'I have come to abolish the sacrifices...' - Making the Case for a Vegetarian Jesus, Part 3

Jesus Disrupts the Temple Sacrifices & Other Biblical Evidence Jesus Opposed Animal Sacrifice

“I have come to abolish the sacrifices, and if ye cease not from sacrifice, the wrath will not cease from you.” - Jesus, according to the gospel of the Ebionites, cited by Euseubius

The Ebionites was among the early Jewish Christian sects which held to the tradition that Jesus as the Hebrew Messiah had come to do away with the animal sacrifices of the Jewish Temple which were so central to the Jewish religion at that time, teaching them a better and more perfect way of peace. On the other hand, Christianity teaches that the messiah figure came to offer himself and become one final, perfect human sacrifice to replace the animal sacrificial system. In this post we are going to look at Jesus as presented in the gospels of the Christian Bible, and see which of these main two competing traditions he more closely appears to align with.

Having looked at the history of animal sacrifice and intimate connection between sacrifice and meat-eating in the last post, and seen that the Hebrew prophets came denouncing both human violence and animal sacrifice along with their accompanying feasts of blood; we are now going to take a look at what Jesus himself had to say on these issues. Did he come in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets, or the Temple priests? Did he come to abolish the sacrifices, or to become one last final sacrifice for mankind as Christianity generally teaches?

Sacrifice in the Gospels

On the only two occasions Jesus speaks directly to the issue of sacrifice in the gospels, he quotes the words of the prophet Hosea which do not paint sacrifice in the best light, and both of these instances are in the gospel of Matthew:

But go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice: for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Matthew 9:13)

But I say unto you that in this place there is one greater than the Temple. If you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. (Matthew 12:6-7)

The full verse from Hosea being quoted reads: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6)

On at least the second occasion it appears that Jesus is clearly speaking to the Temple sacrifices. If the religious establishment had understood their God didn't want sacrifices, they “would not have condemned the innocent [animals],” and this understanding is solidified by the preceding words – a reference to himself as being one greater than the Temple now among them. For sacrifices were the center of Temple worship, and here he was declaring that one greater than the temple had arrived who is stating that God wants mercy and not sacrifices. Sure seems like the subject here is the Temple sacrifices...

Additionally, in a story unique to Mark, when one of the religious leaders concludes that to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves is “better than all burnt offerings and sacrifices,” Jesus compliments this understanding by telling the man he is “not far from the kingdom” (Mark 12:33-34). This further supports the idea that in the mind of Jesus, the God of Israel truly wanted mercy and love rather than the killing of animals in his name being offered as sacrifices and burnt offerings.

On no other occasion found in the gospels is the issue of sacrifice directly addressed by the Teacher, although there may be a few indirect references; whereas the use of deductive reasoning will be far more useful in determining an answer, rather than hunting for a direct teaching on the role of sacrifice in the law according to Jesus in the four gospels as we have them in the Christian Bible. Probably more important than a lack of teaching on sacrifice by Jesus in the gospels is the glaring omission of the Jewish Teacher ever taking part in animal sacrifices, or even of eating the Passover lamb despite being described as present in Jerusalem at the feast day on more than one occasion.

What may be a veiled denunciation of sacrifice is found in the gospel of John, when a Samaritan woman asked Jesus about the true worship God, telling him that the Samaritans worship on their sacred mountain, whereas the Jews worship in Jerusalem. The reference to 'worship' almost certainly pertains to sacrifice, even if the question wasn't about the nature of sacrifice but rather the 'proper' location in which this worship is to be practiced. For sacrifice was the central act of worship in both the Temple and on Mount Gerizim; and to this day the Samaritans still offer sacrifices on that mountain at the Passover, whereas the Jews offered their sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus answers that “neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem” will the true worshipers worship the Father. (John 4:21)

But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father is seeking such to worship him. (John 4:23)

It would seem Jesus is indirectly announcing that the true God does not seek the sacrificial worship performed either in Jerusalem nor on their holy mountain, or anywhere else for that matter; but instead, “they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

While this is not a clear reference to sacrifice, and Jesus never seems to directly address the question of sacrifice and its true role and purpose in the gospels; he does, however, clearly identify himself and his disciples with the tradition of the anti-establishment Hebrew prophets, who had centuries before condemned Jerusalem, denouncing the temple sacrifices and accompanying feasts of blood, along with all its other ways of violence and war.

