Was Jesus black or middle eastern?

by IsCondescending

We all know he wasn't white, but I hear the black Christians say he was black and the Muslims say he was middle eastern (or "brown" whatever that means).

Bonus question: why do Christians celebrate Easter even though this holiday is not to be found in the Bible?

ballor

We all know he wasn't white

You're making false assumptions. Jesus didn't belong to any race, because the race theory is a social construct that originated in Europe in the time of Enlightenment.

We can't say for sure what skin color Jesus was, but I don't think it matters. Most people in the Levant, where Jesus lived, are rather light-skinned (such as this woman), while people in North Africa and Southern Italy are somewhat darker-skinned. Facial features differ from place to place, but guess they weren't much different from Jews and other Mediterranean nations.

Popular Mechanics did an article in 2002 where they attempted to create an image of what Jesus could have looked like, by analyzing the remains of Iudaean Semites in the first century. They used forensic technology and DNA analysis (which I know very little about, sorry if you have questions about it) to analyze skulls of first century Semites to recreate the supposed image.

They were able to get some idea of his facial and physical features but were unable to recreate his skin color (you can't get that from bones).