The antediluvian diet
In 2024, American documentarians will release Christpiracya film claiming that the Church is hiding from the world that Jesus was a vegetarian.
The question has surfaced regularly for several decades. What is it really?
One of the latest studies on the subject is the work of a Californian exegete, Simon Joseph. In 2019, he looked at the passage from the New Testament that is most often cited in support of the vegetarian Jesus thesis, a letter from Paul to the Corinthians. In this passage, Paul states that it is not necessary to eat meat and that some Christians abstain from doing so.
“If some early Christians were vegetarians, understanding why is important in the question of Jesus’ vegetarianism,” says Mr. Joseph, who published his analysis in 2019 in the Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting (JJMJS). “Traditionally, it is considered that they were Jews who became Christians, who could not find meat killed according to Jewish rituals where they lived, and therefore abstained from it. »
Mr. Joseph, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles, has another explanation: These vegetarian Christianized Jews considered Jesus to be the Messiah who would return believers to the original Eden.
In Genesis, God tells Adam and Eve that they can eat anything that grows on trees, except the tree of knowledge. He’s not talking about eating animals.
Simon Joseph, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles
“The arrival of the Messiah was to bring back this Edenic state. So, we had to return to the pre-diluvian diet, in the Garden of Eden. »
Sébastien Doane, a theologian at Laval University who has extensively studied the question of vegetarianism in original Christianity, believes that this is a very plausible interpretation. “The eating of meat in the Bible is introduced with Noah, who was commanded by God to make an animal sacrifice and eat it. So in Eden, where we will return with the arrival of the Messiah, we do not eat meat. »
Mr. Joseph’s hypothesis curiously echoes people who are now becoming vegetarians because of climate change, because meat production emits more greenhouse gases than the production of vegetables, grains and legumes. “It’s also an idea of the end of the world,” Mr. Doane said.
The butchers of the temple
At the time of Christ, butcheries did not exist, at least in the Roman world. “We ate meat from temple sacrifices,” says Doane.
The most fervent supporters of the thesis that Jesus did not eat meat cite as proof his anger against the merchants of the Jerusalem temple. “In the temple, animals were sacrificed, and the sale of meat was one of the important sources of income,” says James Tabor, a theologian at the University of North Carolina who has published several popular books on figures of the New Testament.
In my opinion, Jesus signals in his anger his opposition to eating meat.
James Tabor, theologian at the University of North Carolina
Mr. Joseph believes that the numerous references to Eden in the four gospels of the New Testament signal Jesus’ intention to return to the practices of Genesis, including vegetarian eating. “When he condemns divorce, for example, he refers to Genesis,” Mr. Joseph said.
Furthermore, Jesus most likely ate fish, according to Mr. Doane. “He recruits fishermen, who continue to fish, he multiplies the loaves and fishes. » At the time, meat was the preserve of the rich and fish was one of the only ways to get non-plant protein for the humble, Mr. Doane points out.
Even today, Christians do not consider fish to be in the same category as meat, Mr. Tabor emphasizes. “If you want to eat lean on certain days for religious reasons, you can eat fish. »
The Lord’s Supper
Jesus’ last meal with his disciples took place during Passover, a time when it was important to eat the lamb sacrificed in a Jewish temple. “The last supper, if it is a Passover meal, would normally have included the eating of a lamb, but this is not explicit,” Mr. Doane said. It can be assumed that Jesus ate lamb at Passover during his life, since this was the usual practice. »
Rather, Mr. Tabor sees the Last Supper allegorically. “Jesus, by offering to eat his body, asks us to abstain from eating meat, to replace the Passover lamb with the Eucharist. »
Last meal or not, Mr. Doane’s recent exegeses on the meat question have personally pushed him toward vegetarianism. “Until Constantine, several Christian authors said that the way to be Christian is to be vegetarian. Furthermore, at the time there was something sacred about slaughtering an animal, a respect that we don’t have at all today. »
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- 9%
- Proportion of Canadians who are vegetarian
SOURCE: MAPAQ