For a while now, I’ve been sharing about what I’ve loosely called “The Jesus Diet” — my move toward a vegetarian, plant-based way of eating grounded in faith, spirituality, and a desire to live more compassionately.
That journey didn’t come out of nowhere. It was shaped by studying the life of Yeshua, learning about the Essenes and other early Jewish movements, wrestling with the Edenic vision in Genesis, and confronting the ethical implications of how animals are treated for food.
But as my theology has continued to mature — especially after reading Let There Be Gaslight and revisiting how I understand Scripture — something important shifted.
I realized that while parts of my framework were changing, my ethical center wasn’t.
This post isn’t a retraction.
It’s a renovation.
What I’m rebuilding here is not a mandate, but a moral clarity — one that no longer depends on Eden as a literal blueprint, historical certainty about Jesus’s diet, or theological pressure placed on others.
What remains is simpler, stronger, and more honest.
Letting Go of the Edenic Mandate (Without Losing the Moral Thread)
For a long time, Genesis 1:29–30 functioned as a kind of theological anchor for my thinking about food.
The Edenic vision — humans and animals alike nourished by plants — felt like both a beginning and an end point. A picture of peace, harmony, and nonviolence that God intended for creation.
But if the opening chapters of Genesis are not literal history — if they are theological poetry, mythic wisdom, or symbolic storytelling — then the idea of Eden as a binding dietary mandate no longer holds in the same way.
And I’m okay saying that.
Letting go of Eden as a mandate does not mean abandoning Eden as meaningful.
It means releasing it as a rulebook.
The danger comes when we confuse symbolic wisdom with prescriptive law. When that happens, ethics become fragile — dependent on defending a particular interpretation rather than embodying a deeper value.
I’m no longer interested in holding my moral convictions hostage to debates about biblical literalism.
And thankfully, I don’t have to.
Why Ethics That Depend on Certainty Eventually Collapse
One of the patterns I’ve watched — both in Christianity and in myself — is the tendency to build ethics on certainty.
- If this text means X, then you must do Y.
- If Jesus did this, then we should all follow suit.
- If Eden looked like that, then returning to it is the goal.
The problem is that certainty is brittle.
Historical reconstructions are debated.
Texts are mediated.
Authors interpret, frame, and adapt for their audiences.
When ethics are built primarily on proof-texts or plausibility arguments, they collapse the moment those foundations are questioned.
That doesn’t produce freedom. It produces anxiety.
What I’ve learned is that mature ethics don’t require certainty — they require awareness.
And awareness can survive ambiguity.
The Axiom That Remained: Do No Unnecessary Harm
When the Edenic mandate fell away, I expected something to unravel.
Instead, something clarified.
What remained was an axiom I could no longer ignore:
Do not cause unnecessary harm once you are aware of it.
Not:
- “Cause no harm ever” (which is impossible in embodied life)
But:
- “Do not participate in harm without necessity once you can see it.”
Awareness creates responsibility.
Once you see suffering — really see it — you don’t get to unsee it. You can still navigate complexity. You can still live within limits. But you can’t pretend neutrality.
This axiom doesn’t need Eden.
It doesn’t need a dietary law.
It doesn’t even need unanimity.
It only asks: What does love require of me now, given what I know?
That question is harder — and more honest — than any mandate.
Yeshua’s Ethic Without a Mandate
One of the most freeing realizations for me is that Yeshua himself consistently moved people away from rigid law and toward internal coherence.
He didn’t ground ethics in returning to Eden.
He grounded them in love, mercy, and intention.
“You have heard it said… but I say to you.”
That wasn’t about tightening the rules.
It was about relocating moral authority inward.
Whether or not Jesus ate fish.
Whether or not later authors shaped those narratives for pastoral reasons.
Whether or not early sects practiced vegetarianism.
None of that is required for this ethic to stand.
The ethic survives because it is rooted in love — not compliance.
Reframing the Essene Stream: Resonance, Not Requirement
For a time, I leaned heavily on the Essenes, Nazarenes, and early Jewish-Christian groups as historical support for a plant-based Jesus ethic.
And to be clear — that stream still matters to me.
But I’ve also become aware of something else: how easily plausibility arguments turn into spiritual gymnastics.
Christian theology is full of them.
“This could have happened.”
“It’s plausible that…”
“Scholars suggest…”
I don’t want to replace one set of mental contortions with another.
So here’s where I land now:
The Essene tradition is resonant, not required.
It echoes the ethic — it doesn’t create it.
That restraint actually strengthens the argument. It keeps integrity intact. And it prevents me from forcing others to accept historical claims in order to respect my choices.
Why This Ethic Leaves Room for Grace (Including Meat-Eaters)
One of the quiet gifts of releasing mandate language is that it removes moral pressure from everyone else.
I am not declaring that eating meat is sinful.
I am not assigning hierarchy.
I am not demanding agreement.
People live with different bodies, capacities, contexts, and levels of awareness. Ethics that ignore that reality quickly become cruel.
This axiom allows for grace.
It recognizes:
- Seasons of necessity
- Limits of embodiment
- Differences in conscience
And it refuses to turn compassion into a measuring stick.
This is not about superiority.
It’s about honesty.
A Future-Proof Ethic: What If My Practice Changes?
Here’s a question I had to ask myself honestly:
If, at some point in the future, I returned to eating meat — would this ethic collapse?
The answer surprised me.
No.
Because the axiom was never about permanence.
It was about posture.
Integrity doesn’t require never changing.
It requires never lying to yourself.
If my practice ever shifted due to health, necessity, or sustainability, the ethic would still demand:
- Minimization of harm
- Refusal to numb awareness
- Gratitude instead of entitlement
- Relationship instead of indifference
Hypocrisy isn’t change.
Hypocrisy is changing the story to protect behavior.
This ethic survives because it doesn’t depend on innocence — it depends on honesty.
Why This Is Renovation, Not Deconstruction
Deconstruction asks what no longer holds.
Renovation asks what remains once the scaffolding is gone.
What remains for me is not skepticism.
It’s clarity.
- A faith that doesn’t need coercion
- An ethic that survives uncertainty
- A spirituality grounded in embodiment, not fear
This isn’t me moving away from Jesus.
It’s me refusing to outsource my conscience.
Choosing Awareness Over Innocence
At the end of all this, my commitment is simple:
I commit not to innocence, but to awareness — and to choosing the least harm I can live with honestly.
That commitment doesn’t demand agreement.
It doesn’t require certainty.
It doesn’t police others.
It simply asks me to live awake.
For now, that means a plant-based way of eating that aligns with what I see, what I feel, and what love asks of me.
If that changes someday, honesty will still be the measure.
And that, finally, feels like moral clarity.