Proving Yahshua Did Not Sacrifice Animals

Using the Scriptures and History Only

--Dr. Jackson Snyder

"I think this is the greatest paper you have written, and I agree with you." - Moreh Michael Clark

Question of the week: “What are the passages that tell us that Yahshua did not sacrifice animals.”  (7/13/10)

My promise was to answer this through literature outside the Bible, but I realized that I need not go out of the 70-book Canon of Scripture and a history book to answer this question sufficiently. 

The answer is NO, Yahshua neither participated in sacrifices nor condoned them.

Amos 5:21. I hate, I scorn your festivals, I take no pleasure in your solemn assemblies.  22. When you bring me burnt offerings; your oblations, I do not accept them and I do not look at your communion sacrifices of fat cattle. 23. Spare me the din of your chanting,  let me hear none of your strumming on lyres, 24. but let justice flow like water, and uprightness like a never-failing stream!

Matthew 21:12. 12. Yahshua then went into the Temple and drove out all those who were selling and buying there; he upset the tables of the money-changers and the seats of the dove-sellers.  13. He said to them, "According to scripture, my house will be called a house of prayer; but you are turning it into a bandits' den."

Here’s the short story of a much greater saga (and please check references at the end if you don’t understand this, since it is a very important teaching for Nazoreans, as we will find out when we study these references).

1|  In 970 BC. during the uprising of Adoniyah, David, lying on his deathbed, was forced to choose successors to his regime.  The highest successors were to be Solomon as King, Nathan as chief prophet, and Zadok as High Priest (1 Kings 1:30-39).  We are concerned mainly with Zadok, whose name means “righteous,” the Torah’s definition of the word.  You can see Zadok in Melchizedek – which means “Power (or Ruler) of Righteousness.”

2|  Solomon succeeded David, and he was anointed as king with the set-apart unction not by the high priest Abiathar, for he was on Adoniyah’s side of the civil war.  Solomon was anointed as king by the priest Zadok, who replaced Abiathar as high priest as per David’s request. (1 Kings 4:1,2)  Solomon was faithful in fulfilling all his father’s dying wishes.

3|  The High Priesthood succession was to be from the descendants of the High Priest.  (Exodus 28:1 and many others)  This means that from Zadoc’s house all future high priests would come, just as kings from David’s line.

4|  So the “Zadokites” (Tzadikim) remained in the high priestly positions until after the Maccabean Revolt. (168 – 135 BC)  I did not study this thoroughly, but as far as I know, Zadokites were in the positions of priesthood for 835 years, including the years of exile.

5|  The revolt was successful, and the “little horn” was broken for a short time.  (Daniel 7:8)  The priestly family of Hasmon (aka the Maccabees,or the Hasmoneans) dismissed the Zadokites, replacing them and the kingship with members of their own family.  (Maccabees 10:20)  Although the Hasmonean was Levitical, they were not in the line of Zadok. This was the fatal end of the Zadokite priesthood and the beginning of the corruption of the Temple system, which was very much in play during the life of Yahshua, during which the Annas family bought their way into Temple power.  (Caiaphas was the son-in-law of Annas.) (Matthew 26:3,57; Luke 3:1,2: this passage also explains a little about my next point.)

6|  The Zadokites fled into exile to escape persecution on account of their claim to the priesthood.  They would not support a king not of the line of David nor a high priest not of the line of Zadok.  The multitude of Zadokites who went into the mountains to the east of Jerusalem came under the strong leadership of Morehzedek (The Teacher of Righteousness), as recorded in the Zadokite documents that turned up in the 20^th century.

7|  During this time, the priestly usurpers began calling themselves “Zadokites” in an effort to take over the righteous “brand name.” (Matthew 3:7, “Sadducee” being a corruption of “Zadokite”)  So, in Yahshua’s time, there were the true Zadokites (of the family of Zadok) still inhabiting caves and small towns, while the false ones, whom we know as Sadducees, were extremely rich, living in luxury while plotting the murder (through Paul and others) of the true Zadokites.

8|  Obviously, the true Zadokites did not participate in sacrificing animals or temple feasts, as they still considered the Temple leadership as entirely corrupt and sacrifices of no avail on account of their sin (although the Zadokites still revered the temple itself and hoped to make the entire city of Jerusalem once again righteous).

9|  Yahshua haMoshiach was undoubtedly a Zadokite, which is hinted at in both genealogies: Luke 3:31. “son of Nathan, son of David” (Yosef’s ancestors);  Matthew 1:6. “son of Solomon, son of David” (Maryah’s ancestors).  We also find a Zadok in the line of Maryah.  (Remember, the gospels were entirely edited by Paul’s Greeks, and that Paul was not among the Zadokim, but claimed to be a Pharisee.)

10| The words “just” and “righteous” in Scripture are translated into English by the Hebrew word Zadik or a variation of that (Zadoc, Tzedek, Tzadik), which means “righteous” just as the name Zadok means “Zadokite” or “Righteous One.”  With this in mind, we may strongly suspected the following in the Brit Chadasha of being Zadokites:

Yahshua was called one by his brother Ya’aqov (5:6)

Yahshua was also called a Zadokite by Pilate’s wife (Matthew 27:19).

Yosef  the gowra of Maryah was one Mat 1:19.

The code words are included for Zecharyah & Elisheva Luke 1:6.

As was Yochanon the Dunker. (Why would he not succeed his father and live in the desert?) (Mat 21:32, Mark 6:20)

Yosef Barsabbas “the Just,” one of the 120. (Acts 1:23)

Titius Justus, a synagogue president.  (Acts 18:7)

Many Zadokites longed to see the coming of Yahshua. (Matthew 13:17)

In addition:

1| Yahshua’s judgments are in according to the Torah of the Zadokites. (John 5:30)

Yahshua fulfilled all righteousness (ie Zadokite instructions; Torah rightly understood). (Matthew 3:15)

2| The entire chapter 23 of Matthew is a Zadokite manifesto aimed against the Pharisees for changing Torah.

3| Yahshua commands us to judge with “right judgment,” which can mean nothing less that adjudicating in accordance with the Torah of the Zadokites.

4| Besides being a Zadokite, in no passages of teaching does Yahshua ever mention any value in animal sacrifice, nor does any of the Nazorean writings cast out by the Catholics.

5| IMPORTANT: In Clement’s Homilies (which should be accepted as Scripture), Kefa spends a lot of time teaching about where the Torah was extensively tampered changed by the Scribes in his day.

6| Yahshua does indeed condemn sacrificing animals. (Matthew 10:13, 12:7; Mark 12:33; Acts 7:41)

We could here relate the passages in Zadokite documents such as some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and some of the Jewish Pseudepigraphical works (ie. A Zadokite Manifesto, 1 Enoch, and some of the Mechizedek literature), and we would there find that Zadokites did not even go by the same calendar as the temple Jews.  The Zadokites were on a solar calendar. Knowing this could be the key to numerous problems of time in the Brit Chadasha.

 At the last, Zadokites considered the priesthood of Zadok’s family to be the same as that of the “Order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:5-6), which means “Power of Zadok.

I am thus convinced that Yahshua did not sacrifice animals or condone the practice, and further, he may well have been a vegetarian, as some exegetes have suggested.

Questions?

Reference:

The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard edition

The Messianic Seal of the Jerusalem Church