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A more likely manger scene

So far no direct contemporary archaeological evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ has been uncovered. From the many writings about him and his followers that appeared in the decades after his crucifixion, however, it's pretty clear that he was an actual historical figure. Even if his story was later embellished into a legend --- or actually, a series of legends, given the differences in the various canonical and non-canonical Gospels and in the Quranic account of him in which Muslims believe --- Jesus was a noteworthy religious leader in the time of Augustus Caesar and not a myth.

But what did he look like? We have no contemporary portrait of him, or of any of the other people in his life. We do know, however, that he was a Jew living in the Levant, an important crossroads among the ancient world's Asian, African and European civilizations, then as much or even more so than now.

If you go to the creche at the Banco Nacional de Panama on Via España in the banking district, you will see a manger scene in which all the human characters are white. Given what we know about the ancient Holy Land, that would have been unlikely.

Here in Perejil, however, the characters in the Calidonia Junta Comunal's creche look more representative of the people found then, and now, in the Middle East.

But we'll probably never know, and besides, it's the message he delivered, not the color of his eyes or skin, that was important.

Photo by Eric Jackson