OpenMRS does not start if JVM is 1.8

org.openmrs.api.APIException: OpenMRS requires Java 6, but is running under 1.8.0_20
at org.openmrs.util.OpenmrsUtil.validateJavaVersion(OpenmrsUtil.java:1203)
at org.openmrs.web.Listener.contextInitialized(Listener.java:121)

And the initial setup screen is blank, see image attached.

This code doesn't work:

// check whether the current JVM version is at least Java 6
if (JdkVersion.getMajorJavaVersion() < JdkVersion.JAVA_16)

{ throw new APIException("OpenMRS requires Java 6, but is running under " + JdkVersion.getJavaVersion()); }

JdkVersion.JAVA_16 is a constant = 3
when jre is 1.6 major version is 3
when jre is 1.8 major version is 2