“Blessed are you when men shall persecute you,” the Teacher told his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, “for so they persecuted the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:12). There were indeed many prophets, and for as many anti-establishment prophets who had denounced Jerusalem with its wars and sacrifices while predicting its downfall, there were many more who had defended and praised the religious establishment in Jerusalem; but it was not these establishment prophets which had been persecuted, and in no way can they be the prophets Jesus is referencing here! No, Jesus is clearly referencing the anti-establishment prophets who were persecuted for condemning Jerusalem; like Jeremiah who had stood in the temple gates and denounced the bloody sacrifices as having never been commanded by the God of Israel, and who was later almost put to death by the religious establishment when he wouldn't stop announcing the coming fall of Jerusalem.

Later, right before his own arrest and murder at the hands of this same religious establishment, speaking directly to the religious establishment which was about to have him put to death, he says:

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee...” (Matthew 23:37)

His own identification with the anti-establishment Hebrew prophets of old including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Amos, who had all harshly and unequivocally denounced the temple sacrifices, is quite apparent. The Jesus portrayed in the gospels clearly saw himself as coming in the tradition of the prophets whom the religious establishment of Jerusalem had continually rejected, persecuted and put to death; just as they would soon do to him, and then again 40 years later to his brother James as well. And the reason they finally killed him is probably also the strongest argument that Jesus did in fact see himself as coming to destroy the sacrificial system as the Ebionites and other early Christians claimed.

Jesus Disrupts the Temple Sacrifices, Leading to His Crucifixion

Just 3 days before his crucifixion, in what is commonly known as the 'cleansing of the Temple', in what is painted by the modern day Christian establishment as an assault directed solely at the money-changers, Jesus interrupted the lucrative animal sacrifice business during the busiest and most profitable time of the entire year – Passover – performing a massive act of animal liberation in what can only be described as a direct assault on the Temple cult of sacrifice, as we shall see.

The temple already acted as a de-facto slaughterhouse all year, but this was especially the case at the time of Passover, when Jews from all around the world came to celebrate the feast, in which a lamb was to be slaughtered for each and every family taking part in the religious celebration. There were hundreds of animals being sold in the outer courts of the temple, to later be slaughtered; and while it is true that the money-changers likely extorted the foreigners buying the animals there, who by law had to use temple coins and thus had to exchange their Roman money for temple money at exorbitant exchange rates, it was surely the temple soon to be awash in the blood of hundreds of innocent victims which was the far more important concern to anyone with a pure and compassionate heart. Dr. J.R. Hyland describes the scene and details of how the sacrifices took place:

The victim was chosen according to a strict protocol: the number of people eating together dictated the size of the animal they would eat. But the animal purchased on the 10th of Nisan would not be killed until the 14th - - the eve of Passover. Because each man killed his own animal at this session, the number of sacrificers and the number of their victims was so great that the purchase and the killing could not be carried out on the same day.

From ancient records, scholars have reconstructed the events that took place on the day of sacrifice. The killing began at 3 P.M. and by sundown about 18,000 animals would be dead. Because the Temple could not accommodate all the “worshipers” at the same time, the victims had to be killed in three shifts.

Approximately 6,000 people comprised each shift and since the sacrifice was a yearling, the men usually carried the lambs on their shoulders. Once in the place of slaughter, they lined up in long rows next to a row of priests. The shofar would sound and the men would wrest the lambs to the ground, slitting their throats. As they bled to death, the priests standing next to them would catch the blood in large buckets. When these were full they would be passed up the line to those who stood by the altar. They would throw the blood against the side of the altar. The empty buckets would be recycled and refilled with the blood of more lambs.

In the gospel of Mark it states that upon entering Jerusalem, Jesus went into the Temple, “and looked round about upon all things” before leaving the city, for it was evening, the day before he would make his big move, meaning the confrontation in the temple was a well-planned and entirely pre-meditated act. He would have seen the hundreds of animals waiting to be sold for the slaughter the next day.

