In any picture I see him in he looks more Hispanic than Scandinavian.

All the pictures of him look like he's a white guy, but he wouldn't have been. He would have been kind of middle eastern looking.

well I think the most common representation of Christ is the christian view.

because the pictures you've been seeing have been painted by caucasion christians, just like if you see a painting of jesus in an african american church he looks like them. but at least that movie, "The Passion of the Christ" had it right. that guy was jewish.

Any person living in that area at that time, that was born there and from the local population, they would be semitic. That means darker skin, dark curly hair. People believe what they want to even if it defies common sense logic.

People always imagine Christ in terms of what they are used to. That is why Caucasians have often painted him as looking Caucasian. But, you have to look around more. Western Christian art is only part of a bigger world Christian art. You will find all sorts of representations of Him from accurate Jewish-looking ones to Balinese ones. See below. (Christ Pantocrator, Greek icon; Head of Jesus, Rembrandt; Roman mosaic of Christ the Good Shepherd; Christ as a Maori Chieftain, Ohinemutu, NZ; Christ with Mary and Martha, Komang Wahyu Sukayasa from Bali)

LOL, very true. Hebrew Jewish.

"All" is far too broad a term. There are many that depict him much more correctly. However, if you're talking about the European Renaissance ideal of Jesus, you would be correct in stating that he looks European. At that time (following the Black Plague and reconstruction afterward) the Catholic church was in full power, and they had put sufficient blame for the disease on the Jews (and [I believe] the Gypsy as well). Thus, to picture the Holy Jesus as one with these blasphemers and murderers would be taboo at BEST. No, their Perfect Jesus would fit their ideal of the Perfect Man - trim, muscular, with long fair hair and fair eyes.

"The race of Jesus has been a subject of debate since at least the 19th century. The physical appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, though with no explicit emphasis on race, was also debated by theologians from early on in the history of Christianity. Different societies have depicted Jesus and most other biblical figures as their own ethnicity in their art; for example he is primarily white in the West, and black in Sub Saharan Africa. Such representations are not, in the modern day, usually intended to be historically accurate. The current dominant opinion among historians and scientists is that he most likely had olive skin, resembling modern-day persons of Middle Eastern descent. Others, however, have suggested other possible racial backgrounds. For some Christians the question is complicated by the belief that his birth was a unique miracle, an "incarnation in flesh of divine substance."" "Not all depictions of Jesus are intended to literally represent how he is thought to have looked; many such representations are largely symbolic, spiritual, and personal, and the race chosen may be intended only to reflect, or more recently to contradict, local expectations. This may be true of both pictorial and cinematic portrayals. Additionally, whether intended to be realistic or not, images of Jesus throughout history have almost always characterized him as being of the race of the artist or target audience, further complicating the task of determining Jesus' race and sometimes leading to racial tensions. Categories of racial difference have also changed over time. While the German artist Albrecht Dürer often depicted Jesus as blond and the Spanish artist Velazquez depicted him as Mediterranean, there is no evidence that either of them would have interpreted these differences in terms of separate racial identities as they might be in modern America, in which "WASP" and Hispanic peoples are sometimes characterized as racially distinct." "In the majority of Western art, narrative and cinema depicting Jesus, he is portrayed with brown hair and brown eyes, having a short beard and white skin. However, some artists, including notably Dürer, have also depicted him as blond and/or blue-eyed. This is also the case in several films, including Jesus of Nazareth (1977) in which he has dark brown hair but pale blue eyes. Nonetheless, because Western or European ethnicities are composed of many subgroups (whether biological or perceived), such as Mediterrean, Slavic, Northern European (Nordic), the issue is more complex than monolithic. In addition, it is possible many European portrayals of Jesus may be based on the appearance of European (Ashkenazi) Jews, who often have "white" skin tones or facial features, and sometimes blond hair and blue eyes. There is wide variation in appearance within the modern Jewish population upon whose appearance artists may base their depictions. Artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Angelico and Michelangelo all depicted Jesus as white. Nonetheless, it must be noted that most figures of the Bible, including the Israelites and Egyptians described in the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament), were also portrayed as identical in appearance to European whites. In this sense the portrayal may be largely unselfconscious, as might also be the case even in periods with more prominent awareness of race, such as the 20th and 21st centuries. Because of the commonness of this depiction, it is often confused with historical fact. It has dispersed so widely that many cultures have at least to some extent assimilated the image of a white Jesus. Western Christians spread images of a European Jesus through their encounters with peoples of Africa, the Americas, Australia and parts of Asia (often through colonization), from the 16th to the 20th century." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_of_Jesus

joseph and mary were obviously not really from there and were really romans ... seriously, to answer your question, i suspect it's ethnocentrism.

Does that make difference ? I don't think so. Nobody who has seen him has painted or Photographed (!) Jesus. If you ask an Artist of European origin he would draw an European Jesus, like wise if you ask an Indian to draw he would draw an Indian Jesus. I have seen Picture of Saree clad Mary in India.

It's simply the artist's conception of what they thought Jesus should look like.

because the artists that rendered the pictures were Europeans and they were using artistic license to make him more aesthetically pleasing to the people most likely to see the pictures.