The documentary suggests that this vegetarian sect, along with two other 4th-century sects, the Nazoraeans and Nasaraeans, are all rooted in the original Jesus movement. And with added scriptural context, including apparent critiques of animal sacrifice in the Old Testament, John the Baptist’s choice of baptism instead of animal sacrifice and Jesus’ quoting of the Hosea passage “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” in the Gospel of Matthew, the filmmakers conclude that the authentic Jesus movement opposed the killing and eating of animals.
“It’s so overwhelmingly obvious when you see this all put together that not only did he not eat animals, that this Nazarene movement he was part of were fiercely against killing animals,” Andersen told RNS.
Filmmakers Kip Andersen, left, and Kameron Waters. “Christspiracy.” (Photos courtesy Christspiracy)
Tabor told RNS that when Jesus was growing up, “the normal assumption” would be that, as a Jew, Jesus consumed lamb during Passover. “But once he starts preaching or teaching, it’s entirely possible … that he began to have a new covenant view of (eating animals),” he said.
Yii-Jan Lin, a New Testament professor at Yale Divinity School, said there were many Christian sects spawned from the Jesus movement, and we can’t say whether these, in particular, “represent Jesus correctly.”
She added that it seems strange that Jesus and his early followers would be against animal sacrifice, given the Gospels’ analogy of Jesus as the paschal lamb. “Jesus is upheld as the quintessential animal sacrifice. That becomes part of the entire early Christian allegory around his death,” she said.
The film goes on to discredit the many stories of Jesus eating or distributing fish, saying the fish references are later additions, mistranslations or metaphors. Finally, the film features scholars who suggest Jesus did not eat lamb for Passover at The Last Supper and who emphasize that God’s Genesis command for humans to have “dominion” over creation is a mistranslation that ought to be read as “stewardship.”
All of this leads the filmmakers to conclude that the true, vegetarian form of Christianity was overshadowed by the version promoted by Paul, who did eat meat.
“It becomes obvious that in full context, the story is that God’s creatures are to be protected and honored and that we have fallen away when we don’t do that,” Waters told RNS.
Aerial view of thousands of sacrificed animals during the Gadhimai festival in Nepal, documented in “Christspiracy.” (Image courtesy Christspiracy)
Though the claims about Christ are the focal point, the bulk of the film explores the spiritual methods and frameworks employed in the killing of animals today. For the filmmakers, witnessing the unnecessary deaths of countless animals was the most difficult part of the process.
In one scene, the team records the Gadhimai festival, a Hindu festival in Nepal where tens of thousands of animals are slaughtered. The event was disturbing both because of the sheer number of animals killed, according to Andersen, and because it shed light on how many more animals are killed behind closed doors in “the West.”
