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[Throwaway]

Job 30:30 KJV

My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

From what I can see, this is implying that Job is black, and if I recall correctly Job was a great grandfather of Christ, does this make Jesus the Christ black? I'm open to debates.

[jimwalton]

In Job 30.28, the term translated “blackened” is usually used for mourning, and that would make the best sense. The same phrase is used in Ps 38:6 where NIV translates "mourning." Though it could refer to the black (goatskin) sackcloth, more likely it is the black soot from the ashes that a mourner puts on their head.

Then in v. 30, the blackened (different word) skin is related to Job’s disease. So it's not implying Job is a black man.

> if I recall correctly Job was a great grandfather of Christ

This is not correct. Job is not in the lineage of Jesus.

> does this make Jesus the Christ black?

Therefore Jesus is not black. The genealogy of Jesus makes clear that he was from the Middle East, with ancestors who were Mesopotamian (Abraham), Canaanite (Rahab), and Moabite (Ruth). It is possible that also that he has some genetic connection with Africans since Solomon had many wives, and we don't know the heritage of all of them. There is also the possibility of other interracial marriages in the long line of his ancestry.

Essentially, Jesus was of mixed Near-Eastern heritage. There's every reason to believe he had normal skin tones for that part of the world (medium to dark brown), dark brown eyes, and dark brown hair.

[Arthur]

Except possibly lighter. Because He lived before the centuries of the Arab slave trade, which brought sub-Saharan Africans in large numbers to the Middle East.

See, for example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929707606302

[jimwalton]

Sure, there are many possibilities here. Many Mideasterners have varied tones and amounts of melanin in their skin, just as many African-American blacks, due to centuries of reproduction. We can't know exactly the tone of Jesus's skin. But there is no particular reason to think that Jesus was black, though maybe it depends what the OP meant by "black"! But since Job was not in Jesus's lineage, the OP's wondering if this meant Jesus was black is certainly not a logical conclusion from that text.