Last week, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched a new ad campaign that features an image of the Shroud of Turin and the slogan "Make a Lasting Impression—Go Vegetarian." PETA explained in a statement that it "chose Jesus as its new 'poster boy' because he is widely believed to have been a member of the Essenes, a Jewish religious sect that followed a vegetarian diet and rejected animal sacrifices."
Jesus a weed-eater? It's not a new claim, but a new spin on an old one. Vegetarianism's true believers have long held that the Garden of Eden was a meatless paradise ("And God said, Behold, I have given you ... the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat," Genesis 1:29). They've also claimed that the New Testament supports Jesus' vegetarianism, although that requires you to believe that Jesus' frequent encouragement of fishermen was symbolic, "fish" being mere symbols of "disciples," and that he cast the sinners out of the temple because he wanted to rescue the Passover lamb.
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OK, so the Lamb of God wouldn't mind ordering up a rack of Himself. David Plotz asked a different question: Is God a
football fan? A.N. Wilson
reviewed Norman Mailer's "autobiography" of Christ, in which Jesus claims to have been an Essene. Plotz
lamented the message of Disney's
101 Dalmatians: "It is far better to torture a human being than to allow a single puppy to come to harm."
Related on the Web
For an overview of the case that Jesus was a vegetarian, click
here. To order
The Lost Religion of Jesus, a forthcoming book by Keith Akers that attempts to make the definitive Jesus-is-a-vegetarian claim, click
here.
Read the Bible—in any of nine versions—and decide for yourself. For your weekly source of fun-filled Jesus excitement, visit the legendary Jesus-of-the-week
site. (And if you're down with the cause, try not to cringe at this week's photo of Jesus astride an ostrich. We're certain it's an open-range ostrich.) Think you can devise a better campaign than the folks at PETA? The group's open to suggestions, click
here.
No mainstream theologian buys the vegetarians' argument because the Gospels are fairly straightforward about the Messiah's tastes in food. "Jesus said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish. ... And he took it, and did eat before them" (Luke 24:41-43). The story of Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes, not to mention that Passover lamb, argues against vegetarianism, too.
But with this new campaign PETA foils the scholars by ignoring the biblical evidence—and the Bible altogether—preferring sources from the fringe field of "vegetarian theology," who depend on coincidence, historical speculation, and creative exegesis of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient texts to make their case that 1) Jesus was an Essene; and 2) that the Essenes practiced vegetarianism.
Was Jesus an Essene? Did the Essenes practice vegetarianism? And just who were the Essenes?
The Essenes were a Jewish ascetical sect that lived in the Judean desert on the western shore of the Dead Sea during the time of Jesus. Secretive and communal, the Essenes broke with official Judaism and retreated from the world because they thought both "had become polluted, unclean and ungodly," says Marcus J. Borg, a religious studies professor at Oregon State University and a leading New Testament scholar. "They had rigorous understandings of purity that could only be met by separating themselves from others, and they looked forward to an apocalyptic war in which God would destroy their enemies." (In that sense they were a little like the Branch Davidians, only without the automatic weapons.) Many scholars also believe the Essenes were the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
To prove Jesus was an Essene, the vegetarian theologians work backward from John the Baptist. A few scholars have speculated that John might have been an Essene. Indeed, he preached along the Jordan River near the Essenes' Dead Sea settlement, he held political beliefs similar to those of the Essenes, and lines found in the Dead Sea Scrolls echo in his preaching. For instance, Isaiah 40:3 makes this reference to John: "The voice of him [John] that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." The same passage appears frequently in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
So if John was an Essene—which is by no means certain—the vegetarian theologians maintain that he made Jesus one too by baptizing him. That's quite a stretch. So is the vegetarian theologians' second argument. The Gospels identify the two other major Jewish sects of the day, the Sadducees and Pharisees, as opponents of Jesus. But the Gospels don't mention the Essenes, therefore Jesus must have been an Essene. This is what is known as an "argument from silence." (William Phipps used a similar tactic for different ends in his controversial 1970 book, Was Jesus Married?) "It's a lot of baloney, as far as I'm concerned," says Father Joseph Fitzmeyer, a professor of biblical studies at Georgetown University and an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Then were the Essenes vegetarians? Not likely. Vegetarianism goes unmentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And since the Essenes were purists, Borg points out, it's likely they would have slaughtered a lamb at Passover. PETA draws its mainstream proof of Essene vegetarianism from a brief article in the May/June 1999 issue of Archaeology, which reports that a dig of what may have been an Essene settlement hasn't unearthed any animal bones.
And while PETA is right about the Essenes rejecting animal sacrifice, it wrongly attributes this stance to compassion for God's lesser creatures. When the Essenes split from the Jewish establishment they rejected all rituals performed in the temple by the priests, of which animal sacrifice was only one.
Assuming that you accept the "Jesus was an Essene" argument, you still have to resolve the fundamental differences in their teachings. "Wherever there's an overlap in subject matter, there is significant disagreement," Borg says. Jesus socialized with lepers. The Essenes rejected even healthy Jews. Jesus spoke of loving one's enemy. The Essenes believed an apocalyptic war would wipe out theirs. Jesus taught that we're all God's children. The Essenes believed they were "children of light" while others were "children of darkness"—a lot like a certain group of proselytizing vegetarians.