In Luke, it is written that as he “came near” Jerusalem the next day, he wept over the city, saying “If only you had known the things that would bring you peace! But now they are hid before your eyes” (Luke 19:41-42). In Luke's account he then immediately prophesied the Temple's destruction by Rome before entering the Temple where he began to cast out those who were buying and selling the animals.

It is quite possible the things that would bring Jerusalem peace included particularly the rejection of animal sacrifice. According to the Ebionite view that Jesus came to abolish the sacrifices, it was indeed the refusal by the religious establishment to cease from sacrificing that ultimately led to the destruction of the Temple by Rome, the “wrath that would not cease” if they did not “cease from sacrificing.” So the fact that in Luke, Jesus lamenting that Jerusalem couldn't recognize the things that would bring them peace was immediately followed by the prophesy of its destruction by Rome, and that immediately followed by his upsetting the sacrificial business in the temple, is well worth noting, and is not seen in any other gospel.

The gospel of John gives the most detailed account of the actual temple confrontation, though puts it at the beginning of the gospel rather than at the end as the other three do, leading some scholars to hypothesize that instead of describing the same event, Jesus actually 'cleansed the temple' twice! While most theologians reject this view, if this were the case then it only adds a greater sense of importance to this event - so much so that it both opens and closes his ministry. I find it more likely that the event is one and the same, but the author of John chose to put it at the beginning of his gospel to emphasize its importance to the reader. Regardless, the importance of this event is obvious, as it is one of the few stories found in all four gospels, and as we will soon see directly leads to the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus.

John describes that upon entering the temple when the Passover was at hand, Jesus “found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting,” with the money changers the last to be mentioned, almost as an afterthought, obviously of least importance in the author's mind. That this was an overt act of animal liberation is made perfectly clear and cannot be denied according to the text that follows:

And when he had made a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep and the oxen; and poured out the changers money, and overturned the tables; And said to them that sold doves, Take these things away; make not my Father's house a house of merchandise.” (John 2:15)

He drove out all those who were buying and selling the animals to be used in sacrifice, and then immediately released the herds of cattle and sheep as well, and finally after driving out the money-changers he instructed those selling the doves to get them out of there! The main target of his anger is quite clearly those in the temple who are selling the animals to be used in the coming Passover sacrifices. Both Matthew and Mark also have Jesus casting out those who bought and sold before the money-changers, while Luke doesn't even make mention of the money-changers at all; he simply “began to cast out them that sold therein, and them which bought” (Luke 19:45).

Mark also immediately adds that he “would not suffer that any man would carry any vessel through the temple” (Mark 11:16). This is a most interesting remark seen only in this account, and can surely only be properly understood as Jesus prohibiting any person from carrying vessels of blood through the temple . After all, vessels of water would have been most necessary to wash out the rivers of blood, and there would be no purpose in prohibiting the carrying of water; but prohibiting the carrying of blood through the temple is perfectly in line with having driven out all the animals being sold for the purpose of sacrifice along with all the merchants selling them. Even though the slaughtering of the Passover victims would take place another day, there were no doubt still the daily sacrifices being offered.

Upon 'cleansing the temple' and driving out all the merchants and releasing their would-be victims, according to both Matthew and Mark, Jesus said to them,

It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer; but ye have made it into a den of robbers. (Matthew 21:13)

It is unanimously agreed by scholars and theologians that Jesus is here referencing a passage from Jeremiah's speech at the temple gates wherein he denounced animal sacrifice. Just a few short verses after admonishing the people to “not shed innocent blood in this place,” the prophet has the God of Israel speaking thus:

Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? (Jeremiah 7:11)

Not only were there no money-changers in the time of Jeremiah, but the meaning of the Hebrew word 'robber' here means only violent robbers rather than petty thieves or swindlers (as the money-changers would have been). Definition from Strong's (6530) makes this clear:

parits: violent one
Definition: violent one
From parats; violent, i.e. A tyrant -- destroyer, ravenous, robber.

