My Explanation of Why They Got it Wrong About Blood Using Only the NWT

by cofty 203 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  peacefulpete

  Perhaps of interest is how the Koran addresses this: Surah16,115

  He has forbidden to you only carrion, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and that over which any name other than God's has been invoked; but if one is driven [to it] by necessity - neither coveting it nor exceeding his immediate need - verily, God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace.

  Many conservative Muslims do interpret the prohibition of eating blood as relevant to transfusions. However, they also understand necessity for the preservation of life to be of greater importance. Shamefully, blood donations Muslims provide are to be given for other Muslims only and not sold to a commercial company.
  
  
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  Vanderhoven7

  Thanks Pete! That's helpful.
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  peacefulpete

  Blood was ceremonially equated with life in living things. Life was sacred, blood was sacred only through connection with life. Blood in a found dead animal no longer had this ceremonial significance. Therefore, the prohibition on eating a carcass wasn't blood related at all. It was the death apart from approved purposes, slaughter for food or sacrifice, that made it ceremonially unclean. Much like the uncleanness of fallen soldiers was not because of the blood in their bodies.

  Since the animal found dead was not slaughtered for food or sacrifice, it being not bled was not relevant. It is however relevant to a modern believer trying to determine whether passages prohibiting the eating of blood of slaughtered animals applies to blood transfusions.
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  cofty

  Spot on peacefulpete, thanks.

  It's interesting that the additional prohibitions of the Law that applied only to priests included eating an animal found already dead.

  This implies that it was a concession that a normal Israelite could do so as long as he followed the rituals of purification.
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  peacefulpete

  I can't help myself from reminding anyone interested in this topic that these "laws" were created around the time of the Babylonian Exile (possibly some tradition dates from the Assyrian exile of Israel) and continued to be revised until the 3rd century BCE. The retrojection of these "Mosaic" laws into the deep past is an artifice of the Levite elite who composed this material. It is true that some elements of Leviticus and Deuteronomy preserve more ancient sentiment, but apart from a few poems little can be said with certainty to be pre-Exilic.
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  Fisherman

  eating an animal found already dead.

  How does a person that pumps 1/2 gallon of blood into his veins keep abstaining from blood as required in the Christian Scriptures?

  Also, if an Israelite went around eating dead animals, he would obviously get into trouble. The related scripture is not a concession allowing Israelites to go around eating dead unbled animals as a standard for the Israelites. The standard was the ritualistic slaughter with the poring out of the blood. There is no such practice recorded in the Bible. However, you make the point that even if one person ate a dead animal, the blood was different from blood from a slaughtered animal and WT acknowledges that in wt literature. The issue in modern time remains because blood transfusions is a standard practice in medicine, Christians are to “keep abstaining” from blood. The JW gb interprets that to mean no bt.

  I don’t think that a Jew in ancient Israel worth his weight in modern day salt would eat a dead (kosher) animal because it was wrong to do so but IF he did, there was no penalty although there was uncleaness integrated with the conduct.
  
  
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  peacefulpete

  The voluntary donation of blood of an unharmed person for the medical benefit of another is not prohibited in any text. Drawing parallels of the blood of slaughtered animals to blood transfusions is not a rational conclusion. The lack of concern about eating the blood in unbled animals illustrates the Levites did not have a pathological hemophobia. Theirs was a religious taboo with a specific context. If any parallel exists of our days with the pre-scientific context of the writings, it may be that, in the eyes of people of both ages, blood saves lives.
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  Fisherman

  The voluntary donation of blood of an unharmed person for the medical benefit of another is not prohibited in any text.

  That depends on how one interprets the text. As JW interpret the Bible ( at this time) and it be makes sense, Abstaining from blood includes not flooding your body with gallons of whole blood. The benefits or health concerns is another subject.
  

  
  

  blood saves lives

  Not arguing that sometimes only a blood transfusion can either prolong life or even stop a person from dying —short of a miracle.

  (At one time organ transplants were viewed as cannibalism by JW. Now, some JW have gotten organ transplants.)
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  cofty

  Fisherman - Handwaving is not the same thing as addressing the data.

  If an Israelite went around eating dead animals, he would obviously get into trouble

  The scriptures cited in the OP prove otherwise. Nine years on there has not been a single rational response.

  and it be makes sense

  That makes no sense at all.
  
  
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  TonusOH

  I'd just like to add that a phrase like "abstain from blood," shorn of context, has an almost limitless number of possible interpretations.