[luvbach1]

Since blue-eyed, blonde and red-headed Jews are not that rare today, geneticists assume some gene-mixing through intermarriage between Jews and Northern Europeans in which Judaism was assumed by the gentile half of the union. In Jesus' time, without such mixng, it is a reasonable assumption that the Hebrews were darker than many Jews of today, but not black.

[abishai]

King David had a ruddy complexion, did that mean red hair? And Jesus is of the line of David...

[jnarcus]

You must not have read the Old Testament cause there are fair skinned red heads there....tribe of Dan

[lepton]

Since blue-eyed, blonde and red-headed Jews are not that rare today, geneticists assume some gene-mixing through intermarriage between Jews and Northern Europeans in which Judaism was assumed by the gentile half of the union. In Jesus' time, without such mixng, it is a reasonable assumption that the Hebrews were darker than many Jews of today, but not black.

On the other hand, doesn't tradition hold that David, one of Jesus ancestors, was red-headed? ...Likely from being part of the "Mixed Multitudes" of Moses time?

[Labyrinthos]

In Jesus' time, without such mixng, it is a reasonable assumption that the Hebrews were darker than many Jews of today, but not black.

The "Semites" generally consist of people whose geneological origin is from the areas now known as Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Southern Greece, Cyprus, and Northern Africa along the Mediterannean Coast. In the centuries before the birth of Christ, Semites crossed the Red Sea and ruled or occuppied what is now Ethiopia, and during that time period there were regular migrations between the two areas. As a result, I suspect that Jesus and other Semites living in the Holy Land during that time period had skin color ranging from light olive to dark brown, just like the Semites of today.