Killah Priest - Cesare Borgia, Other Elements

[Euphanasia]

I recently got into Killah Priest. It was sometime last year (around the time "The Offering" came out). I think Linx posted a link to the song, "Happy" and I loved it, bought the album, really liked it. I have since purchased "Heavy Mental" and "Behind the Stained Glass," which just came out.

Anyway, I've been listening to him a lot, analyzing lyrics, doing whatever research I can do because this guy is extremely knowledgeable and intelligent and I have trouble understanding some of what he raps about.

Anyway, I burned a couple cd's for my friend at work and Priest has since become his favorite artist and we were discussing his references to "Cesare Borgia" in B.I.B.L.E. and Jeshurn, off of Heavy Mental and Behind the Stained Glass, respectively. He raps:

"I learned the white image of Christ is really Cesare Borgia"

and

"The guy in the pic posing as Jesus is really Cesare Borgia"

We did research and discovered that Borgia was a patron of DaVinci and when DaVinci painted the portrait of Jesus in the Last Supper, he painted him in the likeness of Borgia. And the pictures/portraits/statues of Jesus have since been produced in the same likeness. In other words, this so called "white image of Christ" that we see everywhere is really Borgia as Jesus was not white.

Because if you think about it, where was Jesus from?
The Middle East, making him darker skinned. Certainly, not black but not as white as the images we are accustomed to seeing.

Thoughts?

 

[linx]

Funny you mentioned that. I was listening to Priest earlier and heard that line and thought to myself "who is that dude he's talking about?".

 

[Jokerman]

This is kind of an old idea that everyone should know by now or figured out on their own. Not necessarily the Borgia connection, but that Medieval European painters painted Jesus to look like themselves. And they'd been doing so since before DaVinci. In fact, they painted everyone in the Bible, including Egyptians to look like themselves. So it was a given that DaVinci would paint him white, and if he could honor his patron by making Jesus resemble him, all the better. And when Africa got Christianity, he was painted as a black man. And China...like them. And Mars...green. Different societies paint everyone to look like themselves. And 50s Hollywood and Norway depicted him as blond with blue eyes. To polar bears he's...

Lesson: Rap songs don't originate ideas.

 

[Euphanasia]

This is kind of an old idea that everyone should know by now or figured out on their own. Not necessarily the Borgia connection, but that Medieval European painters painted Jesus to look like themselves. And they'd been doing so since before DaVinci. In fact, they painted everyone in the Bible, including Egyptians to look like themselves. So it was a given that DaVinci would paint him white, and if he could honor his patron by making Jesus resemble him, all the better. And when Africa got Christianity, he was painted as a black man. And China...like them.

Lesson: Rap songs don't originate ideas.

I didn't know that before. Yeah, it seems very obvious when you think about it. Jesus was from the Middle East and yet I see pictures of Jesus everywhere as a white man. This doesn't make sense. But you don't really think about it because you grow so accustomed to seeing something over and over since you were a child.

And I think that most people don't know this. If I walked into a Catholic church today and said what you just said, I would probably get the most shocked and appalled and confused faces one could imagine.

And then be called a heathen and a heretic.

And I realize that this was not Priest's original idea. He says that he "learned the white image of Christ was really Cesare Borgia" not that he was the first to discover this. He's just trying to educate the masses.

I find this very interesting though.

 

[PuffnScruff]

given the climate of the middle east it hard to imagine that anyone that lived there for long periods of time would be "white" unless they covered up very well.

i've never thought that the real jesus was as pale as an irishman but i don't believe he had dark brown skin like an african either. i don't find it hard to believe that there were light skinned (caucasian) people in that part of the world in that era. but jesus probably had a skin tone that reflects what most jewish people from the middle east have. it's not dark but it's not pale either.

 

[Chronic]

^^
Whole Middle East is Caucasian (in the US it's used as a synonym for white) so yeah Jesus would've been Caucasian and likely one of the lighter skinned people. You wouldn't call him white as he would've stood out among Europeans.

 

[insomnia]

there's been done some researches, which showed that Jesus actually looked more like Osama than anyone else he has been depicted.

 

[Preach]

And 50s Hollywood and Norway depicted him as blond with blue eyes. To polar bears he's...

Interesting, that out of all the countries in the world...

Norwegian religion is heavily influenced by the Danish and German from our union era. I myself am Norwegian, and since a kid I pictured him white but with dark hair. You would have to go to church a lot and be involved in Christianity in some form past the social register to actually see Jesus depicted the way you described, otherwise most people think something alá The Passion of Christ.

 

[Jokerman]

Of course, I didn't mean everyone in Norway or every artist depicted him with blond and blue eyes, just some. The Dutch portrayed him as eating halve rookworst at the Last Supper.

But see what happens when someone didn't really exist. They become everything to everyone.

 

[Jokerman]

Euph, you should check this article out:

What did Jesus look like?

 

[ARon]

I'm glad you found this out but at the same time I'm thinking what the fuck, it took you this long and a rap song for you to figure this out. They even had a show on discovery channel about what he really looks like. If you like songs like that you should listen to Nature of the Threat by Ras Kass, wild song.

 

[Euphanasia]

Euph, you should check this article out:

What did Jesus look like?

Thanks.

 

[ImmortalTech]

.. other than what others have already said, this exact point has been brought in hip hop several times including Gza- B.I.B.L.E. it's a pretty old theory in general, and in hip hop as well

peace