White Jesus - Vegan Theory Club

You know that there’s different depictions of Jesus in many races, right? Like, people in Africa have depictions of a black Jesus, for example.

It’s about European churches using historical revisionism (depicting Jesus as a white European) to establish a sense of “superiority”.

Those churches are by far the most dominant

Frankly this comes off almost as a conspiracy theory. Christian art in Europe developed its typical imagery when the vast majority of Europeans could have no direct contact with non-Europeans, before colonialism or coherent ideas about racial identities, when far-off lands were thought to be occupied by one-legged giants…
You know that… Christianity developed in the Roman Empire? The Middle East wasn’t some magical place where giants lived, but a province of said Empire

Christianity developed in the Roman Empire?

I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the pictorial representation of Jesus, not when Christianity itself developed. Christian figurative art in Rome was rare and undeveloped, I highly doubt you have on your mind some examples of Roman portrayal of Jesus that actually support your idea. That’s why I focused on the middle ages, when the typical iconography zook shape - to the best of my knowledge, but maybe I’m talking with an actual art historian in which case you should have no problem with proving me wrong with examples.

I’m also confused about how you actually imagine the development of the supposedly racist Roman images of Jesus went about. At which stage did that happen, before or after Christianity became the state religion? Were Romans racist against the Middle East populations before Christianity too? Were Romans from the Apennine peninsula racist against them based on their darker skin colour, while themselves certainly being darker-skinned than e.g. Gauls?