The New Testament,
says James Hastings, refers to the term Son of Man 81 times, and all these
references are to the teachings of Enoch, seen in the Ethiopic Book
of Enoch, which describes the coming of the Son of Man and the Ancient
of Days in the Final Days. Scholars recognize that Jesus' audience was
familiar with the term Son of Man because they were familiar with the teachings
of Enoch as seen in the Book of Enoch, which describes the Son of
Man presiding over the final days along with the Ancient of Days.
Enoch's teachings and prophecies were the main catalysts for the "messianic
fervor" that existed in Jesus' day. Jesus' constant references to
the Son of Man demonstrate his acceptance of the teachings and prophecies
of Enoch, the prophet who walked with God. And Enoch preaches the coming
of an egalitarian way in which the poor and meek inherit the earth after
the rich, the kings, the mighty of the earth, those who claim to own the
earth, are overthrown and destroyed. Enoch also denounces all bloodshed
and the heaven on earth he describes is a vegetarian heaven in which all
creatures and all humans are regarded as equal inhabitants of the paradise.
Jesus'
beatitudes are an aphoristic summary of what is to occur in the final days
according to Enoch. Jesus' statement that "the meek will inherit
the earth" is a deliberate allusion to Enoch's statement that "the poor
will inherit the earth."
The "Ebionite
Gospel," the first gospel written about Jesus was named after the ebionites,
the root of whose name is ebionim, meaning poor in ancient Hebrew.
Orthodox Christian scholars gloss over Epiphanius' critique of the Ebionite Gospel, which describes Jesus and his disciples as against the animal sacrifices as as stating that the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, were revised, that, in fact, Moses did not institute the animal sacrifices.
Orthodox Christian scholars gloss over the Gospel of the Nazirenes, brought from Tibet, translated in Elizabethan English c. 1870 in England, and more recently in 1997 in modern English (Essene Vision Books, PO Box 1080, Patagonia, AZ 85624) . The Gospel of the Nazirenes as stated by editors Alan Wauters and Rick Van Wyhe, contains numerous passages of the Ebionite Gospel referred to by Church fathers.
The Cleansing of the Temple
In Context of:
The Stated Mission of Jesus
in "Epistle to the Hebrews"
Being to Abolish the Animal
Sacrifices;
The Ebionite Gospel
Describing Jesus and his Disciples
as Denouncing Animal Sacrifices,
The Nazarenes Being Described
as Vegetarians,
And Jesus Being Described
as a Nazarene;
And Jesus Constantly Quoting
the Late Vegetarian Jewish Prophets.
Jesus' mission to abolish
the animal sacrifices as stated in "Epistle to the Hebrews"
is parallel to the mission
of the Buddhas, Krishna and Shiva.
Jesus Attacks the Meat Industry,
the Creature-Killers:
Jesus chases the animals
to be sacrificed out of the temple
so they will not be sacrificed.
"The Passover
of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple
he
found those who were selling
oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their
business. And making
a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the
temple; and he poured out
the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables." John
2: 13-15.
The Mission of Jesus is to
Abolish the Animal Sacrifices.
The Real Reason for the
Cleansing of the Temple:
Jesus wanted to abolish
the animal sacrifices,
To destroy the lie that
animal sacrifices took away sin,
And to replace that lie
With the fact that the animal
sacrifices were themselves sinful.
"For it is impossible
that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." "Consequently,
when Christ came into the
world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a
body hast thou prepared
for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no
pleasure. Then I said,
`Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,' as it is written of me in the
roll
of the book." "Epistle
to the Hebrews," 10: 4-7.
Jesus the Animal Liberator
The Easily Perceived Superficiality
of the Orthodox Interpretation
of the Cleansing of the
Temple.
The cleansing
of the temple was not simply an attempt to attack a non-effective means
of
atoning for sins, nor was
it Jesus' revolt against conducting business in the temple, which is the
superficial explanation
given in the New Testament, based on the scriptures: "you shall
not make my Father's house a house of trade....you have made it a den of
robbers."
Jesus,
like a good militant Hindu or Buddhist, put his body on the line against
the cruelty of
the animal sacrifices of
orthodox Judaism, and against profiting from such cruelty and
unhealthy nutrition.
Orthodox Judaism was then and still is today daily involved in oppressing
and slaughtering flesh and
blood, feeling creatures, created by an all-compassionate God. The
elders, priests, and patriarchs
who profited from the animal sacrifices plotted Jesus' death after
this event (Mark: 11: 18).
