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I know there have been threads discussing this topic before, but I found this article particularly insightful: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kamran-pasha/was-jesus-a-vegetarian_b_276141.html" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kamran..._b_276141.html</a><br><br>
Muslim scholar, Kamran Pasha, who is not a vegetarian himself, has found evidence of an earlier Christian vegetarian movement, so he believes. The movement he refers to are the Ebionites or the Nazarenes, whose <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gospelebionites.html" target="_blank">gospel</a>, written in Aramaic (the language which Jesus spoke) consistently portrays Jesus as a vegetarian and fervent enemy of the animal sacrifices at the Temple (thus Jesus' famous "cleansing of the Temple"). These Jewish Christians, who seem to have had access to people who actually knew Jesus and were probably much closer than what came to be Orthodox Christianity to Jesus' inner circle, were led by Jesus' brother, James the Just. There was a lot of bad blood between the Jewish Christians, centered in Jerusalem, and the apostle Paul who came to represent Christian orthodoxy. A critical look a the New Testament illustrates the rivalry between Paul and Gentile Christianity and the Jewish Christians. Pasha writes:<br><br><div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block">According to Paul's Letter to the Galatians, James the Just sent envoys to check up on him and what he was preaching (Galatians 2:12). And when these envoys heard his doctrines, especially with regard to faith in Christ removing the need for Christians to follow Jewish dietary laws, all hell broke loose. As Paul himself describes the incident in Galatians, he had a shouting match with Peter and other disciples, and was very much the odd man out (Galatians 2:11-13)<br><br>
Several of Paul's letters in the New Testament were written to respond to the critiques of these Jewish Christians, who claimed Paul was misguided and perhaps even lying about his encounter with Christ (see Galatians 1:20, 2 Corinthians 11:31, 1 Timothy 2:7 where Paul repeatedly insists that he is not lying, since clearly this is a charge being regularly made against him). Indeed, the modern Christian notion that Paul was on good terms with the disciples who had known Jesus in his lifetime is simply not borne out in Paul's own letters. While the Acts of the Apostles, written years later by Paul's followers, often portrays the debates between James and Paul as cheerful disagreements between brothers, Paul's own letters show that their differences were intense and volatile. It was as if the two movements were actually competing religions rather than branches of the same faith.</div>
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Hence in Romans 14:1-2, Paul denigrates those Christians who "eat only vegetables" saying that their "faith is weak." That he had to respond to some early Christian group that believed refraining from eating meat was a part of Christian piety means at the least that ethical vegetarianism was being represented as a moral requirement to be a Christian, presumably by the Jewish Christians.<br><br>
Pasha continues:<br><br><div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block">In the <i>Panarion</i>, his epic treatise against heresy, Epiphanius gives us many details about the Ebionite lifestyle. He says that the Ebionites claimed that the Apostle Peter had been a vegetarian and had ordered his followers to abstain from eating meat. In the Ebionite Gospel, they quote Jesus as saying "I came to abolish sacrifices, and unless you cease from sacrificing, my anger will not cease from you." The reference is to the practice of animal sacrifice in the Jewish Temple, where thousands of animals were ritually slaughtered every year as offerings to God, the meat being shared with the Priests.<br><br>
The Ebionites claimed that Jesus was horrified by cruelty to animals and that one of the primary aspects of his mission was to abolish the practice of ritual slaughter. Their argument was that Temple sacrifices were an innovation and had no basis in the authentic Law of Moses, and Jesus was sent to restore the Torah as Moses had practiced it. To the extent that the Jewish scriptures appeared to endorse animal sacrifice by the Priests (cf. the Book of Leviticus), they claimed that such passages were forgeries inserted by the Priesthood itself to promote its livelihood (the falsification of parts of the Bible would be a central claim of Islam centuries later).</div>
</div>
<br>
But what is most interesting is his exegesis of John 2:13-17:<br><br>
"When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."<br><br><div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block">In the Gospel of John, Jesus physically drives herds of animals out of the Temple courtyard using a whip. It is an incredibly powerful visual image. Yet in all the years of that I have listened to the story of Jesus at the Temple, I have never heard anyone focus on this compelling scene. The overturning of the currency tables seems to be what is stuck in the Christian consciousness, and yet the most dramatic and chaotic event in this incident is clearly the freeing of the animal herds...the direct attack on the Priests' principal source of livelihood, the animal sacrifices, could not be ignored. The Priests had to respond to the threat Jesus posed to their power, and they did. And the outcome changed the course of history.</div>
</div>
<br>
Was Jesus' crucifixion a result of his stance against animal sacrifice? Was the opposition he received from the Sadducees because he disrupted the primary source of income for the Temple -- the trade of animals for ritual slaughter? Did Jesus care so much for animals that he actually endangered his own life to free them from their bondage?<br><br>
I find Pashan's article very compelling. What do you think?
