The Jesus Dude Diet!
Darlings, religious dietary wars are all over the web. As usual, most seemed focused on what Jesus digested. Fortunately none claim that Jesus ate the cud-chewingless pig, non-scaled catfish, or (thank God) even soft-footed camels. Why not? Jesus kept the Jewish dietary laws, my dearies. They’re based on texts like Leviticus 11. Rather, the debate focuses on whether or not Jesus ate meat. The most ridiculous stuff comes from PETA’s campaign, which cites “You shall not kill” as evidence. Sigh . . . A better argument comes from these Christian Vegetarians, who argue vegetarianism is better from a stewardship perspective. Then, tapping into the WWJD? hype, a physician in Florida wrote a popular book entitled The What Would Jesus Eat Cookbook. But unfortunately he falls into the same old trap of claiming biblical dietary laws are based on health reasons, like pigs carry trichinosis, and shellfish schistosomiasis. I believe that the dietary laws provided a cultural marker that made the Israelites distinct from their neighbors. This Wikipedia article on Kashrut (Kosher) does a pretty good job explaining this important issue.
