If Jesus Was a Vegetarian, the Pope Is a Lutheran

I'm tired, and I don't really feel like doing any work today (in fact, this was written yesterday), so I'm going to steal candy from a baby and shoot fish in a barrel, so to speak. I am addressing the claims that Jesus was a vegetarian.

Now, I don't know about any of you, my faithful readers (all five of you, according to Feedburner data), but I, for one, consider myself to be somewhat of an expert on the Bible. I am by no means a Christian, though. I just know a lot about the Bible. I used to be Christian, and, in this past life, I went to a Bible college program in Brampton, Ontario. Plus, in my free time, I studied what was in the Bible like mad, so I would say that my perspective on Biblical Christian theology is pretty enlightened. Not to toot my own horn, or anything...

Okay, I Googled the words "Jesus" and "Vegetarian", and I got a lot of sites saying that Jesus was a vegetarian. I decided to only comment on the first few results. So, here we go.

Probably the most absurd site I got in my results was this one. They say that Jesus was not only a vegetarian, he was also a "raw-foodist". They then cite the Essene Gospel of Peace to support their claim. I'm sorry, but the Essene Gospel of Peace is apocryphal, if not downright pseudepigraphal. I spent two hours searching for scholarly opinions about it on Google and I can find none. The fact that the only information about it is from Essene sources seems to tell me that the Essene Gospel of Peace is nothing but bullshit. It's not even on the same level of being fake as the Apocryphon of James!

If you examine the evidence as put forth in the only historical accounts of Jesus' life, the Gospels, you will see that Jesus did not advocate raw food at all. Jesus ate bread. The last time I checked, bread had to be cooked.

Now, take a look at this site. It claims that the Bible does not mention Jesus eating meat at all. Well, I distinctly remember Jesus causing Simon Peter to catch an assload of fish not once, but twice. I also remember Jesus multiplying fish and loaves not once, but twice. Jesus also ate fish after his resurrection. Of course, they claim that the fish is a symbol of Christianity, so those passages are symbolic. Symbolic my ass! The fish didn't become a symbol of Christianity until AFTER Jesus died. He never instituted it as a symbol, and in fact fish would have been a staple of his diet. He lived in fucking Galilee, where the Sea of Galilee is located. The ichthus ("Jesus fish") became popular during the various Roman persecutions that took place infrequently. Not only that, but I also remember the Last Supper, which took place on Passover. The last time I checked, lamb was part of the Seder. If these people wish to claim that Jesus did not follow Jewish law as it relates to the Passover, then they had better be able to prove it.

This site also claims that Jesus was an Essene, despite the obvious fact that Jesus never once advocated communal living or property in common. He also routinely dined with rich people, particularly Pharisees and tax collectors. If he was an Essene, he wasn't very good at being one. From what I can gather, the only label you could give Jesus would be "Pharisee", because of his belief in the resurrection, the defining belief of a Pharisee.

Then these people go on to claim that Paul, if he was being consistent with his teachings, was also a vegetarian. They use 1 Corinthians 8:13 to support this argument. I say, "Bullshit!" Do they even know what the context of that verse is? Let's examine what 1 Corinthians 8:1 says:

"Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies."

And, to make sure that the context is inescapably clear, let's look at Verse 4:

"Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one."

Hmm... You know what this says to me? Paul was talking about meat sacrificed to idols. Back in the day, throughout the pagan parts of the Roman Empire, all animals were sacrificed to idols during slaughter. Some early Christians had a problem eating the meat from these animals, because the Old Testament forbade eating meat sacrificed to false gods. However, here, Paul gives a dispensation from that law, and then goes on to say that the early Christians should be careful with this freedom. If someone who does not know as they know sees them eating meat sacrificed to an idol, what would they think? Their faith would be weakened, and they might not become Christian. Paul said that he would never eat meat again if it would cause a Christian to stumble in his faith. There is no evidence that this was actually the case, so this claim is, of course, bullshit.

Then this site goes on to claim that a few Apostles and Jesus' brother, James the Less. They then say that, if James the Less was raised as a vegetarian, then Jesus probably was, as well. First of all, scholars can't even agree on what James the Less' relationship with Jesus was. Secondly, there is absolutely no historical data that supports this. Hearsay from Augustine and Hegisuppus doesn't cut it, especially when you consider that the canon of the New Testament hadn't even been set at that point, and there were a lot of apocryphal gospels floating about. Show me an authenticated letter written by an apostle that says that James the Less, Peter, Paul, and Matthew were vegetarian, or shut the fuck up. Seriously.

The rest of the sites that Google returned were more of the same, including PETA's JesusVeg.com. If you want an article that addresses PETA's claims specifically, Slate has a good one. They addressed all of PETA's claims, even the more absurd ones of Essenes being vegetarians, while I only really addressed the less absurd claims of the whole "Jesus was a vegetarian" school of thought.