A poster in the southern Spanish city of Seville that depicts a young, handsome, Jesus wearing only a loincloth has unleashed a storm on social media.

A poster in the southern Spanish city of Seville that depicts a young, handsome Jesus wearing only a loincloth has unleashed a storm on social media, with some calling it an affront to the figure of Christ and others posting lewd remarks and memes poking fun at the image.

The poster by internationally recognized Seville artist Salustiano García Cruz shows a fresh-faced Jesus without a crown of thorns, no suffering face and minuscule wounds on the hands and ribcage. It was commissioned and approved by the General Council of Brotherhoods, which organizes the renowned and immensely popular Holy Week processions ahead of Easter in Seville.

As soon as it was unveiled last week criticism of it went viral on social media and a debate erupted over how a resurrected Christ should be depicted. Many called it a disgrace, inappropriate, too pretty, modernist and out of line with Seville’s Easter tradition.

Spain is predominantly Catholic and church traditions such as marriage, baptisms and religious parades are immensely popular both among believers and nonbelievers. A campaign on Change.org to have the poster of Jesus withdrawn was signed by some 14,000 people from around the country.

    • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
      137·
      9 months ago

      People really need to drop the whole “people in the middle east in the first century couldn’t be white” thing.

      2 Kings 5:27 is literally about a subpopulation who have ancestrally passed skin as white as snow.

      Lamentations 4:7 is about how pre-captivity there were people with skin like milk and a ruddy appearance.

      Dead Sea Scroll fragment 4Q534 is either describing Noah or the Messiah as having red hair.

      One of the more fascinating finds in this tomb, one that has not received much attention, was the preservation of a sample of Jewish male hair. The hair was lice-free, and was trimmed or cut evenly, probably indicating that the family buried in this tomb practiced good hygiene and grooming. The length of the hair was medium to short, averaging 3-4 inches. The color was reddish.

      The tradition is also really concerned with skin checks and describes what may be skin cancer as its leprosy. Something that occurs at a much higher rate in redheads.

      There’s even a scene where the eponymous founder of Edom (‘red’) who is born with hair all over his body and named Esau either because of that hair or the reddish porridge he ate, either gives away or has his birthright/blessing stolen from him by the guy later renamed ‘Israel’ in the Bible.

      There’s a lot more to this and the underlying history, but the notion that the middle east was a monolith of appearances and that no one with pale skin or lighter hair were present is preposterous and a modern falsification of historical realities.

      Jesus was probably darker skinned and haired than typically depicted, but it is by no means a certainty as it is popularly presented as.

      • Kellamity@sh.itjust.works
        8·
        9 months ago

        Because its really not about whether or not the historical Jesus was or could have been white - its about the fact that white cultures will almost exclusively portray Jesus as being their own race for reasons that have nothing to do with historical interpretation of demographics is the middle east in ~0ad

        People calling out White Jesus arent doing so because of a ‘notion that the middle east was a monolith of appearences’, but instead because of a hypocrisy of many Christian groups - in particular in the evangelical American right - to almost literally whitewash Jesus to look more like themselves, while often dehumanizing the people that look like Jesus ‘probably’ looked like.

        Its really not about a historical question of the average middle-eastern skin colour two millenia ago. I assure you that the vast majority of ‘White Jesus’ portrayers have not engaged with that question and do not care about the answer. So to look to that as a refutation of the criticism is really missing the point.

      • butterflyattack@lemmy.world
        3·
        9 months ago

        Yeah Herodotus talks about a lot of peoples with different physical characteristics too. Although TBF like the old testament, it’s written centuries before Jesus, I’m not sure the same applies to both time periods.

        • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          9 months ago

          Possibly. I wouldn’t put money on it, but if the odds were asymmetric enough I wouldn’t put money against it either, as I do think it’s possible.

          In particular I think there’s insufficient consideration of the “Nazirite from birth” concepts in light of how one might establish that a baby is part of a social class one needs to sacrifice an entirely red haired cow to join and where one can’t shave or cut their hair.

          (Technically, while the group being discussed in Lamentations 4:7 as being ruddy and skin like milk pre-captivity are often translated as ‘princes’ the word is more literally translated as “Our Nazirites were…”).

          If John was a Nazirite from birth, and traditionally James, the brother of Jesus was a Nazirite his whole life, maybe Jesus was from an area where a number of babies came out and people looked at them and said “ok, this one is going to be a Nazirite.”

          But Jesus himself isn’t depicted as having been a Nazirite at any point in his life so if I really had to get specific with a guess to bet on, I’d wager that Jesus had relatives and friends that may have been ginger but wasn’t one himself.

          • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
            1·
            9 months ago

            I met a guy from Nazareth. Arab, but basically white. Maybe you’d think Portuguese if you didn’t recognise the accent. Nice guy, don’t know what happened to him but I guess he finished his degree during COVID and went somewhere.

