Richard A. Young (1) (1944–2018)

This is a good book. As someone who has researched the "historical Jesus" and the early Ebionites, I had already concluded that vegetarianism and rejection of animal sacrifice is a central part of the Jesus' message and his first followers. (See my book, "The Lost Religion of Jesus." So the first chapter, "Was Jesus a vegetarian?", in which Young concludes that Jesus was NOT a vegetarian, was really upsetting, and I found quite a bit to disagree with. But if you can get over this first chapter, when you look at the rest of the book, it's pretty good, and very skillfully argued. It shows that even if Jesus wasn't a vegetarian, you might want to be anyway.I typically don't recommend this book to other vegetarians or my liberal friends in various religious communities. But I do recommend it for conservative, evangelical, or fundamentalist Christians. It speaks to their interests and in their language. So whenever I engage one of my fundamentalist friends in a discussion of vegetarianism, if they are in the mode of thinking "God said it, it's in the Bible, it's true, I won't listen to anything else!", I ask, "have you read 'Is God a Vegetarian'?"… (mer)