Spike Tassel (Post 98): What about the command to Noah at Genesis 9:5?
Supreme Court Blood Case - WTS LOSES
by skeeter1 168 Replies latest watchtower medical
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isaacaustin
To not eat animals with their lifeblood in them- meaning animals still alive. What is the full command? To also be fruitful and populate the earth. The WT acknowledges that this command of populating the earth and being fruitful was temporary to fit the needs of the time. They themselves have shown that this in Genesis is not some everlasting covenant by their comments about the be fruitful part.
But again, even if it were some permanant ban on the eating of blood, a blood transfusion is not eating blood in any sense. Blood transfused retains its form. A person dying of anorexia who had blood injected into their veins would still die.
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Spike Tassel
Spike Tassel (Post 99): If I was transfused with enough alcohol, would I not get drunk?
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isaacaustin
Very poor example. Alchohol is digested as food when it enters your body. Blood is not. Alcohol nourishes, blood does not. A better example is this- If a doctor told you to abstain from alcohol would you be abstaining if you used an alcohol based cream to muscle soreness?
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Spike Tassel
Spike Tassel (Post 102): You're right, blood does NOT nourish. In fact, it infects with the disease(s) of its donor(s). No wonder that an increasing number of jurisdictions around the world refuse to transfuse blood. And no wonder that the Bible promises "Good heath to you", if we keep firm on our abstinence from blood. The Bible is a spiritual book, after all; its instructions are from the Happy God. When obeyed and submitted to, we are blessed with a good conscience which we cannot get another way.
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isaacaustin
Spike tassal- you are throwing a red herring here to try to divert the attention away from the Wt weak reasoning. The issue is not whether or not it is effective treatemnt (although the Wt greatly misstates the facts to make it appear as bad treatment). the issue is whether it is scripturally wrong- which it has been shown to not even be addressed in scripture.
Chemo is not good treatment either, yet it is necessary at time. This is a red herring, totally irrelevant to the issue.
Also, good health to you is a wrong translation. All other version say "you will do well" or the like. You will do well- meaning peace in the cong...not speaking of health issues. Look up the Greek and you will see "you will do well" is the correct translation.
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isaacaustin
And wait a second Spike Tassal! The Wt does not abstain from blood! Captives are allowed to take any components of blood EXCEPT plasma, platelets, white blood cells and red blood cells. They are allowed to take all components making up plasma, but can not take plasma. LOL Kinda like saying you can not have a turkey sandwich but you may have turkey, bread, mayo, and cheese. The components JWs are allowed to take are from blood donated by thousands of donors. I wonder what you will say when the Wt eventually lifts the ban on blood transfusions and declares it a 'matter of conscience" as they have with vaccinations and organ transplants- previously banned under the same logic as blood. Fractions of blood used to also be banned, fyi.
Taking fractions is not abstaining, and if that is what Acts 15 meant (which it doesn't) that would make the WT hypocrites by their own standards.
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TD
All forms of tissue transplant have the potential to transmit disease, Spike. This is nothing new. As with any medical procedure it comes down to a question of risks vs. benefits.
However I think that Jehovah's Witnesses are being extremely disingenuous both with the medical information and the scriptures.
When you invoke the incomplete predicate, "apechesthai....tou hematos" as an independent construction apart from the context that completes it, you are breaking some basic rules of grammar.
As an intransitive, "Abstain" cannot take a direct object nor transfer action from subject to object. "Abstain" simply negates action. Blood is not an action, it is an object. A finite verb is required to make the predicate grammatically complete.
In context, this is not necessary, because the abstention from blood is mentioned specifically in relation to a question of keeping the Mosaic Law. Therefore the eating of blood as forbidden in the Law is clearly the negated action.
This is reflected in the renderings of a number of translations:
" abstain from food that has been offered to idols, from tasting blood, from the flesh of animals that have been strangled, and from sexual vice."
James Moffatt
"eat no food that has been offered to idols; eat no blood; eat no animal that has been strangled; and keep yourselves from immorality."
Today's English Version
"You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or eating the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality."
New Living Translation
"abstain from eating food offered to idols and from unbled meat of strangled animals and of course from fornication."
The Living Bible
“But you should not eat anything offered to idols. You should not eat any meat that still has the blood in it or any meat of any animal that has been strangled. You must also not commit any terrible sexual sins."
Contemporary English Version
As these translators clearly understood, the Apostolic Decree forbade the eating of blood. It is not applicable to transfusion unless transfusion is either physically or morally equivalent in some way to the eating of blood.
When it comes to bridging this gap, all I have ever seen from the Witnesses is sophistry and false analogies.
You mentioned the intraveneous adminstration of alcohol. This analogy fails because blood is living tissue, not a simple compound like alcohol.
For example, there are forms of liver dysfunction that make it impossible to eat meat. The football player, Walter Peyton suffered from this condition in the final months of his life. His doctors instructed him not to eat meat. Would he have disobeyed this advice if he had subsequently accepted a liver transplant?
Of course not. The transplant of living tissue is in no way analogous to the eating of that tissue and referring to both acts with generic terms like, "Taking in." is simply the fallacy of equivocation.
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Spike Tassel
I am interested in the spirit of the Bible, holy as it is. It must not be argued about as if it were a common book.
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isaacaustin
Good, Spike Tassal. And doing so we can see that the spirit of the Bible is compassion not sacrifice. We can see that the restrictions on blood were regarding the eating of animal blood. We can see that Acts 15 was about arragements to keep the peace in the cong that had divisions. That's all.