Even the Greek word used here for 'robber' translated thief also makes it clear this is a reference to violent ones:

3027 lēstḗs – a thief ("robber"), stealing out in the open (typically with violence). 3027 /lēstḗs ("a bandit, briard") is a thief who also plunders and pillages – an unscrupulous marauder (malefactor), exploiting the vulnerable without hesitating to use violence.

Jesus, therefore, could have only been properly referring to some group of 'violent ones' within the temple, which excludes the nonviolent money-changers who were simply swindling or extorting people by charging exorbitant exchange rates; immoral and dishonest indeed, but nevertheless not violent. The only other people which he targeted were those who sold the animals to be used in sacrifice. Therefore, by using these words of Jeremiah it is clear that Jesus could only have been attacking the temple cult of sacrifice - those 'robbers' responsible for shedding so much innocent blood in the temple in the name of God.

Not only does the meaning of the word 'robber' used by Jeremiah make this apparent, but the context of the quote from Jeremiah also makes it quite clear, for just 10 verses later within the very same speech, Jeremiah is announcing that God never commanded the sacrifices in the first place! And ten verses after that Jeremiah is denouncing the practice of child sacrifice, explaining that not only did God not command them to sacrifice their children, but the thought “never came into [his] heart.”

Right before quoting Jeremiah, when referring to the temple being called a house of prayer, Jesus is quoting the prophet Isaiah who on multiple occasions also railed against the sacrifices; and he is clearly contrasting the intended purpose of the house of God as a quiet and peaceful house of prayer rather than a busy house of slaughter and bloodshed ('den of robbers'). Here the Teacher is again drawing on an ancient tradition set forth centuries before: that the true sacrifice is prayer and thanksgiving, that God wants us to listen and obey his voice rather than to offer sacrifices (Jeremiah 7:23; 1 Samuel 15:22; Psalms 51:16-17; Proverbs 15:8, 21:3), and was naturally therefore also the intended purpose of the house of God:

Guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. (Ecclesiastes 5:1)

Interestingly, John's account of this event also has the disciples recalling a passage from one of the Psalms which just so happens to contain this very precept! It says in John, immediately after Jesus rebuked those who were selling doves: “And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up,” a reference to Psalm 69:9. It cannot be denied that those in charge of the sacrificial system were very zealous for the temple. Later in that very same Psalm, we read:

I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
This also shall please the LORD better than an ox, more than a bull that hath horns and hoofs. (Psalms 69:32)

Could it possibly be just a coincidence that each reference to the Hebrew scriptures made in the gospels in the context of this event just so happen to come from some of the select few isolated chapters of the Hebrew scriptures in which sacrifice is denounced or its importance greatly minimized?

Further, it is this confrontation in the temple, this disruption of the sacrificial system, that immediately leads to the arrest of Jesus and his crucifixion. Mark states that the “scribes and chief priests,” upon hearing his denunciation of those selling the sacrificial victims in the temple for having turned it into a house of robbers, “sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.” (Mark 11:18) Luke says the same, but without reference to astonishment of the people, but reverses the order, saying “the chief priests and scribes sought to destroy him.” Matthew also reverses the order, putting the emphasis on the chief priests over the scribes, which it says are “sorely displeased” when they see these things.

We can see that it is primarily the priests along with some other religious authorities who immediately begin seeking a way to put him to death, further evidence he has just disrupted the temple sacrifices, the priest's main business. It is the priests who feel threatened by this cleansing of the temple. And what would be so important about this doctrine of Jesus which has so astonished the people that the priests now fear him to the point of immediately seeking a means to put him to death? Surely it must be that he has just interrupted the lucrative animal sacrifice business in the middle of the busiest and most profitable holiday of the year, and that because the multitudes “took him for a prophet” (Matthew 21:46), the priests see this as a direct threat on both their religious authority and their lucrative business. For if enough people were to be carried away with the idea that God didn't require the sacrifices, and it was just a racket to enrich the priests, then this would indeed threaten not only their authority but also their profitable enterprise, and give them ample cause to immediately seek his destruction at their hands.

