Jesus' preaching was first and foremost about simple living, pacifism, and vegetarianism; he never intended to create a new religion separate from Judaism. Moreover, Jesus' radical Jewish ethics, rather than a new theology, distinguished him and his followers from other Jews. It was the earliest followers of Jesus, the Jewish Christians, who understood Jesus better than any of the gentile Christian groups, which are the spiritual ancestors of modern Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. In this detailed and accessible study, Keith Akers uncovers the history of Jewish Christianity from its origins in the Essenes and John the Baptist, through Jesus, until its disappearance into Islamic mysticism sometime in the seventh or eighth century. Akers argues that only by really understanding this mysterious and much misunderstood strand of early Christianity can we get to the heart of the radical message of Jesus of Nazareth.
A book about the disciples of Jesus would typically start with Jesus himself: first there was Jesus, then he had disciples. This book suggests a fundamentally different story: first there was a movement, then Jesus emerged as its leader. This movement was markedly different from both rabbinic Judaism and gentile Christianity. It became known to history as "Jewish Christianity"-Jews who followed both Jesus (as they understood him) and the Jewish law (as they understood it). These first disciples affirmed simple living, nonviolence, and vegetarianism, and rejected wealth, war, and animal sacrifices. Some two decades after Jesus was crucified, they split with their most famous missionary, Paul, over the issues of vegetarianism and eating meat from animal sacrifices. The history of Jewish Christianity takes our understanding of Christian origins into a completely new realm.
Humans intentionally inflict enormous amounts of pain on billions of animals each year. The gap that exists between our shared community sentiment towards animals and our treatment of them is one of the most striking and important social paradoxes of our time. It examines how it is that nearly all people, morally and emotionally, deplore animal suffering, yet so much animal suffering continues to occur. This book aims to bridge the gap that exists between reality and the ethics of human-caused animal suffering. It provides solutions to what we can each do to improve the plight of animals, so that our treatment of animals does not continue to shame us in the eyes of future generations."--Publisher's website.
Jesus' preaching was first and foremost about simple living, pacifism, and vegetarianism; he never intended to create a new religion separate from Judaism. Moreover, Jesus' radical Jewish ethics, rather than a new theology, distinguished him and his followers from other Jews. It was the earliest followers of Jesus, the Jewish Christians, who understood Jesus better than any of the gentile Christian groups, which are the spiritual ancestors of modern Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. In this detailed and accessible study, Keith Akers uncovers the history of Jewish Christianity from its origins in the Essenes and John the Baptist, through Jesus, until its disappearance into Islamic mysticism sometime in the seventh or eighth century. Akers argues that only by really understanding this mysterious and much misunderstood strand of early Christianity can we get to the heart of the radical message of Jesus of Nazareth.
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