Muslim scholar, Kamran Pasha, who is not a vegetarian himself, has found evidence of an earlier Christian vegetarian movement, so he believes. The movement he refers to are the Ebionites or the Nazarenes, whose <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gospelebionites.html" target="_blank">gospel</a>, written in Aramaic (the language which Jesus spoke) consistently portrays Jesus as a vegetarian and fervent enemy of the animal sacrifices at the Temple (thus Jesus' famous "cleansing of the Temple"). These Jewish Christians, who seem to have had access to people who actually knew Jesus and were probably much closer than what came to be Orthodox Christianity to Jesus' inner circle, were led by Jesus' brother, James the Just. There was a lot of bad blood between the Jewish Christians, centered in Jerusalem, and the apostle Paul who came to represent Christian orthodoxy. A critical look a the New Testament illustrates the rivalry between Paul and Gentile Christianity and the Jewish Christians. Pasha writes:<br><br><div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block">According to Paul's Letter to the Galatians, James the Just sent envoys to check up on him and what he was preaching (Galatians 2:12). And when these envoys heard his doctrines, especially with regard to faith in Christ removing the need for Christians to follow Jewish dietary laws, all hell broke loose. As Paul himself describes the incident in Galatians, he had a shouting match with Peter and other disciples, and was very much the odd man out (Galatians 2:11-13)<br><br>
Several of Paul's letters in the New Testament were written to respond to the critiques of these Jewish Christians, who claimed Paul was misguided and perhaps even lying about his encounter with Christ (see Galatians 1:20, 2 Corinthians 11:31, 1 Timothy 2:7 where Paul repeatedly insists that he is not lying, since clearly this is a charge being regularly made against him). Indeed, the modern Christian notion that Paul was on good terms with the disciples who had known Jesus in his lifetime is simply not borne out in Paul's own letters. While the Acts of the Apostles, written years later by Paul's followers, often portrays the debates between James and Paul as cheerful disagreements between brothers, Paul's own letters show that their differences were intense and volatile. It was as if the two movements were actually competing religions rather than branches of the same faith.</div>
</div>
<br>
Hence in Romans 14:1-2, Paul denigrates those Christians who "eat only vegetables" saying that their "faith is weak." That he had to respond to some early Christian group that believed refraining from eating meat was a part of Christian piety means at the least that ethical vegetarianism was being represented as a moral requirement to be a Christian, presumably by the Jewish Christians.<br><br>
Pasha continues:<br><br><div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block">In the <i>Panarion</i>, his epic treatise against heresy, Epiphanius gives us many details about the Ebionite lifestyle. He says that the Ebionites claimed that the Apostle Peter had been a vegetarian and had ordered his followers to abstain from eating meat. In the Ebionite Gospel, they quote Jesus as saying "I came to abolish sacrifices, and unless you cease from sacrificing, my anger will not cease from you." The reference is to the practice of animal sacrifice in the Jewish Temple, where thousands of animals were ritually slaughtered every year as offerings to God, the meat being shared with the Priests.<br><br>
The Ebionites claimed that Jesus was horrified by cruelty to animals and that one of the primary aspects of his mission was to abolish the practice of ritual slaughter. Their argument was that Temple sacrifices were an innovation and had no basis in the authentic Law of Moses, and Jesus was sent to restore the Torah as Moses had practiced it. To the extent that the Jewish scriptures appeared to endorse animal sacrifice by the Priests (cf. the Book of Leviticus), they claimed that such passages were forgeries inserted by the Priesthood itself to promote its livelihood (the falsification of parts of the Bible would be a central claim of Islam centuries later).</div>
</div>
<br>
But what is most interesting is his exegesis of John 2:13-17:<br><br>
"When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."<br><br><div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block">In the Gospel of John, Jesus physically drives herds of animals out of the Temple courtyard using a whip. It is an incredibly powerful visual image. Yet in all the years of that I have listened to the story of Jesus at the Temple, I have never heard anyone focus on this compelling scene. The overturning of the currency tables seems to be what is stuck in the Christian consciousness, and yet the most dramatic and chaotic event in this incident is clearly the freeing of the animal herds...the direct attack on the Priests' principal source of livelihood, the animal sacrifices, could not be ignored. The Priests had to respond to the threat Jesus posed to their power, and they did. And the outcome changed the course of history.</div>
</div>
<br>
Was Jesus' crucifixion a result of his stance against animal sacrifice? Was the opposition he received from the Sadducees because he disrupted the primary source of income for the Temple -- the trade of animals for ritual slaughter? Did Jesus care so much for animals that he actually endangered his own life to free them from their bondage?<br><br>
I find Pashan's article very compelling. What do you think?
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