The magazine Christianity Today has stirred up the social media with their article about photos depicting Jesus looking like an Oriental. Well, Jesus was from west Asia, the Orient. Why was it more offensive to portray Jesus as looking like a Chinese than depict him looking like white European?
1828 Webster's English Dictioanry -
"ORIENT'AL, n. A native or inhabitant of some eastern part of the world. We give the appellation to the inhabitants of Asia from the Hellespont[Dardanelles] and Mediterranean to Japan."
Encyclopedia Britannica
"Near East, usually the lands around the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, including northeastern Africa, southwestern Asia, and, occasionally, the Balkan Peninsula. The term Near East was used by the first modern Western geographers to refer to the nearer part of the Orient, a region roughly coextensive with the Ottoman Empire. Since World War II, the name has been largely supplanted by Middle East (q.v.), though frequently they are used interchangeably."
Bible commentaries often refer to Israel as an Oriental nation. I suppose Jesus looked like most men in Palestine today, adjusted for typical clothing, beard and hair styles of the 1st century. Maybe it is good the Bible did not give us a description of Jesus so we can picture him exactly.
1828 Webster's English Dictioanry -
"ORIENT'AL, n. A native or inhabitant of some eastern part of the world. We give the appellation to the inhabitants of Asia from the Hellespont[Dardanelles] and Mediterranean to Japan."
Encyclopedia Britannica
"Near East, usually the lands around the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, including northeastern Africa, southwestern Asia, and, occasionally, the Balkan Peninsula. The term Near East was used by the first modern Western geographers to refer to the nearer part of the Orient, a region roughly coextensive with the Ottoman Empire. Since World War II, the name has been largely supplanted by Middle East (q.v.), though frequently they are used interchangeably."
Bible commentaries often refer to Israel as an Oriental nation. I suppose Jesus looked like most men in Palestine today, adjusted for typical clothing, beard and hair styles of the 1st century. Maybe it is good the Bible did not give us a description of Jesus so we can picture him exactly.