There's an ad in the center gutter of Daily Kos supporting the Embryonic Stem Cell veto override. I fully support this override, though it did fail earlier today.
But what sticks in my craw is the thumbnail image this ad uses, a well-known, often used icon of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, I'm Jewish, so you could say that I don't have a dog in this hunt. But, hey: so was He.
This is the image in question:
Okay, this seems to be the typical Eurocentric image of Yeshua...err, Jesus. With eyeliner. Jesus was into his glam rock phase at the time, fronting his band, The Apostles.
Stylistically, this looks more like a Hindu image to me than a Christian one. The eyes, for example, are unusually and disproportionately large. Large eyes are typical among ancient idols, taking as much as 20% of facial area (Jaynes - 1976).
Here we see another image of Jesus. Though he's white and European, he looks like he just stepped off of a KMFDM album cover.
In 2001, the BBC asked forensic specialists to try and reconstruct what Jesus really looked like, based on anthropoligical knowledge of the Middle East 2000 years ago. This is what they came up with.
Of course, back in the Sixties (and even earlier if you want to reach back to Ethiopian Christian culture), there were portrayals of Jesus as a black man.
More recently, diverse images of Jesus have surfaced.
There's even a sect that believes that Jesus played outfield for the Astros.
Which brings us back to this.
So, what's the point here? I suppose that it's this: iconography, or image, is everything. In Ethiopia, where the Christian faith has existed longer than in Europe, Jesus is black. In Asia, Jesus has a decidedly Asian visage. In Europe, and by extension America, images of Jesus portray an idealized white male. If it takes a white Jesus with overly large eyes rimmed with kohl to seal the deal, so be it. That's the way it goes.
It's human nature.