Just in case you were wondering, Jesus was a blonde. This fact was confirmed when I visited Christ Church yesterday - in the affluent Sheffield suburb of Dore. There was Jesus in a stained glass window looking very holy and as blonde as many Scandinavians. It made me wonder - did Jesus come from Denmark?
To tell you the truth, I do not think about Jesus very often and I have certainly never asked him to come into my life or anything like that. To me, he's just a heroic character in a story that may or may not have had its seed in long ago happenings during the Roman occupation of Palestine. That tale was later embellished by storytellers, medieval monks and others with vested interests in perpetuating the Jesus legend - including The Romans.
In Egypt, a civilisation flourished for two thousand years before Jesus was allegedly born in Bethlehem. How did they cope without his presence? The same over in China - five thousand years of civilisation before so-called missionaries arrived with the tale of Jesus. And then there were the Aztecs, the Incas, the Khmers, ancient cultures on the Indian subcontinent. All of them seem to have evolved and thrived without the Christian God and his only begotten son. How did they do that?
I looked up to The Blonde Jesus in Dore church and asked for explanation and enlightenment but Blonde Jesus never answered me. If the truth be known, he never does respond. It's all just imagining and wishful thinking.
I am sorry if this blogpost has offended any Christian believers and practitioners who visit this humble Yorkshire blog. I know that there are a few of you out there. Were you aware that Jesus was a blonde and not a swarthy, dark-haired middle-easterner?
Have you ever read "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore? I think you might like it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pixie. I will keep it in mind.
DeleteLike you, YP, I am atheist and have always been such. It pleases me that my parents did not christen me. I don’t understand why people believe or pray but if that works for them why not. It does, however, annoy me when people say that we are all spiritual even if we don’t recognize it. Rubbish I say. Similarly I would never say that people who say they believe are lying.
ReplyDeleteLove the buildings and spend a lot of my time trying to protect my local church.
Do you stand outside it every night with an Alsatian and a shotgun?
DeleteNo shotgun and dog 😃 I meant preserve not protect
DeleteSo you have a tanker of formaldehyde next to the lychgate?
DeleteI was going to start with “oh Lord above, I raise money to…” but then realized that would somewhat go against my atheism. No lychgate at my village church but some very impressive C13th wall paintings.
DeleteBlonde? . . . . or simply a Bottle Blonde?
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should quiz his hairdresser if she is still around.
DeleteWow, Jesus looks like a Viking here. Haha.
ReplyDeleteDon't be daft Jennifer! If he was a Viking he'd be wearing a helmet with horns.
DeleteActual Vikings did not wear horns on their helmets.
DeleteOh yes they did. I have seen photos!
DeleteNo offense taken. In my mind Jesus IS a swarthy, dark-haired middle-easterner.
ReplyDeleteI saw a clip last night where Paula White, Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office (whatever that is), was comparing Trump to Jesus, saying "You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It's a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us. Because of His resurrection, you rose up." Now I DO find that offensive.
Grrr! Trump was not "falsely accused". He was justly accused. In fact there are many more crimes in his file.
DeleteJesus also had Blue eyes in America.
ReplyDeleteI never realised that Jesus went to America! Was he with Christopher Columbus?
DeleteI like my Jesus darak and swarthy, thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhile I give little thought to Jesus, or God for that matter, I do use their names often enough. Well, that was more in the past.
You mean you used those names as cuss words?
DeleteIt's obviously a stylised representation.
ReplyDeleteGood Friday is my favourite day of the year, all the same.
My high school music teacher, just turned 88, has flown to Tokyo for week specifically to go to a performance today of the St Matthew Passion by the Bach Collegium Japan.
"Stylised representation"? No way! Surely it's entirely accurate - based on photographic evidence. Nice to hear your old high school music teacher is still going strong and that you are still in touch.
DeleteBeing born in a middle east country, Jesus was most certainly brown skinned and dark haired. He may have even been a real person who did such good things among the peoples that a legend grew and was later taken over by those who believe he performed miracles and it just ran from there to what we are told today.