Despite Matthew having up until this event painted a picture that it is the Pharisees who are Jesus' main opposition, three times in the same chapter immediately following this event does Matthew have the chief priests confronting Jesus. Then, following a long series of sayings and parables spoken to the multitudes by the Master, the same gospel says that the chief priests and elders of the people meet at the palace of the high priest to devise a plot to to kill him (26:3-4). It is undeniably the priests which feel threatened by Jesus, the priests which decide to kill him, and armed men working for the high priest which eventually arrest him for this purpose; and this was all sparked by the confrontation in the temple.

No matter how one looks at it, the fact remains:

"Preaching against the religious establishment was one thing; trying to overthrow the sacrificial system that was its foundation, was another. After he did that, nothing would be forgiven him. Jesus disrupted the Temple worship on 10 Nisan. By the 14th day, he was dead. Like the innocent animals he tried to free, he too, was killed--in the name of God." (Dr. J.R. Hyland, What the Bible Really Says - Sacrificial Religion)

And as it turns out, there may even be a prophesy by Daniel predicting that the coming Messiah would do just this, cause the sacrifices to cease. In the midst of a passage speaking of a coming "Messiah the prince" who would be "cut off," and what appears to be the following destruction of the temple, the following is written in Daniel 9:27:

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate.

While many Christians argue this is speaking of some anti-Christ figure, the context appears to suggest there was no change in the object of the prophecy, and there are in fact many Biblical commentators who agree. If it is taken as a prophesy of Jesus, then he fulfilled the prophecy quite well: the confirming of the covenant would have been his interpretation on the law given to his disciples, he caused the sacrifice to cease during his attack on the temple establishment, the "overspreading of abominations" could be seen as the sacrifices the Jews refused to cease from offering, whereby the temple was several decades later made desolate when it was destroyed by the Romans. This also matches with the Ebionite take on the role of sacrifices, Jesus role as having come to destroy them, and the underlying reason for the destruction of the temple.

Another point of interest is found at his trial, when according to Matthew and Mark, witnesses lay the charge against him that he said he would destroy the temple and build a new one in three days. The wording put into the “false” witnesses mouth in Mark seems to be keeping with the character of Jesus as revealed in the gospels, and so it seems to me to likely have been an actual saying of Jesus:

He said he would destroy this temple built with human hands, and in three days build a temple made without human hands. (Mark 14:58)

In John, immediately after this temple cleansing episode, the religious leaders ask Jesus for a sign to prove his authority to do such things, and he responds with a saying which does not appear favorable for the temple and closely mirrors the saying attributed to him above: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The author immediately clarifies that Jesus is here speaking of the temple of the holy spirit, that is his body (John 2:19-20).

A saying of Jesus preserved in the Gospel of Thomas, however, does in fact seem to put the threat to destroy the temple directly into the mouth of Jesus:

I will destroy this house, and no one will be able to build it again. (saying 71)

We can see that an animosity towards the temple at least appeared apparent to Jesus' opponents, who saw him as threatening to destroy the temple (along with its sacrifices), regardless of whether he actually used those exact words. What remains clear is that it is the priests, the overseers of the temple cult of sacrifice, had the biggest problem with Jesus; and this big problem arose right when he temporarily put a stop to the temple sacrifices during the Passover. It didn't end with Jesus, however.

The Priests and the Early Followers of Jesus

As the story of the disciples and early followers continues in the book of Acts, it is the priests who are immediately attempting to suppress and destroy this movement, clearly seeing it as a threat even after Jesus was gone. His brother James succeeded Jesus as leader of this movement; and the Ebionites who said Jesus came to destroy the sacrifices, also used other scriptures including an 'Ascent of James' in which James is pictured as giving a series of speeches on the temple steps against the sacrifices and fire on the alter. This picture also matches with the description of the high priest and his agents targeting this Jewish sect in the days after Jesus had left the earth, and falls in line with the conclusion that Jesus was in fact put to death for targeting the priests' sacred sacrificial system.

