Did Jesus Smoke Weed? One Author Thinks So.

We hear a lot of patently wrong views about the life of Jesus. In fact, earlier this week Tyler O’Neil took a look at eight unbiblical views about God’s Son. And while some bad ideas about Jesus are heretical, others are downright wacky. For instance, Herb.com is touting a new book by what they call a “top Biblical scholar” asserting that Jesus and others in the Bible used marijuana and other drugs frequently.

Ralph Heinz, a psychoanalyst and theology professor at Boston University — which doesn’t exactly qualify him as a “top scholar” — believes that Jesus and his disciples, along with others in the scriptures, used cannabis recreationally.

I think it is clear for anybody that has read any passage of the Bible, that the prophets and apostles spent most of their time hallucinating on psychedelic drugs, totally baked or drunk on wine.

There is no need to judge them, or paint these characters as saints or demons, they were just good old boys having a good time.

Heinz goes on to claim that both the incense and anointing oil used in Hebrew worship and the early church contained cannabis.

The priesthood mixed cannabis resins with those from myrrh, balsam, frankincense, and perfumes, and then anointed their skins with the mixture as well as burned it. The word ‘Messiah’ signifies the ‘Anointed One,’ and so Jesus Christ was clearly a big proponent of the cannabis oil.

Even though the idea that marijuana was part of Jewish rituals is under dispute, Heinz is certainly making a leap here in saying that the possible use of cannabis in anointing oil and incense absolutely means that the Messiah is cool with you rolling a fat one.

The author of the article summarizes Heinz’s view that the visions throughout the Bible came about as the result of widespread use of psychedelics by prophets and apostles.

The author also argues that certain passages of the New Testament, such as the Apocalypse of John or the visions of Ezekiel in the Book of Ezekiel [news flash: Ezekiel is not in the New Testament -CQ], cannot simply be explained by the use of cannabinoids, or the heavy indulgence in alcohol (such as wine), and may be better explained by the use of psychedelic drugs.

The latter would likely have been magic mushrooms, or even natural forms of LSD, which is produced from the ergot fungi.

That’s right: this supposed “top Biblical scholar” thinks that John’s revelations of the end times were an acid trip or that Daniel’s prophetic visions were the result of hitting the ‘shrooms.

The comments in the article are just as crazy, falling into two camps: “Jesus wasn’t real” and “I don’t see why Christians don’t think drugs are okay.” It’s pretty clear that the commenters at Herb.com aren’t terribly interested in theology or Biblical knowledge.

Heinz is making some pretty big leaps in his assertions that drugs were all over the place in the scriptures. No, the Bible doesn’t mention marijuana or LSD or psychedelic mushrooms, but there are plenty of instructions in both the Old and New Testaments against overdoing it with wine. Both apostles Peter and Paul remind us in their letters to the early church to be “sober-minded.”

I think the worst theory Heinz purports is that prophetic visions and revelations were drug-induced. Yes, God can use whatever means He chooses to make Himself known to His people, but to attribute the greatest communication between God and the prophets to psychedelics denies God the power to reveal Himself supernaturally.

Ralph Heinz is clearly off his rocker to make these assertions — especially in full book-length format. I’ve seen some ridiculous claims about Jesus over the years, but this one just might take the cake (or the pot-laced brownies)!