logo

Has almost all Western art shown Jesus as a white man?

Wednesday, July 1, 2020
By Miriam Himelstein
YES

Throughout the history of Europe and the lands it colonized, Jesus Christ has predominantly been portrayed as a white man. This can be traced back to some of the oldest known portrayals of Christ, from the early third century, with Christ depicted as having light skin and European features.

There is no scientific evidence of what Christ really looked like. Many historians believe that, based on his supposed lineage and geographic origin, Christ was likely similar in appearance to other Middle Eastern Jews, with olive skin, dark hair, and brown eyes.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
facebook
twitter
email
email