It is the priests who arrest Peter and John early on in Acts - “the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees,” as Acts tells us (Acts 4:1-3). The Sadducees were the party of the priests and of the rich, so what we have here is the entire temple establishment and none other arresting Peter and John! Just a little later it is again the high priest along with the captain of the temple and the Sadducees who arrest all the apostles, and then seek to have them put to death, when a Pharisee on the council stands up and speaks in their defense, preventing their executions (Acts chapter 5).

Again, it is the high priest whom Saul, while persecuting the disciples, apparently worked for as an agent, from which he obtained letters to arrest disciples from Damascus and bring them to Jerusalem (Acts 9:1-2). Furthermore, the first recorded martyrdom from among this Jesus movement is the stoning of Stephen, at the hands of people of the high priest. This murder immediately follows a long speech by Stephen given before the high priest in which he seems to denounce the temple and its sacrifices, quoting both Isaiah and Amos from two notoriously anti-sacrificial passages; after being dragged before the council on charges eerily similar to those laid against Jesus at his trial:

For we have heard him say, that this Jesus the Nazarene shall destroy this place [the temple], and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. (Acts 6:14)

They accused him of saying that Jesus had said exactly what people had accused him of saying at his own trial, that he would destroy the temple; and also that he would change the customs delivered by Moses. This could very well be a reference to the abolition of animal sacrifices. It would certainly seem that way based on Stephen's response which does in fact appear to be a veiled attack on both the temple and the sacrifices.

Stephen responds with a long speech on the history of Israel, which begins to deviate slightly from the standard Jewish narrative at the point where the children of Israel build the golden calf while Moses is on the mountain receiving the ten commandments. He says they built this idol to offer sacrifices to it; and as we saw in the previous post, this golden calf idol was quite possibly the idol of Moloch, a massive idol in the shape of a cow acting as a sacrificial oven with many compartments in which several types of animals and a human child were simultaneously burned alive, sacrificed to Moloch.

Immediately following this reference to the children of Israel having offered sacrifices to the golden calf idol, Stephen quotes from the prophet Amos' passage attacking sacrifice, saying that at this point God “gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets, Oh ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness? Ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.” (Acts 7:42-43, quoting Amos 6:25-27)

The wording is a bit different from Amos on one point, but the sense is the same: “But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.”

The major point here is the scriptures do in fact state that the children of Israel offered many sacrifices to God on many occasions during the forty years in the wilderness, yet Amos seems to be saying quite the opposite, that they didn't, and Stephen makes this point even more clear - they were delivered up to this idol worship the moment they worshiped the golden calf by offering sacrifices to it. We have a rhetorical question which begs for the answer 'no', followed by the clear implication that any sacrifices the Israelites had offered during their sojourn in the wilderness were in fact being offered to their god Moloch, the god of sacrifice, and not the God of Israel, despite what they may have claimed. This aligns perfectly with the theory of the golden calf actually being an idol of Moloch, and Stephen saying it was at this very time when they sacrificed to the golden calf idol that they were “handed over” to the host of heaven and thereafter took up the tabernacle of Moloch.

Furthermore, upon reaching the point in Israelite history where Solomon built a house for God, Stephen immediately qualifies this declaration with the statement that, “However, the most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands, as the prophet says:” and goes on to quote Isaiah:

Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what is the house ye build for me? Says the Lord, or where is my place of my rest? Has not my hand made all these things? (Acts 7:49, quoting Isaiah 66:1)

Most interesting is that these words of Isaiah's quoted by Stephen not only belittle the importance of the physical Jerusalem temple, but are the introductory words to the passage speaking strongly against sacrifice in which Isaiah writes that: “He who slaughters an ox is as if he killed a man; he who slaughters a lamb as if he cut off a dog's neck...Yea they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations.” (Isaiah 66:3)

Stephen concludes his speech with a variety of condemnations against the Jews (or at least the religious establishment and their leaders, for he is speaking to the high priest and the religious council), always comparing them to their fathers who did the same evils they did, namely persecuting and killing the prophets, just like they had killed Jesus. At this point, the people have heard enough and stone him to death. From Stephen's speech, it is easy to see why the Jews would have accused him of threatening the destruction of the temple and a change in the Jewish traditions, for he speaks quite disparagingly of the temple and in the only two times he quotes the Hebrew prophets he is quoting from two of the most anti-sacrificial passages found in the entire Hebrew scriptures. It appears that Stephen was speaking against the temple, and particularly the temple cult of sacrifice, and just like Jesus before him, that is why he was stoned to death.

