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Who can forget when the former Fox News host Megyn KellyĀ declaredĀ in 2013 that Jesus, like Santa Claus, āwas a White man, too,ā and āthatās a verifiable fact,ā a remark she later said was meant in jest.
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First, while the classic Nordic Jesus remains a popular image today in some churches, a movement toĀ replace the White Jesus has long taken root in America. In many Christian circles āĀ progressiveĀ mainline churches,Ā churches of colorĀ shaped by āliberation theology,ā and amongĀ Biblical scholarsĀ ā conspicuous displays of the White Jesus are considered outdated, and to some,Ā offensive.Ā In a rapidly diversifying multicultural America, more Christians want to see a Jesus thatĀ looks like them.
But in some parts of the country, the White Jesus never left. TheĀ spread of White Christian nationalism has flooded social media feeds withĀ imagesĀ of the traditional White Jesus, sometimes adorned with a red MAGA hat. Former President Trump is selling a āGod Bless the USA Bibleā with passages from the Constitution and Bill of Rights ā a linking of patriotism with Christianity that reinforces a White image of Jesus that is central to Christian nationalism.
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BlumĀ says the image of a White Jesus has been used to justify slavery, lynching, laws against interracial marriage and hostility toward immigrants deemed not White enough. When Congress passed a law inĀ the early 20thĀ centuryĀ to restrict immigration from Asia, Southern and Eastern Europe, White politicians evoked the White Jesus, he says.
āOne of the arguments was, āWell, Jesus was White,ā āā Blum says. āSo the theme was, we want America to be profoundly Christian or at least Jesus based, so we should only allow White people in this country.ā
The MAGA movement uses the image of a White Jesus to weaponize political battles, he says, pointing to signs at the January 6 insurrection displaying a White Jesus, sometimes wearing a red MAGA hat. To Blum, some Christian conservatives see a White MAGA Jesus as āan anti-woke symbol.ā
Around 20 years, not 40.
Paul is writing around 50-60 CE.
And thereās definitely at least one alleged firsthand account of what he said, it just isnāt cannonical so you donāt hear much about that claim by the Gospel of Thomas.
Yet you can sort of see Paul referring to some of those statements in what he argued against, such as:
The Thomasine form of the saying is also very relevant to Pilateās timeframe, given thatās when Tiberius, the first emperor of Rome to achieve it not by life accomplishments but by dynastic birthright has literally abandoned the position to party all day without renouncing the position of emperor to anyone else.
Itās also the kind of statement that might have ended up with the person saying it killed by the Roman state.
And yet miraculously it doesnāt end up cannonized after Constantine, the Emperor of Rome, converts and had the council of Nicaea decide on what made the cut. Instead the texts that reflected Paulās schtick and also happened to promote the idea of dynastic monarchy as divine made the cut.
Very convenient for Constantine that the Gospel of Thomas wasnāt cannonized, despite it claiming to have contained sayings directly from a historical Jesus.
Bringing in the non canonical books is funny because you have to accept most the stories are made up, if they were so happy to make up stories whatās to stop them making them all up?
While itās true that all versions of Jesus canāt all be historical, thatās a very different matter from the claim that all versions are made up.
In fact, it would be one of the only cases Iām aware of in all of history where a made up person had bitter schisms leading to the majority of surviving writings within the first century of making up those stories dedicated to trying to silence the different versions.
But that pattern of behavior is extremely common among sects and cults focused around a real person who then dies or is imprisoned, where the groups fracture and claim different stories or interpretations of the historical figure quickly after they are out of the picture.
If Jesus was made up, we should probably expect one official story of him, similar to Mithrism which emerged around the same time, which had none of the Christian bitter schisms.
Basically, what Paul writes here only twenty years after Jesusās alleged execution is extremely unusual if Jesus as a figure was entirely made up:
You basically have an official cannonized version of Jesus thatās dedicated to claiming the women around Jesus ātotally saw the empty tomb but didnāt tell anyoneā or that women should stay silent (1 Clement) and that women shouldnāt teach (1 Cor), and then a heretical group discussing Jesusās teachings to female disciples to whom he basically says the men disciples are idiots and claim their female teacher had said Jesusās sower and mustard seed parables were talking about Lucretiusās āseeds of thingsā (writing in Latin 50 years before Jesus was born he used the word āseedā in place of the Greek atomos in discussing how randomly scattered atoms were the cause of life where where survived to reproduce is what multiplied).
A parable that btw is also the only one provided a āsecret explanationā in the earliest cannonical versions.
I donāt see that level of nuance occurring if the entire thing is made up from scratch only decades earlier.
Corinthians 10 through 13 are widely considered to be written later than the first half of the letter, all Christian documents are heavily edited to try and prove their faith which is one of many reasons to acknowledge they could easily have rewritten early history of spiritual belief to apply to a fictional person.
plus he even sounds like heās talking about a spiritual Jesus from heaven not a born son - receiving the spirit is how you meet spiritual Jesus, the only Jesus Paul knows - isnāt it weird he doesnāt say āother people talking about Jesus are liars, we have living people who knew him in personāā¦ but actualy, where are those people? Why donāt the apostles establish the religion? Peter might have existed maybe for a bit but really in actual history thereās no sign of any affect from any of them - Paul is the first significant figure we can really see and feel in history nut he never met him - all the churches and gospels come from his actions.
We know why there are 12 apostles, no one actually believes Jesus met the magic number of guys and they followed him instantly, theyāre not real people and they donāt act real either - but surely Jesus would have had followers so why donāt they run the religion instead of someone who doesnāt even pretend to have met a physical Jesus?
Paul went far far away from anyone that would know the truth and told his story, Christianity developed from these places, highly educated Greek scholars write the books of the Bible from Paulās teaching - a man who never met Jesus, who only claims to have met James (inconsequential meeting) and Peter though mysteriously doesnāt even mention Peter when writing his letter to the Romanāsā¦
The bits of the early church we have historic evidence for all come from Paul, if Peter existed the biblical version of him certainly isnāt true and thereās no roman record of him until itās invented much later and sites are āfoundā for his resting place - again even the Vatica scholars n accept this.
When you really look at it thereās no room for a historical Jesus but a perfect pathway for a man we know invented his part of the story for personal gain (maybe he had an episode that put the idea of Jesus in his head but it wasnāt based on physical reality)