Would you so easily give your love to ...

Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ which is the Greek for Jesus Christ, though it was more generally written the other way around, as Christ Jesus.
Or perhaps you would like to take vows of lifelong celibacy for ישו מָשִׁיחַ ? (Yeshu the Messiah)
Or just maybe you would declare this country, free for all cultures and creeds as long as they attended the church of المسيح) "the annointed"?

Do young Christians of today generally feel that Jesus was a Middle-Eastern, Aramaic-speaking dark skinned Jew who knew nothing of Christianity or a single solitary sentiment of its faith, or do they see Jesus as white, American, and gun-toting supporter of Bush and the war?

TRYPHO
(And I'll be really really impressed if the foreign language words come through to the message board without Micro$oft adjustment)

one climbing his or her way through harvard divinity -- is going to have a different view than one worming through bob jones u.

(though, being unable to read Hebrew, I can't tell if they are correctly order right-to left).

The final one comes out with a winking smiley for me, as its right-hand part. To the left of that is something I presume is writing - but it's quite small. Is it Arabic? Or Aramaic, or its modern equivalent?

Which wasn't in the version I sent.

Still, it's better than almost every other smiley option I can think of turning up in error.

TRYPHO
(I'm waiting for an Arab linguist to tell me it doesn't say "annointed" - coz I cadged that from wiki. The other two I know very well)

... (from right to left) alif, laam, meem, seen, yaa, Haa, roughly corresponding to a, l, m, s, i/y, H. I'm guessing this word comes out to something like "al mesyaH", or "the messiah".

Words in Arabic script are generally only written to show you the "long" vowel sounds in a word, but not the "short" vowels. (I'm using the scare quotes because the meaning of long and short isn't the same that we learn for vowels in English.) You have to have a much, much better Arabic vocabulary than I do, plus you often need the context of the word, to know what all of the vowel sounds are supposed to be.

They have vowels and hardly ever use them, which seems to trouble only me. They also have no "W", so struggle for western words with a double-Vav. Except I read it as ooh ooh (coz they have no vowels), so Western Words comes out as ooh-ooh-estern ooh-ooh-ords, which means nothing and I can never figure what I'm doing wrong.
I always have a great time when I meet a friendly Arab because we go through the numbers from one to ten with faces like kids saying "yeah yeah, we say....." as though its a surprise they're similar languages!

Echad
Shtaim
Shalosh
Arbah
Chamiash
Shaish
Shevah
Shmonah
Teysah
Essah

Over to you....!!

Do you call your alphabet the Alephbet, or would I be right in guessing AilefBait??

Shalom long lost cousin.

TRYPHO

What little I know of Arabic comes from a bit of studying I did prior to taking a vacation trip to Egypt and Libya last year -- I'm not Arab myself, in case you had gotten that impression.

There are two words I've seen for "alphabet" in Arabic -- "abjad" and "alefba". The second is more like the Hebrew word, simply being the first two letters of the Arabic alphabet run together. The first word is, however, much more commonly used, even though it's also a bit of a misnomer. A true "abjad" is a collection of primary glyphs which only contains consonants, while the Arabic alphabet has three long vowels in addition to the consonants.

upon the kids' insight and intelligence. I hear a lot of my kids discuss things like this and I'd say virtually all of them understand that different cultures gives their gods their own racial characteristics. I teach a lot of African American kids and they enjoy black Jesuses in their churches and black Santas, etc. I think they get the picture once they hit about fourth grade.

I shouldn't be surprised of course, since Santa isn't real*. But then I'v never been to an active Church (I mean I've been to parties in Church halls and walked through the odd Cathedral on holiday, but apart from one college friends wedding now I think of it, I've never been to a normal Sunday style church service), so I have very little knowledge of what would go on inside.

I would love to talk to Black or Middle-Eastern Christians and ask them what they think when they see a white Jesus. I can accept God can be drawn in the likeness of man as anything that anyone fancies; but a Jewish Palestinian will always look like a Jewish Palestinian.

This world is so funny, it cracks me up. The joke's God plays on us are SO funny.

TRYPHO
* - do you have to be 18 to be on DU? If there are any kids here I'm joking ok. Sheesh.

I have a teacher's aide (black) who collects black angels, Santas, and baby dolls. The church she attends has a black Jesus on a stained glass window.

It's kind of odd to think of Jesus traipsing around Palestine with 12 Jewish men, and he has blue eyes, noble British features and waving, washed hair. And of course, an English accent. Even The Passion of the Christ featured basically a white Jesus.

I think Jesus looked rather like Ben Stiller with long hair.

thought Jesus as a dark-skinned Jew since it was something I gave any real thought to -- back when I *was* young, lol!

I get your point, however.

Up there with the people who are absolutely sure that the Bible they read came down, direct from God, in King James' English.

They range from hardcore fundies to the laid-back Episcopal youth.