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Dr. Robert Flewelling Holt, MD   Doctor Holt's alma mater, Loma Linda University

       Dr. Robert Holt, who visited the Qumran monastery repeatedly from 1992 to 1997 and all the other sites connected with the Essenes nearby and in the Wilderness of Judea, was not certain that all the Essenes, including Jesus and his disciples were vegetarians until he read, among other books, James, the Brother of Jesus, by Professor Robert Eisenman of the  California State University at Long Beach (Viking, 1996).  This very scholarly book with a myriad of contemporary citations proves without a shadow of a doubt that James and all his brothers were vegetarians.  One of these brothers was, of course, Jesus Christ.  Those gospel stories in which Jesus either cooks fish or eats "broiled fish" can, and should be, interpreted symbolically.

      Robert Eisenman is of the opinion that the Essenes had their beginnings in the times of the Maccabees, about 167 BC.   When the priest Mattathias refused to offer swine's flesh on an altar set up in Modin for that purpose, then killed the messenger of the Syrian dictator Antiochus Epiphanes and fled into the wilderness with his family, they all became vegetarians because it was impossible to follow the "Kosher" rules of the Mosaic law under those conditions.   The Essenes who lived in the wilderness and at Qumran continued this vegetarian way of life, and discovered they lived longer and had better health because of this diet.   As the chief Bible copyists of that era, they have edited enough vegetarianism into the Old Testament to allow modern Seventh-day Adventists to justify this lifestyle in modern times.

     Note that: Adam and Eve were commanded by God to eat "fruits, grains, and herbs" after they were created on the 6th day (Genesis 1:29,30)

     Not until after the Flood was man permitted a flesh diet, with restrictions (Gen. 9:3-5)

     When God restricted Israel's diet to "manna" they "lusted" for meat.  At which time God sent them quail, which they consumed too much of, and many died. (Numbers 11:34)

     Daniel and his companions were specially blessed with superior knowledge when the refused meat from the king's table, and chose to eat "pulse" (vegetables) (Dan. 1:8-20)

   It should not surprise us that besides using Essene terminology in Ellen G. White's first vision, in later visions she was instructed in Health Reform, and Vegetarianism.      John Harvey Kellogg, the dapper  young surgeon who founded what later became the Battle Creek Sanitarium, was a militant vegetarian and major developer of Breakfast Cereals.      This photo of a box of "Kellogg's Toasted Corn Flakes" should remind us of Dr. J. H. Kellogg's inventiveness although Post and his brother also played.

   By the late 19th century and early 20th century, the Western Health Reform Institute became the Battle Creek Sanitarium, world-renowned advocate of healthful living.      It was in 1901 that a terrible fire burned the original building to the ground.   The Adventists thought that God caused the fire.    Undeterred in his quest to make Good Health available to all, besides promoting some rather Hindu sounding theology, Dr. Kellogg rebuilt the sanitarium, which today is a veteran's hospital.

     

Exercise was fully as important to good health as was diet in

the eyes of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, who rode a bicycle 

almost everywhere, and invented many of our modern exercise 

machines now on display in an Adventist display in Battle Creek.

         I was brought up in a family of "Health Reformers" and can well remember the days of my childhood in Millinockett, Maine, when other school children made fun of the fact that we Holt children would not eat meat.   This was still "controversial" in the 1940s, but has now become quite "normal" in the better-educated parts of society.   We can thank Dr. John Harvey Kellogg MD and his major health "crusade" for much of this change in attitude. 

      I enjoyed immensely the Hollywood film The Road to Wellville, a hilarious comedy featuring a mock-up of the Battle Creek Sanitarium starring Anthony Hopkins as Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, based on the well-researched historical novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Columbia Pictures made the film, and Tristar produced the video, of which I have two well-worn copies.

        It was not until I graduated from both Loma Linda University School of Medicine and School of Health and practiced as a Family Doctor and an Emergency Room doctor for over 20 years that I finally, about the year 2000 learned "the rest of the story" of Jesus' own preference for a vegetarian diet, and of the many years he spent in India, where vegetarianism is almost universally practiced among its largely Hindu population.     

NEXT: Vegetarian Christ, Vegetarian God!