Question on Acts 15:28,29

by pc 43 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  pc

  I just had a brief discussion with my brother who is an elder. There might be a medical situation in his family. I just put my 2cents in by saying"make sure you do some research about the blood issue". I said something like if you weren't suppose to take blood then you shouldn't eat pork. He said it also says in the greek scriptures not to take blood and quoted Acts 15:28,29. Can someone give me alittle assistence with the meaning of that scripture. Thanks PC
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  missy04

  I went to look for it in my Living Bible, and it was a little different than in the new world translation that I got from the Witnesses. In the living Bible version, it talks about abstaining from unbled meat. Funny how in the New World Translation it says "from blood" in general.

  I don't totally understand it.

  My opinion on the blood thing is that alot of things that God commanded were for the good health of people in Bible times. He didn't say anything about blood transfusions, either. They didn't DO that back then. And even if God HAD commanded people not to take someone elses blood and putting it into another persons body, (which I haven't read anywhere) I would take it as him trying to protect the people, since they didn't know the difference between blood types back then or test for diseases.

  Not sure exactly what you were asking about the scripture,...I probably made no sense....that would be because I just drank a cup of coffee and I am so jittery I almost can't type and can't think straight LOL.
• 

  TD

  The backdrop against which the Apostolic Decree was spoken was a dispute that arose as to whether Gentile converts to Christianity should be circumcised and follow the Law.

  The eating of blood as forbidden in the Law is therefore unquestionably the context in which the phrase, "Keep abstaining....from blood" was spoken. (The JW Bible dictionary, Insight On The Scriptures under the article "Paul" in fact explacitly states this.) Consequently, the MOST that any Witness can claim is that the Apostolic Decree forbade the EATING of blood. (Even this is debatable though, as some commentators are of the opinion that the Decree does not carry the force of command.)

  As a result, the very LEAST required of the Witness adherent is a demonstration that transfusion is either a physical or moral equivalent to the eating of blood.

  And here is where you can have a field day if you are familiar with the some very common logical fallacies, because Witnesses will literally try every trick in the book in defense of the transfusion taboo.

  Some Witnesses will attempt a demonstration of equivalency through the use of false analogy: ("If a doctor forbade you to consume alcohol, could you inject it into your veins?") However blood is not a simple compount like alcohol. Blood is living tissue and a transfusion of blood is the transplant of living tissue. The Witnesses themselves recognize this distinction in all other transplant scenarios. The ludicrous nature of their analogy can easily be shown by comparison: "If a doctor forbade you to eat meat could you accept a kidney transplant?"

  Some Witnesses will attempt to demonstrate equivalency through equivocation. They will use terms generic enough to apply to both the consumption of blood and the transfusion of blood, claiming that, "The Bible forbides TAKING IN blood."

  This is another logical fallacy. Drinking a glass of water and drowning in a lake can both be described as "Taking in water." Does this make them physical equivalents? Marital sex and adultery both fall into the general catagory of Sex. Does this make them moral equivalents? Of course not. Equivalency cannot be established through generalization.

  Other Witnesses will betray their lack of education through bad grammar: They will say, "The Bible says ABSTAIN from blood! Would you be ABSTAINING from blood if you accepted a transfusion?" However the incomplete predicate, "abstain from blood" cannot be invoked as an independant construction apart from the context that conpletes it without adding a transitive verb.

  The reason for this is simple. There is no such thing as abstinance from a physical object. (Even though we may sometimes think and express ourselves in those terms.) For example, what would it mean if I said, "Abstain from paper." Without an additional verb, that statement is grammatically incomplete and means nothing. You can abstain from WRITING on paper or TEARING paper or even WASTING paper, but an abstinence from the physical object itself is meaningless. To reiterate, you don't abstain from objects, you abstain from acts done in connection with objects.

  With that in mind, the unspoken verb inherent in the context of Acts 15:28, 29 is "eating" or possibly "drinking" (Compare the rendering in Moffat, TEV Phillips Modern English)

  Still other Witnesses will claim in effect to know the Mind of God by asserting that what God really wanted to forbid was the USE of blood --something that the Bible doesn't actually state. They will usually attempt to support this assertion with an argument from silence, pointing out that God never authorized or otherwise sanctioned the use of blood. This is yet another logical fallacy, a form of hasty generalization where the complete lack of evidence is used to justify a conclusion. In this case there is nothing remarkable about the Bible's silence on matters alien to its historical context. The Witnesses themselves recognize the irrelavent nature of the Bible's silence in all other medical scenarios.

  Regardless of what fallacious argument is advanced, the Witnesses can't get around the fact that Acts 15:28, 29 was a reference only to the consumption of blood as forbidden in the Law
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  Elsewhere

  According to a JW, blood symbolizes life, which is why it is so important. Are they really willing to destroy life in order to protect a symbol of life?