Joshua Green is a senior editor of the
Atlantic Monthly.
Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: Sometimes when we at The Fray see the articles we close our eyes in holy dread at what we have coming: there are subjects which produce difficult Frays, and this article combined two such topics. We were expecting, and got, a lot of quotations from scriptures; and posts with such titles as Jesus was a cannibal, Jesus was an alien, Jesus was an Arab, Hitler was a vegetarian; and many spectacular fights between believers and non-believers ("God Bless you, you Dummy"). And we suppose if one poster mentioned Occam's Razor, another was bound to say "Use Occam's Razor to kill a cow and make burgers". But "Satan is a vegetarian"? "Gardenburger is all one word"? "Jesus would read it and cry"? Please.
In the midst of this, Erik J Martinek's "Jesus was a redneck" made us laugh ("All Biblical evidence points to Jesus' white trashery") but if you think you'll be offended by it, you probably will, so don't read it.
Dr Montgomery wanted to make the case against vegetarianism generally: "You'd have to eat 65 Cabbages, 100 Pinto Beans, and 72 carrots just to get the same amount of dietary protein as 4oz. of Elk Meat or 6oz. of Steak." Elk meat? Don't ask us.
We also particularly enjoyed this exchange, in which the eating of locusts was put forward as proof of non-vegetarianism, only for Miss Ann, Sunday School Teacher, to riposte that locusts in this context are the fruit of the locust-tree, modern-day carobs. Aha, said Paul: "Is the same original word for 'locusts' also used in the story of Moses and the plagues in Egypt? I find it hard to believe that the Egyptians were terrorized by an over-abundance of carob trees." A priceless image.
Everyone agreed that the Isaiah /John the Baptist sentence in the article was a bit tangled--"you have a lot of faith don't you?"--as Isaiah lived a long time before John, and so it was stretching it to call it a "reference". More of a prophecy.
Most of the posts below take issue with PETA on various different levels, though Anand Bhat presents evidence the other way:]
First of all, so what if he was a vegetarian? His message was not to be vegetarian; it was to love your neighbor as yourself. Whether or not your neighbor is a vegetarian would not make any difference. Secondly, if Jesus was a vegetarian, why put him up as an example? When you put a person up as an example of some particular attribute, it's because you think that person has such personal stature that other people would look up to him or her, and the fact that that person has that particular attribute must mean that it's worth considering, or else a person of such high personality wouldn't practice it. So what is the exalted personal stature of Jesus? Well, it's religious. Many people believe that he's divine.
So, my second question is, do the people in PETA believe in the divinity of Jesus? If they don't, why do they raise him up as an example of a particular attribute which they advocate? He isn't wealthy, as we count wealth, and he isn't a movie star or a top athlete.
--K.B.Charles
(To reply, click here.)
This is too funny. But in the same way, it's sad--it's trying to read backwards into history an issue that makes sense only in our own culture and time. If vegetarianism was essential to Jesus' beliefs, wouldn't it be a little more prominently taught by his followers? Or was he just unable to communicate this deep truth for 2000 years, but now--now!--we finally have some smart, bright, and virtuous vegetarians to 'splain it to us?
--Carnivore
(To reply, click here.)
[And we think Greg was making the same point: "I'm going to enjoy a big fat piece of bloody meat as I laugh at these stupid animal worshipers."]
PETA's claims about the Essenes include some historical and archaeological errors, in my opinion. The site in Ein Gedi is both too small and dated too late and occupied too briefly to be the place Essenes lived near the Dead Sea, according to Pliny, Dio, and Solinus. For some archaeological details, see the July 2000 issue of Cathedra, a history journal published in Jerusalem, in which David Amit and Jodi Magness critique Yizhar Hirschfeld's claims. For more information on Pliny's description of Essenes at Qumran, from an account written during the time of Herod the Great, click here.
John the Baptist may have been a former Essene, but according to the New Testament his followers had questions about what Jesus did and taught.
--Stephen Goranson
(To reply, click here.)
The PETA theory, that Jesus was a vegetarian based on the unfounded claim that He was an Essene is absolutely absurd. If one considers the occupants at Qumran (the Dead Sea Scroll community) to be Essenes, then they were certainly not vegetarian. Read the Temple Scroll, which was found in Cave 11 and you will be confronted with more blood and gore than any meat-packing plant or horror movie. The Temple Scroll includes a multitude of commands of animal sacrifice. For example here is a segment from 11QXXVI,5: "...they shall slaughter before him the he-goat first and he shall lift up its blood in a bowl to the altar...and shall toss the blood towards the base of the altar ledge all around."
Although I respect the cause of PETA some simple general research should always be done before one makes such an awesome claim.
--Malissa
(To reply, click here.)
I read that in the Greek originals of the Bible, the word phago that is translated into meat in English really means food in the broadest sense. In St Luke (8:65), when Jesus resurrects a woman and commands her to "give meat" this uses the word phago (food) in Greek. The word for flesh (pkireas) is never used in connection with Christ.
