this post was submitted on 10 May 2025
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Probably because 95% oft all people in the medieval age and prior (where this specific depiction of portrait-jesus emerged) have never seen a black person all their life - including artists. Can't blame people for drawing people as they know them.
They've seen Arabs and Semites haven't they... The land where jesus is from. Why you talking like jesus is from the heart of Africa
Because many haven't? It's not like people in medieval europe could take a quick trip with ryanair from tel aviv to berlin lmao. Black people in central europe were rare enough that many people have never seen one in their life. Most of them were around the borders of todays southern europe.
I can already tell you're not at all well versed in this topic. Have you heard of a concept called trade mate? Did you know that before the Roman empire even existed a network of trade and safe passage was made that could traverse from China to the furthest western point of Europe including India, the steppes and African trade (east coast). Also you keep going back to 'black people" like wtf is this discount American eugenics take. Bro the religion is middle eastern, people knew what they looked like, there's thing thing called art and sculptures which help those who never seem one understand what they look like. But none of this even matters you turned into a race thing, it was a cultural shift, the 14th century did a white jesus start coming up in some obscure art and didn't really take off till the 20th century (white jesus) Just another fat L, Tel Aviv wasn't a thing back then, tf you choose that awful fucking city full of earth's worst people. call it by it's real name. Jaffa
This is fundamentally incorrect, and I can prove it - better yet, someone else already has in these comments.
Yes. That's why I have never said that nobody has ever seen one. Just that it's a rare occasion.
Because the initial post I responded to was literally "Why he white tho". I didn't start the war.
Catholicism is not middle eastern
Factually untrue - white jesus has already been a thing in the 4th - 6th century - even tho a lot less common. However, agreed that most depictions of white jesus are from that time - which does not change my point at all. They had no way to quickly travel during the renaissance.
No really? Crazy. Do you think ryanair didn't exist back then either? :o
It's almost as if I tried to make funny comparison, not a factual argument.
Classic lemmy.ml L take. I swear you guys are so tiring.
Nah, Europe had black people.
I mean, yes, black people were present but in very small numbers, and their presence was rare enough that they often stood out significantly in the historical record. The most were probably around the southern borders of todays europe, like spain, italy and greece, but black people in todays germany, poland or even further up north were an absolute rarity. Even in southern europe, black people were rare enough that many people only saw a handful of them in their lifetime.
Germany nor Poland made the white jesus, your bringing up an entirely moot point
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmerzensmann
German art of jesus.
I don't know polish so idk what to look for, but I'm very certain I'd find some white jesus art from that timeframe from a polish artist.
Please fuck off, you lemmy.ml people are fucking uninformed beyond imagination but pretend you know everything. You are so obnoxious. Get out of my feed.
Many people only saw a hundred people in their lifetime. Most people were farmers. There were no trains or TV then.
Those people weren't the ones painting paintings and writing stories
Yeah, but these were painted in Italy.
They've barely got any black people even now.
Yeah the Moors controlled the Iberian peninsula for nearly 800 years from 711-1492.
The moors were mostly Arabs and Berbers, though.
Yes, and Jesus was from the middle east, so the people of europe would not be unaware of what people from there might look like.