The Orthodox Interpretation:
Jesus was merely disputing
the location of the sacrifices,
Not the sacrifices themselves.
According to
the orthodox interpretation of the cleansing of the temple, Jesus was protesting
that the sacrifices should
occur outside rather than inside the temple. The orthodox
interpretation is absurd.
A charismatic person like Jesus, if he had been carnivorous and in
favor of the animal sacrifices,
would, like a good orthodox Jew, simply have asked to consult
with the priests and patriarchs
of orthodoxy, if the location of the sacrifices had been the issue.
The intelligence,
emotional stability, and mission of Jesus are all demeaned by the orthodox
interpretation, which makes
Jesus appear as a hot-headed zealot catalyzing the Jewish
establishment to kill him
for a superficial reason.
The Purpose of Orthodox Superficiality:
To Disguise the Truth, Namely
that Jesus was Vegetarian
And did not Affirm that
"All foods are Clean."
The superficiality
of the orthodox interpretation had a definite purpose. For those concocting
the New Testament,
and those wishing to promote the notion that "all foods are clean"
had to explain away the obvious purpose of the cleansing of the temple,
which, as we can see by reading Roman documents about the Christians written
in the next three centuries, was a crucial event in the minds of the earliest
Christians, who understood it for what it is: Jesus' protest against the
animal sacrifices. Orthodox Christians, accustomed, even addicted,
to eating flesh, and desiring to sanction their habit or addiction by pointing
to scriptures asserting that "all foods are clean," totally ignore the
stated mission of Jesus as stated in the "Epistle to the Hebrews," namely
that it was his divine mission to abolish the animal sacrifices.
The Real Reason for the Cleansing
of the Temple:
Jesus wanted to abolish
the animal sacrifices,
To destroy the lie that
animal sacrifices took away sin,
And to replace that lie
With the fact that the animal
sacrifices were themselves sinful.
As a Nazarene
Jew, Jesus was quite aware that the vegetarian Nazarenes were cursed in
the
synagogues, and that the
rich Jewish elite, the patriarchs who owned cattle, were involved in
the meat industry of the
day. After the animals were sacrificed in the temple, they were
dismembered, butchered into
smaller segments, then circulated in Jerusalem and elsewhere
where they were sold. The
meat industry was then, just as it is now, a profitable industry, and
then, just as now, the elite
establishment, the wealthy, were those who profited most, though
all those involved shared
in the profits to a lesser extent.
I ask
the reader, especially the young, or the open-minded orthodox reader, to
study
carefully the following
scriptures, for they show without any doubt that it was Jesus' mission
to
abolish the animal sacrifices,
the burnt offerings. Moreover, in context of what the scriptures
say occurred, namely the
execution of Jesus by crucifixion, we can see the scripture writer
was aware that the statement
of Jesus' mission was in fact an "exhortation to martyrdom."
Let us look again at the passage in "Epistle to the Hebrews" denouncing animal sacrifices and seeing through the superficial logic stating that they are necessary to expiate sins.
"For it is impossible
that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." "Consequently,
when Christ came into the
world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a
body hast thou prepared
for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no
pleasure. Then I said,
`Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,' as it is written of me in the
roll
of the book." "Epistle
to the Hebrews," 10: 4-7.
"For since the law
has but a shadow of the good thing to come instead of the true form of
these realities, it can
never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after
year, make perfect those
who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be
offered? If the worshipers
had once been cleansed, they would no longer have any
consciousness of sin.
But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year."
10: 1-3.
The above
scriptures are the essence of the "Epistle to the Hebrews," for most of
the rest of
the epistle evades the critical
issues raised by the above scriptures.
JESUS WAS A NAZARENE
Orthodox Christians Have
Suppressed the Fact
That the Nazarenes were
Vegetarians.
The Orthodox Commitment against
seeing Vegetarianism
As a Teaching of Jesus
Even a Saint of the Roman
Catholic Church, Epiphanius
in his Panarion admits
that the earliest followers of Jesus
were called Essenes and
Nazarenes.
Saint Epiphanius in his Panarion admits that the earliest followers of Jesus were called Essenes and Nazarenes.
