Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

Blond Hair Issue

Today, a significant segment of the Jewish population has blond hair. Various studies put the percentages between 16 and 25 percent. Instinctively, we tend to think that this is due to intermarriage since the Diaspora.  To a significant measure that is probably true. But DNA don’t support the numbers—at least from what we now know not sufficiently to justify the large percentages.

Current theory is that blond hair evolved fairly recently, perhaps within the last 10,000 years, in northern Europe and that prior to that time most people, if not all people, had black hair.

By the time of Jesus’ birth, there was probably already the circumstances for blond hair to occur in the Palestinian region among Jewish populations. The region had been Hellenized since the conquests of Alexander the Great. Trade already existed with people of northern Europe. Chances are that in Jesus’ day there were blond haired Jews.

But so what? If as we have discussed, the image is not albedo or one made by reflected light, then hair color is unimportant. In the absence of light, and as Russell clearly points out, in the absence of light there is no color. In fact there is no lighter or darker.