According to David Clough’s (2018) calculations for his book On Animals II (Ch. 2), 2.5 to 6.8 trillion fish are killed for food every year. This kind of regular animal holocaust, according to the Scriptures, will certainly provoke God’s wrath and both the fishers and the fish-eaters will be condemned:-
“THE FISHERS also SHALL MOURN, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.” (Isaiah 19:8 KJV)
"Will you STEAL AND MURDER… MY anger and my WRATH will be poured out on this place…and it will burn and not be quenched." (Jeremiah 7:9-10, 20)
“Only you SHALL NOT EAT FLESH WITH its LIFE, that is, its blood. Surely I will require your lifeblood” (Genesis NASB 1995 9:4-5)
Thus INNOCENT BLOOD will not be shed in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that you will not be guilty of Bloodshed. (Deuteronomy 19:10-13)
Don’t tell me again all those fishy stories about Jesus the Vegan Christ. Instances of Jesus eating fish or helping His disciples to catch fish in the gospels are all products of either misinterpretation or later interpolation (cf. Chen 2023, 2022a, 2022b, 2020). (See https://www.hkbnews.net/post/all-those-fishy-stories-about-jesus-the-vegan-christ-by-dr-chapman-chen-hkbnews)
I. Jesus miraculously aided Peter and his folk to catch a huge net of fish (Luke 5:1-11)? But Jesus then asked them to FORSAKE their NETS, follow Him and CATCH MEN INSTEAD OF FISH. Matthew 4:18-20 and Mark 1:16-18 also record this story albeit without the first part.
II. Jesus directed Peter to go hook a fish and dig a coin from her/his mouth in order to pay a temple tax (Matthew 17:24-27)? This could not be real for, firstly, it was never executed; secondly, it's improbable that Jesus would have performed a complex miracle in order to pay his own tax; thirdly, how could Jesus, who died for animal liberation (Akers 2000), have had the heart to order his disciple to do such a cruel thing to an innocent fish?
So, this instruction, if ever existent, was a sarcastic joke cracked by Jesus to brush off the temple tax collector who wanted to trap Jesus. A refusal on His part to pay the tribute would be represented as disloyalty to the temple; while the payment of it would be taken as justifying their denial of Him as a prophet, for prophets were customarily exempted from the temple tax (cf. White 1898/2017:376-377).
III. Jesus multiplied "five loaves and two fish" to feed the multitudes (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:12-17, John 6:1-14)? However, Jesus therein broke and handed out loaves but not fish (Matthew 14).
Moreover, the Greek word for fish (ἰχθύας), as in Mark 6:41, Matthew 14:19, and Luke 9:16, is an acronym for " Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior" (Akers 2000), a secret code commonly used by the early Christians to avoid persecution; and "fish (opsarion)", as in John 6:9, may also be a mistranslation of the Greek word for "fishweed (opson)" (Hicks 2019; Giron 2013), a popular vegan relish among Palestinian peasants both 2000 years ago and now.
IV. Luke's story of Jesus helping Peter to catch fish and His eating fish to prove to the eleven disciples on the very night of his Resurrection that he's no ghost is clearly a forgery, for both the date and the venue contradict Mark and Matthew (cf. Vujicic 2016). According to Mark 16: 7 and 14:28, Jesus had long told his disciples that he would go to Galilee upon resurrection. According to Matthew 28:16, the eleven disciples went up a mountain in Galilee as specified by Jesus, where Jesus met them the first time as well as the last time after He rose from the dead. (YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFN7GeHlVqI )
Commentaires