Attached to the "Clementine Recognitions," is another suppressed piece of Christian history which perfectly confirms the information given in the Panarion. It is a curse against the vegetarian Nazarenes and Essenes that every Jew converting to orthodox Christianity in some of the eastern churches had to recite:
"I anathematize the Nazareans,
the stubborn ones, who deny that the law of sacrifices was
given by Moses, who abstain
from eating living things, and who never offer sacrifice. I
anathematize the Osseans,
the blindest of all men, who use other Scriptures than the Law."
Quoted from page 398,
The
Conflict of the Church and Synagogue, by James Parkes.
INRI
Jesus the Nazarene, King
of the Jews
Jesus the Nazarene was changed
to Jesus of Nazareth
In order to disguise the
Vegetarianism of Jesus.
The term Nazarene
in Jesus' time referred to a vegetarian religious group who were well
known for opposing the animal
sacrifices. A number of scholars argue that Nazareth, if it
existed at all during Jesus'
day, could not have been his family's home because of its distance
from the places where Jesus
preached and congregated. Most scholars readily acknowledge that
Nazareth was not mentioned by historians or chronicles until well after
Jesus' time. Another group of scholars affirms that Nazareth got its name
from the fact that it was an area that had been inhabited by Nazirites
and Nazarenes. Either way scholars do not dispute the vegetarianism
of the Nazarenes. "Jesus the Nazarene" was changed to "Jesus of Nazareth"
by orthodox Christians after the Romans took over because they did not
want to associate Jesus with the well-known and well documented vegetarian
Nazarenes.
INRI, the sign on the cross,
should be read as
Jesus the Nazarene, King
of the Jews.
INRI, the sign
on the cross above Jesus' head should logically be translated as Jesus
the
Nazarene, King of the Jews.
The location of Jesus' home would have been irrelevant
information to be put on
the cross, for Jesus was obviously well-known in the area, whereas the
fact that Jesus was one of the Nazarenes, who were hated by orthodox Jews
because they protested against the animal sacrifices, was totally relevant
information that justified his crucifixion in their eyes. A crucified
Nazarene was a defeated enemy, an answer to the prayers of the orthodox.
Epiphanius in his
Panarion
described orthodox Jews as praying three times a day for the
destruction of the Nazarenes.
The curse: "Let the Nazarenes and the heretics perish as in a
moment, let them be blotted
out of the book of the living and let them not be written with the
righteous." (quoted in Marcel
Simon's Jewish Sects At the Time of Jesus, Fortress Press,
Philadelphia, 1967, page
136.) See Psalm 69: 28.
When one reads
that some scriptures are described as Apocryphal, Gnostic, or
Pseudoepigraphical, one
of the main things to remember is that all these terms are meant to
express the fact that these
works are not accepted by the orthodox, that is, by those who are in
power now. The victors write
history; the victors write scriptures; the victors write your
educational curriculum.
Therefore it is absolutely necessary to study what is not orthodox, to
go where no orthodox mind has gone.
There is a growing
number of objective scholars who look realistically at the epistles of
Paul,
and the Gospels and epistles
in general and understand that Paul and the Romans attempted
to undermine the egalitarianism
and vegetarianism that existed among the earliest Christians. Among these
scholars are Baigent and Leigh, authors of Deception and the Dead Sea
Scrolls, and Robert Eisenman, author of James the Brother of Jesus.
Jesus often quoted late Jewish
prophets
Who denounced the Animal
Sacrifices
And who were vegetarian.
This is a short survey
of the later prophets. For a longer study consult other pages on this web
site dealing with the individual
prophets. Some editions of all of the prophets' books of scriptures
may be downloaded freely on the web.
Zechariah
The Cleansing of the Temple and Zechariah's teachings.
Zechariah not only
denounces animal sacrifices, but he looks at the profit motive of the
cattlemen who kill their
cattle in 11: 4-5,
"Thus said the Lord my God:
"Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. Those who
buy them slay them and go
unpunished; and those who sell them say, `Blessed be the Lord, I
have become rich'; and their
own shepherds have no pity on them." 11: 4-5.
We can see in
the above scripture the same recognition by Zechariah, that orthodox Judaism
was an evil shepherd not
caring for the creatures of God, but killing them and selling their
flesh to eat. Jesus,
in contrast, manifests the Good Shepherd who cares for his flock and
doesn't want the creatures
in his flock killed. Therefore he cleansed the temple.
Jesus scatters the animals
who were to be sacrificed in the temple.
The bad shepherds are those
who are profiting
from the killing and eating
of God's creatures.
