Times Of Swaziland: Was Jesus Christ black?

Was Jesus Christ black?
================================================================================
The editor on 04/06/2012 00:00:00


Sir,
Whether Jesus was white, black or coloured is not as relevant as his mission for
mankind and bringing salvation and deliverance.
I visited a church during Ascension Day and noticed that there was a crucifix
and on it was a statue of Jesus.
What was interesting with this statue was that it was painted black and did not
have that pinkish skin colour with blond hair as seen in other churches.
While I was busy enjoying the proceedings of the church, a child asked her
mother why Jesus was painted.
This made me ask a question many historians have asked, but don’t dare to
research, "Was Jesus Christ of Nazareth black?"
Mankind may never get to know the answer to this question.
Evidence
The Jesus we all know from the images looks more like Australian ‘comedian’
Joe Frogman who recently ‘invaded’ Swaziland to do a movie on the life of
Jesus Christ.
There is a lot of evidence in the Bible as well as history books showing that
the inhabitants of the area Jesus lived in were of mixed race groups.
Jesus was a Jew and like every other Jew, he was even circumcised a few days
after his birth, but was he black.
Worth noting is that there is no verse in the Bible that gives us a physical
appearance of Jesus either in his stature or complexion.
In the book of Psalms, Jesus is described prophetically as ‘fairer than the
sons of men’ and the word fairer could sometimes mean lighter skinned.
It also means ‘better looking’ as opposed to ‘lighter skin’.
Here is a question, "did you know that the accounts of Jesus were already
recorded in Ethiopia and date before the actual accounts recorded in the Bible?"
The only difference is that in the Ethiopian holy manuscripts, Jesus is depicted
as black yet the accounts are identical to the accounts we have today.
In fact some of Jesus’ disciples such as Joseph of Arimathea are believed to
have been black and were friends of Jesus.
Joseph, a wealthy man actually went as far as giving up his own tomb and paid
for the burial of Jesus.
BBC News once reported that Jesus may have been a des-cend-ant of an African
tribe, possibly Nigerian that migrated.
The Bible gives us an account of how Jesus fled to Egypt from his native
homeland after his parents feared he would be killed.
Historically, Jesus lived as a child in Egypt and was able to hide without being
spotted as a foreigner.
If he was able to hide in Egypt, there is a possibility then that he had some
form of African links making him almost ‘incognito’ in Egypt.
Logically
This could mean that he may have had a similar complexion as the Egyptians since
he was able to hide among them.
His great great grandfathers such as King Solomon were also black and logically,
Jesus would not have been any different.
Though Jesus’ description is not clear in the Bible, some biblical individuals
such as the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8:37 may have been black.
The Eunuch was not different than the modern day Ethopian.
We may never know what colour　Jesus was, we can be sure that he only had
one mission, for mankind to have salvation.
Msisz Tembe