      • Sunfoil@lemmy.world
        43·
        9 months ago

        Man you brought receipts big time and still got downvoted. I guess Lemmy likes their race based attacks on religion too much to care.

        • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
          12·
          9 months ago

          Yeah, and one of the biggest ironies to it all is that given the various contexts informing those receipts, my money would overwhelmingly be on the red hair in the region having come from the indigenous populations of North Africa, so if Jesus were fair skinned and red haired it would mean he had African ancestry.

          So the desire to sweep the notion under the rug is effectively yet another instance of the erasure of African history in Western cultures.

          ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  • Jubei Kibagami@lemmy.world
    18·
    9 months ago

    Reminded me of this passage:

    "You’ve never seen a crucifix with a Jesus who wasn’t almost naked. You’ve never seen a fat Jesus. Or a Jesus with body hair. Every crucifix you’ve ever seen, the Jesus could be shirtless and modeling designer jeans or men’s cologne…

    Nobody wants to worship you if you have the same problems, the same bad breath and messy hair and hangnails, as a regular person. You have to be everything regular people aren’t. Where they fail, you have to go all the way. Be what people are too afraid to be. Become whom they admire. People shopping for a messiah want quality. Nobody is going to follow a loser. When it comes to choosing a savior, they won’t settle for just a human being."

    -Survivor by Palahniuk

  • brothershamus@kbin.social
    151·
    9 months ago

    But Jesus’ light skin and blues eyes suggest that he is not Middle Eastern but European-born. And the faux-Hebrew script embroidered on Mary’s cuffs and hemline belie a complicated relationship to the Judaism of the Holy Family.

    In Mantegna’s Italy, anti-Semitic myths were already prevalent among the majority Christian population, with Jewish people often segregated to their own quarters of major cities.

    Oh yeah

    • Graphy@lemmy.world
      31·
      9 months ago

      You’ve gotta remember that Jesus is half god and as we know god is white.

  • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
    9·
    9 months ago

    The artist says he used his son as a model: https://elcorreoweb.es/maspasion/un-cristo-joven-y-resucitado-anuncia-la-semana-santa-de-sevilla-de-2024-BF9117056

    It may be hard to understand but the Holy Week in southern Spain is not really about religion (as in faith). It’s kind of like football: people are fucking crazy about it, it has it’s lore and it’s huuuge but honestly, you’re not going to see a single priest during the whole event and no one goes to church or prays. It’s like a religion themed festival. Sexy Jesus fits perfectly. People can relax about it.

  • Hyperreality@kbin.social
    91·
    9 months ago

    Throw the nuns and monks a bone. If they can’t spontaneously orgasm looking at Jesus’ groin and abs, after years of abstentinence, early morning mass becomes a bit of slog. I mean orgasm metaphorically of course, because they’re so devout.

    I’ll quote Saint Teresa of Jesus:

    In his hands, I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he pulled it out I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one’s soul content with anything but God. This is not a physical but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it—even a considerable share.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
        12·
        9 months ago

        Nearly all biblical scholars agree the resurrection was a true historical event and that the attributions of the authors of Gospels are correct.

        Now the question is do you accept the logical fallacy of argument from authority for everything or just stuff that you agree with?

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
            12·
            9 months ago

            Now the question is do you accept the logical fallacy of argument from authority for everything or just stuff that you agree with?

            Let’s see if you can answer a question. Or better yet you could actually advance some evidence for your Messiah instead of depending on other people to do the mental heavy lifting for you.

  • Spesknight@lemmy.world
    51·
    9 months ago

    Come on, he died at 33 and was propably at least charismatic… Now find a palestinian that looks as this and you are good (that’s the tricky part, but not impossible).

  • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
    3·
    9 months ago

    I’m an atheist, but I was raised Roman Catholic.

    These people that attempt to paint Jesus as some clean cut, light skinned fashion model is some prosperity gospel shit that intentionally glosses over the teachings of Jesus Christ as written in the New Testament.

    Jesus had disdain for those that reveled in greed and decadence. He basically told them they wouldn’t be welcome in heaven as they were. If Jesus were real, I can’t imagine he’d be pleased being portrayed as some stylish, vain douche of means.

    If Christians actually practiced the teachings of Jesus Christ of the new testament, I might not have been so quick to run away. That would involve praising selflessness, acceptance of different cultures, and giving till it it hurts, and shunning greed, gluttony, vanity, and self-interest though, so it was always a non-starter.

    The teachings of Jesus of Nazareth are just plain wholly incompatible with the modern global economy, which is human civilization’s true god.

    • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
      2·
      9 months ago

      The urge for power and refusal to admit fault was the reason why I started to doubt Christianity as a whole, despite growing up Catholic.

      I can’t understand how it can be so easy for some to preach love, acceptance, and hope while simultaneously using such ideas to push hate or fear.