"Awake, O sword, against
my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me," says the Lord
of hosts. "Strike
the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered." Zechariah 13: 7.
My anger is hot against the shepherds...10: 3.
...and I will make an end
of the pride of Philistia. I will take away its blood from its mouth,
and
its abominations from between
its teeth; it too shall be a remnant for our God. 9: 6-7.
Zechariah's name is
Z'akharya in the Peshitta Aramaic. Z'akharya contains the word Acharya,
which in Sanskrit means
one who knows the rules, a holy teacher. Zechariah's name itself is
testimony to the Hindu (and
vegetarian) origins of Judaism and Jewish Christianity.
Isaiah
"Hear the word of the Lord
you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you
people of Gomorrah!
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had
enough of burnt offerings
of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of
bulls, or of lambs, or of
he-goats." 1: 10-11.
"...even though you make
many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash
yourselves, make yourselves
clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease
to do evil, learn to do
good; seek justice, correct oppression... l: l5-17.
"You have not... satisfied
me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with
your sins, you have wearied
me with your iniquities." 43: 24.
"He who slaughters an ox
is like him who kills a man." Isaiah 66:3.
Hosea
"For I desire steadfast love
and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt
offerings. But at
Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with
me."
Hosea 6: 6-7.
"They love sacrifice; they
sacrifice flesh and eat it; but the Lord has no delight in them."
Hosea
8: l3.
Jeremiah
"And I will doubly recompense
their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land
with the carcasses of their
detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their
abominations." 16:
17-18.
Baruch
"Take courage, my people,
O memorial of Israel! It was not for destruction that you were sold
to the nations, but you
were handed over to your enemies because you angered God. For you
provoked him who made you
by sacrificing to demons and not to God." 4: 5-7.
"He who prepared the earth
for all time filled it with four-footed creatures." 3: 32.
Amos
"I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though
you offer me your burnt
offerings...I will not accept them and the peace offerings of your fatted
beasts I will not look upon.
5: 2l-22.
"Woe to those who lie upon
beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat
lambs from the flock, and
calves from the midst of the stall..." 6: 4.
Micah
Destroying the Temples of
Animal Sacrifice In Jerusalem and Samaria
Sacrificing Animals, Carnivorism,
is Idol Worship
"What is the transgression
of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the sin of the
house of
Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?
Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a
place for planting vineyards;
and I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her
foundations. All her images
shall be beaten to pieces, all her hires shall be burned
with fire, and all her idols
I will lay waste..." 1: 6-7.
"With what shall I come before
the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come
before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old? Will the lord be pleased with
thousands of rams....Shall
I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the
sin of my soul? He has showed
you, O man what is good; and what does the Lord
require of you but to do
justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
6:
6-8.
Daniel
Daniel and the Vegetarian
Covenant
Daniel's vision of the tree
of vegetation feeding all creatures in Gen: 1: 29-30.
"The visions of my head as
I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold, a tree in the midst of the
earth; and its height was
great. The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to
heaven, and it was visible
to the end of the whole earth. Its leaves were fair and its fruit
abundant, and it was food
for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, and
the birds of the air dwelt
in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it. 4: 10-12.
Daniel and Friends are clear-headed eating vegetation.
The king's seers, eating the king's rich food, i.e. flesh, are not.
"Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of eunuchs had appointed
over Daniel,
Hanani'ah, Mish a el and
Azariah, "Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables
to eat and water to drink.
Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who
eat the king's rich food
be observed by you, and according to what you see deal with your
servants." So he hearkened
to them in this matter and tested them for ten days. At the end of
ten days it was seen that
they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths
who ate the king's rich
food. So the steward took away their rich food and the wine they
were
to drink and gave them vegetables."
1: 11-16.
The king tests Daniel and his vegetarian friends:
"In every matter of wisdom
and understanding he found them ten times better than all the
magicians and enchanters
that were in all his kingdom." 1: 20.
Joel
"Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine and oil, and you shall be satisfied... 2: l9.
"Fear not, you beasts of
the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears
its
fruit, the fig tree and
the vine give their full yield." 2: 22.
"And it shall come to pass
afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh..." 2: 28.
Ezekiel
"Then I said, Ah lord God!
behold, I have never defiled myself; from my youth up till now I
have never eaten what died
of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has foul flesh come into my
mouth." 4: 14.
