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Jude 3 Project
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Study guide · Race, Faith & Identity

What Was Jesus’s Ethnicity?

Reviewed by Jude 3 Project·2 min read

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A standalone study on what Jesus’s own family tree says about who he was.

The big question

Most of us grew up with images of a fair-skinned, light-haired Jesus. Watson Jones III, drawing on Dr. Walter McCray, asks us to set the paintings aside and read the genealogy. What does Matthew 1 actually tell us about Jesus’s ancestry? This study traces the women in his line and asks what it means to recover the real ethnicity of the Messiah.

Key takeaways

  • The case rests on Jesus’s genealogy in Matthew 1, not on sentiment.
  • Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites; Bathsheba’s household included Uriah the Hittite.
  • Canaanites and Hittites descend from Ham, placing Hamitic ancestry in Jesus’s line.
  • The Joseph objection is met by Mary’s likely descent from David.
  • The careful conclusion: Jesus had Black ancestry and was certainly not a white man.

Scripture to sit with

Matthew 1:1-16. The genealogy that names Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba. Read the names slowly.

Romans 1:3. Jesus was descended from David according to the flesh. A bodily, not symbolic, connection.

Revelation 22:16. I am the root and the offspring of David. Jesus claims the lineage himself.

Revelation 7:9. A great multitude from every nation and tribe. The kingdom is not one color.

Quotes worth discussing

Watson Jones says, following Walter McCray, “Jesus was not a white man, but Jesus was black. I tend to believe that wholeheartedly.”

His measured conclusion: “At best, Jesus was black, or at least Jesus had black blood. But it is certain to say that he was not a white man.”

Discussion questions

  • What image of Jesus did you grow up with, and where did it come from?
  • Read the women named in Matthew 1. Why might Matthew include them on purpose?
  • How do you weigh the Joseph genealogy against the claim that Mary was also Davidic?
  • Why does it matter, or not matter, what Jesus looked like?
  • How does recovering Jesus’s ancestry change the way you read the gospel?

Go deeper

This study comes from the Jude 3 Project’s The Black Presence in the Bible course with Watson Jones III. For a related conversation, see the Jude 3 work on why Jesus is so often pictured as white.

A closing reflection

This week, read Matthew 1 out loud, every name. Notice the outsiders and the scandals God wove into the Messiah’s line. Then ask what it means that the Savior of the world came through a family tree that looks nothing like the paintings.

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