djeggnog,
We know exactly what drug was responsible. It was not quinine, but if you've researched cases of thrombocytopenia caused by quinine, you understand the situation. The list of drugs that can produce this side-effect gets longer every year.
And this is the problem. As I view it, you do not view blood as being sacred. You see no problem with re-use of it as blood. I do.
What I'm trying to understand is why you have a problem with all reuses of blood. It would help if we could distill it down into a simple deductive argument
You gave me several multiple choice examples illustrating the most reasonable act we could infer from an "abstain from" construction. I'm not going to cut, paste and answer them all (Unless you think it's important) because I agree with you. They illustrate the point I've been attempting to make
For example, you said:
Now try alcohol, meaning the beverage, just like there as there aren't two kinds of blood, one for consumption and one for topical use, and tell me: What might this phrase mean?
As long as it's clearly understood that we're talking about beverages containing alcohol (i.e. A food) then "eating" and/or "drinking" are what a normal person would understand a directive to abstain from alcohol to prohibit. The context clearly limits the scope of the proscription
Sure it does. This was originally Greek and what James said at Acts 15:20 was translated into English and this phrase "abstain .... from blood" doesn't require a verb at all. He's entitled to his opinion, as are you, but we're just playing tiddly winks, aren't we, @TD?
He uses the phrase "abstain from paint" to make a different point; it's a useless strawman to prop up what he argues here about the need for "a verb of some kind ... to complete the thought": His thought.
I think it's important not to confuse semantics with grammar. In English a complete proposition requires a transfer of action between subject and object. "Abstain" is an intransitive verb and can neither take a direct object nor transfer action between subject in object.
You could argue that semantically the meaning is still clear even without a finite verb, but grammatically, there is no question that the phrase, "Abstain..from blood" is incomplete. If it were grammatically complete, it wouldn't be a phrase at all, it would be a clause.
I've enjoyed having a good discussion, but maybe we're reaching an impasse on this one point. If we agree that the reference to blood in the Decree was a reference to earlier injunctions against drinking/eating it, then there's no need to discuss grammar at all.
You read Greek and I believe you have a good understanding of nouns and verbs, so maybe I could get you to analyze "abstain from foods" (1 Timothy 4:3) as you did "abstain ... from blood" (Acts 15:20), and hear what you have concluded as to difference between "foods" and "blood."
The word choice is slightly different, but given the fact that blood is forbidden in the Bible as a food, I would say that the reference to eating/drinking is nearly identical.
Would it be fair to say that you see an equivalency of some sort between the consumption of blood and the transfusion of blood? If you do, I'd be curious what the equivalency is and how it can be logically established
...OUTLAW