Regardless, it is clearly the priests who are pictures as the main opponents of the early Jesus movement in Acts, which only fully makes sense if they somehow threatened the priesthood; and threatening destruction of the temple sacrifices was certainly a way to do that!

Are the Teachings of Jesus Even Compatible With the Doctrine of Sacrifice?

Lastly, in order to determine Jesus' likely stance on the issue of sacrifice, we can compare what we do know about his teachings in the gospels and see if they align with the Jewish doctrine of sacrifice which was also accepted in a modified form by Christianity. According to both Christianity and Judaism, the purpose of the sacrifices was obtaining forgiveness of sins, as it is written in Leviticus 17: “Without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sin.” According to this doctrine, God can only forgive sinful humans when innocent blood is shed in their place, for "the wages of sin is death." This is how we can live, and be forgiven, they say; if an innocent victim is offered in our place. And while the Jews sacrificed animals for this purpose, the Christians claim Jesus was the final sacrifice who took the place of animal sacrifices.

However Jesus came teaching that divine forgiveness of ones sins was directly predicated upon whether or not one forgave those people who had wronged them, not by shedding of innocent blood.

For if you forgive those who have trespassed against you, then your Father in heaven will forgive you. But if you do not forgive those who have trespassed against you, then neither will your Father in heaven forgive you your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14-15)

No mention of any sacrifices or the shedding of innocent blood as being necessary, but rather only cultivating a forgiving heart within yourself in order to be forgiven. This theme is repeated throughout the four gospels in various places, making clear it is central to the teaching of Jesus on forgiveness. Further, in the gospel of John we have Jesus declaring his disciples had been "made clean" (or purified) by his teachings ("word") rather than by any blood as Christians often claim (ie. being "washed in the blood" of Jesus).

Additionally, Jesus reveals God as a loving and merciful father who cares greatly for the animals, which seems out of character for a divine being which demands their ritual slaughter.

Behold the birds of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are ye not much better than they? (Matthew 6:26)

This same God as a loving father cares greatly for his children, more so than human fathers care for their children:

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (Matthew 7:9-11)

If this is the case, and there is no earthly father who would think of punishing an innocent son as a prerequisite to forgive another son who had done some wrong, and yet the accepted doctrine of Christianity is that this is exactly what God required in order to forgive humanity: the sacrifice (punishment) of his innocent son Jesus in order to forgive and wash us clean of our sins!

This doctrine of sacrifice put forth by Christianity is so out of character with the God revealed by Jesus in the gospels, it is shocking so many buy into it. There can be no doubt in my mind that Jesus never saw himself as having come as one final sacrifice to replace animal sacrifice, probably because the idea of an all-loving and merciful Creator who demanded the slaughter of his own innocent creatures was foreign to his line of thought. We can see that Jesus never taught sacrifice as necessary, there is no documentation of him having participated in it, and it even appears that he saw himself as having come to do away with it.

At the very least, he ended his life with one final act of subversion in the temple which included a massive liberation of animals causing a major disruption to the temple sacrificial system. Whether this was his intended goal can be debated; but it is indeed what the gospels themselves describe him as doing, and this subversive act cost him his life. It seems reasonable to me that this is the case because he indeed came to abolish the sacrifices, to teach mankind a way of peace which didn't necessitate the slaughter of innocent animals, and that he adhered to a vegetarian diet as a part of his doctrine of absolute nonviolence.

In the next post on this series we will take a look at Pythagorus and the controversial Jewish sect of the Essenes which preceded and existed at the time of Jesus and rejected animal sacrifice, and compare their views and beliefs to the teachings of Jesus as well as the Ebionites and other vegetarian Jewish Christian sects which rejected animal sacrifice; and we will see if there is a clear connection between these anti-sacrifice vegetarian groups and what we know of Jesus from the history of his early followers and his teachings.