or white? What about Moses?
Race and religion are two things people can get very passionate about.
Combine them, and you have a recipe for some serious disagreements based on deeply-held personal beliefs and feelings.
Questions about the race of Biblical figures have been around for a very long time.
Interestingly, the Bible makes no mention of Jesus' skin colour, and the Gospels usually seem to not care about mentioning any people's racial features.
Jesus has been depicted in many different ways in art throughout the ages:
As a Middle Eastern Jew, most experts today believe that Jesus would have had what is often called olive, or moderately brown, skin.
The Book of Revelation (1:14-15) has the following description of the Son of Man:
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
Some people insist that these verses, especially the last one, prove that Jesus was black.
They say that brass turns black in a furnace, and if Jesus' feet looked like that, then the rest of his body must have, as well.
But other people disagree, saying that this is a description of Jesus in his Heavenly form, and does not tell us anything about what he looked like while he was living on earth.
In 2001, forensic scientists used their skills, and knowledge of what people looked like in the time and place Jesus lived, to come up with an image of what they think he probably looked like:
This image matches the olive-skinned theory mentioned earlier. Something interesting to note is Jesus' short hair in this image. Although he has often been shown with long hair, exerts believe that he really had short hair, as it was considered disgraceful for men to have long hair in the society in which Jesus lived.
It's not likely that people will ever agree on the colour of Jesus' skin. Whatever he looked like, Christianity has managed to spread and be successful among people of all races and skin colours.
And while the debates about this issue will continue, there are other famous Christian figures about whom there is no doubt about their Africanness.
One example is St Augustine of Hippo, an early Church Fathers and one of the most influential people in the history of Christianity.
He famously considered himself "an African, writing of Africa, or at any rate, with that flat nose you see in Africans".
Another figure is someone named St Moses the Black. No doubts about his race!
SunReaders, do you think that the issue of race is important in religion? Do you think it's bad that most art shows Jesus with very light, white skin? Let us know in the comments!