"Thus says the Lord God,
Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my sheep at
their hand, and put a stop
to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed
themselves. I will
rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them."
34:
10.
"On that day I swore to them
that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I
had searched out for them,
a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands.
And I said to them, Cast
away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and
do not defile yourselves
with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God. But they rebelled
against me and would not
listen to me; they did not every man cast away the detestable things
their eyes feasted on, nor
did they forsake the idols of Egypt." 20: 6-8.
Above Ezekiel is referring
to the incident of the Israelites who craved flesh and received it in
the form of quails. After
eating the quail, many Israelites became sick and died. It was a
capsule lesson of the real
Moses' teaching: be true to God's vegetarian covenant, for it will
mean the length of your
days, that is, that you will live longer.
The above descriptions of
Jesus cleansing the temple,
Jesus' mission being to
abolish the animal sacrifices,
the scriptures denouncing
animal sacrifices
from the vegetarian prophets
whom Jesus quotes,
should be juxtaposed
with the following events
from the life of Buddha.
They show a similar purpose
in the lives of both men.
Both had missions to abolish
acts of harm towards God's creatures.
Buddha releases a lamb about
to be sacrificed.
The Spirit of Ahimsa is
to be extended to all creatures,
not just humans.
"The spirit of Ahimsa (non-violence) was ever present with Gautama from his very childhood. One day, his cousin Devadatta shot a bird. The poor creature was hurt and fell to the ground. Gautama ran forward, picked it up and refused to hand it over to his cousin. The quarrel was taken up before the Rajaguru who, however, decided in favour of Gautama to the great humiliation of Devadatta.
In his wanderings, Gautama one day saw a herd of goats and sheep winding their way through a narrow valley. Now and then the herdsman cried and ran forward and backward to keep the members of the fold from going astray. Among the vast flock Gautama saw a little lamb, toiling behind, wounded in one part of the body and made lame by a blow of the herdsman. Gautama's heart was touched and he took it up in his arms and carried it saying, "It is better to relieve the suffering of an innocent being than to sit on the rocks of Olympus or in solitary caves and watch unconcerned the sorrows and sufferings of humanity". Then, turning to the herdsman he said, "Whither are you going, my friend, with this huge flock so great a hurry ?". "To the king's palace" said the herdsman, "We are sent to fetch goats and sheep for sacrifice which our master - the king - will start tonight in propitiation of the gods." Hearing this, Gautama followed the herdsman, carrying the lamb in his arms. When they entered the city, word was circulated that a holy hermit had brought the sacrifices ordered by the king. As Gautama passed through the streets, people came out to see the gracious and saintly figure of the youth clad in the yellow robes of a Sadhu (renunciate) and all were struck with wonder and awe at his noble mien and his sweet expression. The king was also informed of the coming of the holy man to the sacrifice. When the ceremonies commenced in the presence of the king, there was brought a goat ready to be killed and offered to the gods. There it stood with its legs tied up and the high priest ready with a big bloodthirsty knife in his hand to cut the dumb animal's throat. In that cruel and tragic moment, when the life of the poor creature hung by a thread, Gautama stepped forward and cried, "Stop the cruel deed, O king!". And as he said this, he leaned forward and unfastened the bonds of the victim. "Every creature" he said, "loves to live, even as every human being loves to preserve his or her life". The priest then threw the knife away like a repentant sinner and the king issued a royal decree throughout the land the next day, to the effect that no further sacrifice should be made in future and that all people should show mercy to birds and beasts alike." From teachings/ahimsa.htm
Those
aware of Hinduism know that the majority of Hindus venerating the main
avatars of Hinduism, such Shiva, Krishna, Kali, Uma, are vegetarian. There
are, however, carnivorous Hindu sects worshipping Kali and Shiva.
In any case, it should now be easy to see how Jesus fit in the pattern set by the prophets following the true covenant of Judaism, the covenant of Genesis 1: 29-30, which is a covenant of ahimsa towards all creatures. It is dramatically the opposite of the absurd covenant of Genesis 9: 2-3.
Looking
at to the study of Muhammad and Islam, let it be said that the messenger
Muhammad was faced with some of the same situations faced by the messenger
Jesus and that Muhammad's view of the sacredness of all creatures of Allah
was identical to that of all the pure remnant of Israel and Christianity,
not of its orthodoxies, who are heretics against God's original and only
valid dietary covenant, the vegetarian covenant of Gen. 1: 29.