‘The Passion’ inaccurately gives Jesus European traits

Columbia, Missouri Daily Tribune ^ | Thursday, April 1, 2004 | Kenya Kimbrough

[rface]

Editor, the Tribune:

I remember when my mother said Santa wasn’t real. Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of the Christ," I suspect, will make some people experience the shock again. Gibson inaccurately depicts Jesus as European, with straight hair and blue eyes. This is a greater distortion than Elizabeth Taylor’s role as Cleopatra.

Long before Hollywood, sculptures and writings portrayed many gods as black, with African features. Buddha had woolly hair with tight curls or cornrows. India’s Krishna means "black" in Sanskrit. Islam’s Muhammad was "bluish" in color with "frizzy" hair. His grandfather was "black as the night." Moses was black, according to early portraits. The title for the Egyptian god Osiris means "Lord of the Perfect Black." The title for Zeus, the greatest of Greek gods, was "Ethiops," which means "burnt faced." Jesus had woolly hair and brass-colored skin.

Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, was populated by men who wore dreadlocks and never cut their hair. Nazarene is from nazar, meaning "unshorn." The next time you see a dreadlocked youth walking down the street, rebelling against society wearing baggy pants and shoes untied, then just think that today’s Jesus might look like him.

Tinseltown is not run by historians but rich actors. Gibson sparked the Second Coming by placing Jesus outside of the "church," and we finally get to openly talk about him as a black man on Earth and not some figment of our imagination.

We survived the truth about Santa. Aren’t we old enough to learn the truth about Jesus, too?

Kenya Kimbrough
American Family Rights Association
Kansas City

[jwalsh07]

Boy, is God gonna be mad at Mel now.

[Sans-Culotte]

Another of those articles that suggests everything great came from Africa. The funny thing is, why did so little of the civilization the Afrocentrists claim originated in Africa stay there? Were they only able to export greatness?

And Cleopatra was descended from one of Alexander's Greek/Macedonian generals (Ptolemy), and the Ptolemeian dynasty primarily inter-married as well.

[rface]

Kenya Kimbrough,

At the risk of sounding racist, I guess I don't have to guess her ethnic origins, do I ?

Kimbrough is probably a close relative of Limbaugh. Spelling is similar

[RightWhale]

Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, was populated by men who wore dreadlocks and never cut their hair.

Was there a Nazareth in those days?

[Faraday]

William Wallace was a black man, too. As was Albert Einstein.

[humblegunner]

Jesus had dreadlocks.

I don' tink so, mon... ;-)

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

YAWWWWN. What is the difference between a Klansman and a Black Supremicists?

Dunno.

I know the only thing they see is "color" and constantly whine about being victims.

[Migraine]

Tinseltown is not run by historians but rich actors.

And the Nation of Islam is not run by historians, but by clowns. The black studies programs of this country are a joke. Very chauvinistic. My question for these dopes is always: if blacks made such advancements in their storied past, if they could build the pyramids and fly around them, what happened to have made them so utterly clueless nowadays? How did they lose all those cutting-edge proclivities? Why can't the continent with every known resource even feed, house and clothe its people (much less take a role in world leadership -- and don't try to tell me Kofi Annan is a leader)? I grow very tired of agenda revisionism like this.

It's almost as if some people think that if they can make Jesus black, that would make their lives better somehow. I think Jesus saw to it that we would not know what He looked like lest it become an issue. Some people manage to make it an issue anyway.

[FormerLib]

Cleopatra was a Ptolemy and they were Greek.

Ok, some Greeks are dark but Black? Sorry, no.

[vae_victus]

I don't know where this person made up this stuff.
Nezer means an unpruned branch.
Moses was not likely black- his sister Miriam taunted him for marrying a black woman- for which God gave her leprosy.
And I did see the movie and Caviezel's eyes are light brown.
Read the Bible, learn all kinds of things.

[Mamzelle]

What a stupid writer--she didn't even check the basic first fact of her essay. The actor is blue-eyed, but wore brown contacts. He also had other features altered to be more Mediterranean. I didn't even recognize him as the "Count of Monte Cristo"--

Aren't these the same characters that just went bonkers over Kidman's fake nose in that Virginia Wolfe movie?

Let's see if we can't get her a job at the NY Times...?

[hellinahandcart]

Gibson sparked the Second Coming by placing Jesus outside of the "church,"

Say what?

and we finally get to openly talk about him as a black man on Earth and not some figment of our imagination.

If that's how you want to occupy yourself during the Second Coming, knock yourself out...

[Inyokern]

Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, was populated by men who wore dreadlocks and never cut their hair.

There is utterly no evidence of that whatsoever.

Nazarene is from nazar, meaning "unshorn."

No it isn't. Unshorn is nazir. Nazareth (Natzrat) means the place of the guard station. Nazarene (nazoraios) probably does not come from either of those words.

[BSunday]

Yes, but somehow I doubt that any of Rush Limbaugh's relatives are named "Kenya"

[lawdude]

OK, its official. Gibson is a lout, a racist, a heathen, a Jew hater and the end of the world is near!

I am going into hiding and will turn into a mushroom.

<czar-casm/

[evets]

[philosofy123]

There are people who who live in this region today who are fair skin, and blond hair, and others who are the majority who have darker skin, and black hair. Most of the darker skin were genetically introduced from the Arabs after they concored that region during the Islamic invasions. During Jesus time, the people in that region were not "majority" dark skinned.

[hellinahandcart]

I think that Kenya Kimbrough is confusing Nazareth with Nazarite (sometimes spelled Nazirite).

I heard one of those Black Israelite nutcases-with-bullhorns claim that "semite" derived from "semi", and that proved that all the Jews were at least half black.

And yes, he really believed it.

[Mamzelle]

I had to laugh--her name could be "Kumbayah"---

[MEG33]

If you google Nazirite,you will see the difference between Nazarene and Nazirite.The site I reached said it may be John the Baptist was a Nazirite but very doubtful Jesus was.