African? Asian? European? Middle Eastern? What did Jesus really look like, and what has been learned through tradition?

Mel Gibson’s recent movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” has put Jesus in the pop culture spotlight. Some are revisiting questions about the range of identities Jesus has assumed in various cultures and religions over the ages.

There is great uncertainty concerning Jesus’ physical appearance, and the image of him has been heavily influenced by tradition, said Arne Hallam, adviser of the Latter Day Saints Student Association and professor and chairman of economics.

“Works of art, particularly of the Renaissance period, were influenced by the visage on the Shroud of Turin, a burial cloth of a man that had been crucified,” Hallam said. “That image was very Caucasian in its appearance, and later artists used those earlier works as models in their portrayals of Jesus.”

As those images gained acceptance and popularity, it became more difficult to portray Jesus as anything other than Caucasian, Hallam said.

The Western world created an image of Jesus based on who they wanted him to be, rather than based on the reality of who he really was, said Cara Harris, senior in liberal studies.

“I personally think it’s due to anti-Semitic views and the need to make Jesus a sympathetic character,” said Harris, who is an atheist. “For many people, seeing Jesus as anything but Caucasian doesn’t fit their ideal image of him.”

It was Europeans who first portrayed images of Jesus as a Caucasian man, said Barbara Pleasants, adjunct assistant professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology. Pleasants, who is Jewish, teaches Liberal Arts and Sciences 385: The Holocaust, in which anti-Semitism is an important topic of discussion.

“It was not the goal of European artists to make Jesus look like his Jewish relatives, because God was finished with the Jews after they rejected him [according to Christians of the time period],” Pleasants said. “Jesus was distanced from his Jewish roots as much as possible.”