(February 9, 2015 at 6:28 am)jesus_wept Wrote:(February 9, 2015 at 5:14 am)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote: The theory is that Simon of Cyrene was a black guy from North Africa who was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Of course he could have been of any ethnicity but he's normally depicted as a black guy.
A bit off topic but it always amuses me how Christians change the race of the characters to suit the audience they're preaching to. For instance Europeans think Jesus was a white guy, Middle Easterners think he's a Semite, Africans think he's black, Indians think he was Indian and the Chinese think he looked Chinese. No doubt if Martians ever visited he'd suddenly be a small, green man with eyes on antennas to suit them too.
![[Image: ChineseBiblePictureJesusChristLastSupper.jpg]](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Vqdkgvu1YwY/TX2cZOWY-oI/AAAAAAAAAww/OJWVLPkioeo/s1600/ChineseBiblePictureJesusChristLastSupper.jpg)
That is not something that originated with Christianity, as it was observed about religion long before Christianity existed:
- Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black;
Thracians that theirs are blue-eyed and red-haired. (frag. 16)
But if horses or oxen or lions had hands
or could draw with their hands and accomplish such works as men,
horses would draw the figures of the gods as similar to horses, and the oxen as similar to oxen,
and they would make the bodies
of the sort which each of them had. (frag. 15)
http://www.iep.utm.edu/xenoph/
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