--Anand Bhat
(To reply, click here.)
(10/16)
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Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: Sometimes when we at The Fray see the articles we close our eyes in holy dread at what we have coming: there are subjects which produce difficult Frays, and this article combined two such topics. We were expecting, and got, a lot of quotations from scriptures; and posts with such titles as Jesus was a cannibal, Jesus was an alien, Jesus was an Arab, Hitler was a vegetarian; and many spectacular fights between believers and non-believers ("God Bless you, you Dummy"). And we suppose if one poster mentioned Occam's Razor, another was bound to say "Use Occam's Razor to kill a cow and make burgers". But "Satan is a vegetarian"? "Gardenburger is all one word"? "Jesus would read it and cry"? Please.
In the midst of this, Erik J Martinek's "Jesus was a redneck" made us laugh ("All Biblical evidence points to Jesus' white trashery") but if you think you'll be offended by it, you probably will, so don't read it.
Dr Montgomery wanted to make the case against vegetarianism generally: "You'd have to eat 65 Cabbages, 100 Pinto Beans, and 72 carrots just to get the same amount of dietary protein as 4oz. of Elk Meat or 6oz. of Steak." Elk meat? Don't ask us.
We also particularly enjoyed this exchange, in which the eating of locusts was put forward as proof of non-vegetarianism, only for Miss Ann, Sunday School Teacher, to riposte that locusts in this context are the fruit of the locust-tree, modern-day carobs. Aha, said Paul: "Is the same original word for 'locusts' also used in the story of Moses and the plagues in Egypt? I find it hard to believe that the Egyptians were terrorized by an over-abundance of carob trees." A priceless image.
Everyone agreed that the Isaiah /John the Baptist sentence in the article was a bit tangled--"you have a lot of faith don't you?"--as Isaiah lived a long time before John, and so it was stretching it to call it a "reference". More of a prophecy.
Most of the posts below take issue with PETA on various different levels, though Anand Bhat presents evidence the other way:]
First of all, so what if he was a vegetarian? His message was not to be vegetarian; it was to love your neighbor as yourself. Whether or not your neighbor is a vegetarian would not make any difference. Secondly, if Jesus was a vegetarian, why put him up as an example? When you put a person up as an example of some particular attribute, it's because you think that person has such personal stature that other people would look up to him or her, and the fact that that person has that particular attribute must mean that it's worth considering, or else a person of such high personality wouldn't practice it. So what is the exalted personal stature of Jesus? Well, it's religious. Many people believe that he's divine.
So, my second question is, do the people in PETA believe in the divinity of Jesus? If they don't, why do they raise him up as an example of a particular attribute which they advocate? He isn't wealthy, as we count wealth, and he isn't a movie star or a top athlete.
--K.B.Charles
(To reply, click here.)
This is too funny. But in the same way, it's sad--it's trying to read backwards into history an issue that makes sense only in our own culture and time. If vegetarianism was essential to Jesus' beliefs, wouldn't it be a little more prominently taught by his followers? Or was he just unable to communicate this deep truth for 2000 years, but now--now!--we finally have some smart, bright, and virtuous vegetarians to 'splain it to us?
--Carnivore
(To reply, click here.)
[And we think Greg was making the same point: "I'm going to enjoy a big fat piece of bloody meat as I laugh at these stupid animal worshipers."]
PETA's claims about the Essenes include some historical and archaeological errors, in my opinion. The site in Ein Gedi is both too small and dated too late and occupied too briefly to be the place Essenes lived near the Dead Sea, according to Pliny, Dio, and Solinus. For some archaeological details, see the July 2000 issue of Cathedra, a history journal published in Jerusalem, in which David Amit and Jodi Magness critique Yizhar Hirschfeld's claims. For more information on Pliny's description of Essenes at Qumran, from an account written during the time of Herod the Great, click here.
John the Baptist may have been a former Essene, but according to the New Testament his followers had questions about what Jesus did and taught.
--Stephen Goranson
(To reply, click here.)
The PETA theory, that Jesus was a vegetarian based on the unfounded claim that He was an Essene is absolutely absurd. If one considers the occupants at Qumran (the Dead Sea Scroll community) to be Essenes, then they were certainly not vegetarian. Read the Temple Scroll, which was found in Cave 11 and you will be confronted with more blood and gore than any meat-packing plant or horror movie. The Temple Scroll includes a multitude of commands of animal sacrifice. For example here is a segment from 11QXXVI,5: "...they shall slaughter before him the he-goat first and he shall lift up its blood in a bowl to the altar...and shall toss the blood towards the base of the altar ledge all around."
Although I respect the cause of PETA some simple general research should always be done before one makes such an awesome claim.
--Malissa
(To reply, click here.)
I read that in the Greek originals of the Bible, the word phago that is translated into meat in English really means food in the broadest sense. In St Luke (8:65), when Jesus resurrects a woman and commands her to "give meat" this uses the word phago (food) in Greek. The word for flesh (pkireas) is never used in connection with Christ.
--Anand Bhat
(To reply, click here.)
(10/16)