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26. desember 2002
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Tall order for PC Jesus
Sometimes people don't read what you write, but what they think you write. That is the way of life, I guess. Barbara at Searching and Pondering takes exception to something she thought I wrote in the entry below about the face of Jesus.
I wrote that it was not a good assumption that Jesus looked like the average man, considering that if he was (assumably) a charismatic leader. He was probably, for example, taller than average. She thinks I believe in some western stereotype. Not so. The idea that being tall is associated with leadership is Biblical. Such ideas are in fact pretty universal in the human family, like it or not (and if you think that has anything to do with it: no, I am not particularly tall myself).
 While there certainly are exceptions (most famously, Napoleon, picture right) it is a fact that if all you know about a person is that he was a charismatic leader, then it is a fair assumption that he was taller than average. More often than not, you would be correct. How many of the world's top leaders today are not taller than their average countrymen? How many American presidents the last 50 years have not been taller than average? You would find the same thing to be true about extraordinary men in most walks of life. To be extraordinarily successfull, it helps being handsome, and it helps being tall. If you aren't, you can still make it, but it becomes more difficult.
I also pointed out that Paul's opinion about long hair was irrelevant to Jesus' hair length. To know whether Jesus had long hair, you would have to check out customs in 1st century rural Palestine. I have no data on this, and thus no opinion.
She also attributes to me the opinion that Jesus was "lighter-skinned", which is not even hinted at in my article, and I take exception to being accused of some sort of closet racism. I made no mention whatsoever of skin tone, and I do not think anything about skin tone. My comments about Jesus' appearance was not a defense of traditional artistic stereotypes of Jesus. European painters frequently depicted Jesus as if he lived in their own area, and the Popular Mechanics article at least looks in the right direction. I also pointed out where they went wrong: by assuming that Jesus was average.
The only way they could go more wrong, is depicting a politically correct Jesus, which seems to be what Barbara would want.
11:40:25 PM 
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Atheior help me!
My mate Tim is musing about the joys of xmas, boxing day shopping and giving us some book reading tips (yeah right). Now all his new blog needs is a name.
Update: Ah, For Whom the Blog Tolls. Not bad.
9:45:03 PM
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Why the changes in Lord of the Rings?
Green Cine does a long interview with director Peter Jackson, and asks him about the changes done to Tolkien's original epic. A very interesting read.
8:17:54 PM
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Pregnant doll 'unsuitable for children'
 A pregnant doll became too much for prudish American consumers. Matell had introduced Barbie's friend Midge in a pregnant version earlier, and after a row of protests from angry parents, Wal-Mart has decided to not stock the doll.
One should believe that Midge fit the bill for somebody even the fundies would accept becoming pregnant. Barbie's older friend is properly married and the 'happy family' already has a 3-year old son.
Can't have too many difficult questions about the birds and bees from the young girls, can we?
7:35:28 PM
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Heineken's hilarious Enron Christmas joke
If you haven't already seen Heineken's xmas ad poking fun at Enron and Arthur Andersen, you should. It is discussed in an article on Slate, but skip the serious stuff for now and just watch it.
Req. Windows media player. 100kbs or 56kbs
7:06:23 PM
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The face of Jesus?
 Speculative and misleading cover of the month: Popular Mechanics's December issue features what it calls "the real face of Jesus."
The article claims no new forensic evidence, no DNA, no eyewitness descriptions, no nothing. So what is the alleged face of Jesus (picture right) based on? It is based on a random sampling of remains of Jewish inhabitants in the period Jesus may have lived. That's it. The picture shows the average rural 1st century Palestinian Jewish male as he would look in his 30s.
The 'experts' have also gone to the Bible to find hints, and thus reveal gross ignorance of textual criticism. To reveal the length of Jesus' hair, they turn to Paul, who says that it's a shame for a man to have long hair. Problem is, Paul had never met or seen Jesus. He claims no knowledge whatsoever of a human Jesus. Paul based his views on the customs and styles in Hellenistic cities, not on those in rural Palestine, which he obviously couldn't care less about.
Finally, the assumption that Jesus looked like the average man is not a good one. If Jesus was a charismatic religious leader, a miracle-worker, he may well have been taller and looked different from the random person, and dressed and groomed differently.
Fact is, you can't produce evidence out of thin air. And we can't even know if Jesus existed at all, far less how he looked like. But I guess a cover like that sells well in the Christmas season.
6:39:56 PM
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$314.9 million
Now that's a lot of money for doing nothing. Insane.
4:35:09 PM
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— NATO 'moral obligation' to support the US
Secretary General George Robertson of NATO argues that the divided military allience has an obligation to stand by the USA if there comes to a war with Iraq, and that it's not George Bush but Saddam Hussein who is the one making the decisiion to go to war.
3:37:37 PM
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Bad omen for 2003
First indication: baby boom in Sweden, of all places. This year there were born 4,300 more Swedes than last year, which is, frankly, overdoing it quite a bit.
(From a Norwegian article in Dagbladet)
12:32:06 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.01.03; 04:01:44.
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