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The Perception:
Occasionally someone will come forward having seen the face of Christ in, say, a hunk of wood, or a toasted sandwich.

And always you can immediately recognize the face because of the trademark long hair and beard. It's maybe the most recognizable face in the world.

White guy, usually even with light hair and eyes. It's not just some pop culture invention; check out this image of Jesus found in the Room of The Segnatura at the Vatican:
The Reality:
As you can probably guess, Yeshua of Nazareth, the man Christians think of as "Jesus Christ" today, actually looked a lot more Middle Eastern seeing as he was... well... actually Middle Eastern.

That's just an artist rendering based on what the average person of the time and place Jesus actually came from looked like, but you get the idea.
Why We Picture it Wrong:
For the dominant image of Jesus as a whitey, we have artists like Leonardo and Michelangelo to thank. A lot of the paintings of Jesus they made during the Renaissance became the "definitive" versions of his image, and they were just portraying him as a handsome Italian man, like everyone else in their paintings.
But the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aren't the only ones to blame; European paintings from the Medieval ages did the same whitewashing, most likely because, in the age of the Crusades, the Church was better off not reminding people they were praying to a little, brown Jew.

"Wait is that the guy we're supposed to Kill or worship? We might need to change our mascot..."
Of course, this racial artistic license isn't exclusive to white people, either--Jesus has been portrayed as Black, Hispanic and Asian, depending on who painted the picture.

Chinesus!
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_1862...l#ixzz16oZPzNFH
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