Some Children See Him

Some children see Him lily white,
the baby Jesus born this night.
Some children see Him lily white,
with tresses soft and fair.
Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
The Lord of heav’n to earth come down.
Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
with dark and heavy hair.

Some children see Him almond-eyed,
this Savior whom we kneel beside.
some children see Him almond-eyed,
with skin of yellow hue.
Some children see Him dark as they,
sweet Mary’s Son to whom we pray.
Some children see him dark as they,
and, ah! they love Him, too!

The children in each different place
will see the baby Jesus’ face
like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace,
and filled with holy light.
O lay aside each earthly thing
and with thy heart as offering,
come worship now the infant King.
‘Tis love that’s born tonight!

That song has music by Alfred S. Burt and words by Wihla Hutson. It was written in 1951. Obviously, we’ve come a long way since then but not, apparently, in a good way.

I’d thought I was going to steer clear of this topic but this article encouraged me to comment.

There’s been something of a flap about a newsreader’s comment to the effect that, of course, Jesus and Santa Claus were white. Does it really make a difference? I have no problem with German medieval Jesuses, Nigerian Jesuses, or Thai Jesuses. Or Santa Clauses, for that matter.

However, for those of you who are absolutely convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was obviously brown, I have a question: how do you know? We have no contemporaneous photos of him. In the earliest paintings he is sometimes portrayed as white, sometimes as brown, sometimes as black, sometimes even as blue. It seems that what paint the painter had on hand or what satisfied his aesthetic taste was more important than any kind of verisimilitude. If you’re arguing for historical accuracy, again, how do you know?

I’ll give two examples of why we should have no confidence in any kind of pseudo-historical speculations based on backwards extrapolations from present-day experience. First, we should be cautious about drawing any conclusions from geography. Two thousand years ago the people who lived in, say, Idaho might have been the ancestors of the people who lived there two hundred years ago. Or they might not. The more we learn about prehistory the more complicated the genetic picture seems to get. Similarly, what did Jews of two thousand years ago look like? The best answer is that we have no idea.

Most of the present-day residents of the Middle East other than Israeli Jews self-identify as Arabs or Persians. That certainly wasn’t the case two thousand years ago. The Middle East of the early Christian Era was a hodgepodge of Romans (some of whom were blondes), Greeks (some of whom were blondes), Persians, Bedouins, and people whose origins we can only speculate about. They might have been white or brown or black or any color in between. We simply don’t know.

We don’t know what the Jews of 2,000 years ago looked like. The Y-haplogroups of modern Jews appear to be pretty Levantine while their mitochondrial DNA is all over the map. I could produce hundreds or even thousands of photos of Lebanese people who are all shades including white and brown. But what about the Jews of 2,000 year ago? We simply don’t know.

Secondly, DNA testing of remains from two millennia ago won’t tell us what Jesus looked like unless they’re Jesus’s remains (and those would tell us a great deal more). As a rule you can’t infer much about individual genetics based on population genetics. Especially in a crossroads like the Middle East.

All in all I prefer the view expressed in Some Children See Him. Jesus—and Santa Claus—are whatever race and hue works best for you.