ReplyDeleteWhat you say fits with my thinking Saint Elsie.
DeleteWell his mother would have been dark haired and certainly not light skinned but that’s only half of his DNA. Isn’t it necessary to factor in the father’s DNA as well?
DeleteAre you saying that God is Swedish?
DeleteThey say we create God in our own image so a blonde white man seems fitting in your part of the world.
ReplyDeleteI do regularly get frustrated that you seem to want to belittle the people of faith but you managed to avoid that today.
My beloved father was a "believer". I never wish to belittle "people of faith" - just to point out the illogicality of it all and the great harms that religions have caused through history.
DeleteMaybe I'm projecting.
DeleteCertainly religion has done plenty of harm
Yes. I think you are "projecting" Kylie. I accept that it is far trickier than it used to be to subscribe to Christianity.
DeleteJesús era español. Nació en Benidorm.
ReplyDeleteBenidorm sounds a bit like Bethlehem. It would be easy to get confused.
DeleteI'm not going to comment on Blonde Jesus, but I have been thinking of our mutual blogging pal Tasker Dunham. Have you heard/read anything from or about him lately, Neil?
ReplyDeleteI have searched and googled and everything Meike. Nothing. But I do know that his real name was/is Robert Ward and that he lived/lives in the village of Shepley south of Huddersfield. I miss him.
DeleteMe too. Thank you. Please let me know when/if you find out more.
DeleteI used the word "swarthy" the other day and my daughter reprimanded me saying it is no longer PC to say that word. Like so many words our generation grew up with and cannot now use. I certainly cannot visualise Jesus as blonde - I think of Middle Easterners as dark-haired. Unless, as you say, his parents were Scandinavian.
ReplyDeleteAre we still allowed to use the terms "parents" and "daughter"? I mean, they could easily upset the hyper-P.C. brigade.
DeleteThe authors of the four gospels in the New Testament give no physical descriptions of Jesus. What made him stand out to them were his words and actions, not his physical appearance. (What artists through the centuries envisioned is up to them...)
ReplyDeleteAs a Jewish man of that time and region, he likely had olive-toned skin, dark eyes, and dark, short hair. It was also the custom for Jewish men to wear beards.
DeleteI totally agree with everything you stated. I remember when I was in Peru, we were visiting a famous Catholic cathedral in Cusco. Our guide told us that whenever possible, the Spaniards would build their churches on top of Incan sacred monuments to show their superiority over the Incan people. I learned the same thing in Greece about Christians tearing down Greek statues to the Gods. In my mind, it is just one religion supplanting the other.
ReplyDeleteMany old English churches are built on sites that had significance for our pagan ancestors.
DeleteIllustrations of any historic figures are subject to the accepted norms of the period. We have no real idea of how anyone looked before photography, as even painters could often be expected to conform to the ideals of the day. It is all subjective.
ReplyDeleteSome of that subjectivity has obvious cultural bias.
DeleteI often call the blonde version of Jesus "white hippie Jesus". I truly wonder how Christianity took such a hold on some of the Earth's population and yet, it did. The entire basis of it which is that El Christo was crucified BECAUSE OF OUR SINS HIS FATHER HAD CAUSED US TO BE BORN WITH which took away our sins so we could go to heaven. Proof is that he rose from the dead. And it only works if you believe in him. Jesus. Or God. Or the Holy Trinity. What IS the Holy Ghost?
ReplyDeleteNone of this makes a lick of sense and so, in a way, Blonde, White, Hippie Jesus is just as believable as anything else about the whole deal.
Long before color photography.
ReplyDelete...in a land far away.
DeleteBlond Jesus was certainly a character in my upbringing, being a fixture in many suburban churches and living rooms in the South back in the '70s. None of us kids ever thought to question whether he actually looked like that.
ReplyDeleteMy mom always told us that Jesus and his teachings are meant to be metaphorical messages for how we should live righteous, moral lives -- taking care of our neighbors and the poor, resisting political oppression, that kind of thing.
You had a wise mother but I follow those tenets without any need for Christian guidance.
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