  Remember... people were stoned to death for violating the Sabbath:

  (Matthew 12:9-14) . . .After departing from that place he went into their synagogue; 10

  and, look! a man with a withered hand! So they asked him, "Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?" that they might get an accusation against him. 11 He said to them: "Who will be the man among YOU that has one sheep and, if this falls into a pit on the sabbath, will not get hold of it and lift it out? 12 All considered, of how much more worth is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do a fine thing on the sabbath." 13 Then he said to the man: "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and it was restored sound like the other hand. 14 But the Pharisees went out and took counsel against him that they might destroy him.
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  Farkel

  TD and Elsewhere gave some great comments. I'll only add a few comments myself.

  : (Even this is debatable though, as some commentators are of the opinion that the Decree does not carry the force of command.)

  Yes. The issue was whether the Christians would "stumble" Jewish converts by not practicing circumcision and eating unbled meat. It wasn't a moral or scriptural issue. It was a practical issue. The argument was made that even though the old Jewish Law was abolished, it could do more harm than good to do/not do things that were still considered important for Jewish Christians.

  While Watchtower Leaders continue to make laws (they call them "principles", but WT leaders still make laws from them) from the laws of the Old Covenant and in so doing, cause thousands and thousands of members to needlessly die, it is important to note what God thought about the eating of blood during the time the Old Covenant was in effect. Was the punishment for eating unbled meat punishable by death from the God who killed people for just about everything else? NO! The punishment was being considered "unclean" for a single day. That was it. Not only that, God allowed the Jews to sell unbled meat to the Gentiles. Would God allow the Jews to enable Gentiles to break such a sacred law just so the Jews could profit from a product they themselves couldn't eat? Does that sound like a consistent God? NO!

  Now the eating of unbled meat would never save any lives unless that was the only food available. On the other hand, the transfusing of blood into the body has saved millions of lives who would otherwise be lost. Is the "symbol" of life more important than the life itself? Is the flag of any country more important than the people who comprise that country?

  Lastly, do not forget that Paul tells us it is not what goes into the body that defiles a man, but what comes out of it.

  Therefore, forbidding transfusions upon the threat of loss of eternal life is not only not supported by scripture, it is murder, and gives a new slant on the term "blood guilt" and who's responsible for it.

  Farkel
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  Leolaia

  I plan to write a lengthy post about the Apostolic Decree when I have time, but here is the basic thrust. In Second Temple Judaism, Gentile proselytes who wanted to convert fully to Judaism were expected to embrace the Torah, become circumcised, and practice fasting and ritual washing. In such a way, a Gentile would cease to be a Gentile and would in effect become a Jew and be required to follow the Torah like any other Jew. However, a Gentile who did not convert fully to Judaism (the so-called "Godfearers") but who wanted to attend synagogues and follow the Jewish faith was expected to keep the Noachide laws which were supposedly given to all mankind either before the Flood (as certain pseudepigraphal works describe) or immediately following the Flood.

  The Pharisee rabbis worked out exactly which Laws these included and did not always agree, but they frequently mentioned a triad of laws: (1) prohibition of idolatry, (2) prohibition of "bloodshed" (i.e. murder), and (3) prohibition of fornication. What is important to consider is that the Pharisees held that these were the bare MINIMUM for Gentiles to follow; Gentiles were encouraged, if not expected, to take the full "yoke of the Law" and become Jews to truly become "perfect" and become saved from the final judgment.

  Now, in the case of the Apostolic Decree (which has been somewhat fictionalized in Luke's narrative in Acts), it is essentially a Christian version of the Noachide laws endorsed by the Pharisees for Gentiles. The Jewish-Christian leaders who devised the "Decree," however, recast the Noachide laws partly in dietary terms -- owing to the strong emphasis in Jewish-Christian (that is, Ebionite and Nazorean) Christianity on following the Torah. The prohibition on "idolatry" became specifically a prohibition on eating "things sacrificed to idols". The prohibition on "bloodshed" became a dietary prohibition against eating "blood". And in the Western text of Acts, a fourth rule was added: a prohibition against eating "things strangled" (the Eastern text represents the older version which more closely resembles the rabbinical Noachide laws). The two versions shows that the "Decree" wasn't monolithic but a list that differed in different places and in different communities. The Decree is alluded to in Revelation, and there only the prohibitions against eating "things sacrificed to idols" and "fornication" is mentioned.

  The other major difference, aside from the form of the Decree, is how it was interpreted. The conservative Jewish-Christian interpretation of the Decree is preserved in the late first-century Didache, where the Decree functions as the bare MINIMUM of requirements for Gentiles. Gentiles were encouraged in this work (a catechism for Gentile converts) to embrace the full "yoke" of the Torah for salvation, and the "Two Ways" document in the beginning of the Didache explains in further detail what would be expected for full converts in terms of personal conduct. The Apostle Paul, however, appeared to have had a completely opposite interpretation of the Noachide requirements of the Decree. He viewed them as the MAXIMUM of the Torah expected for Gentile converts, and he specifically rejected the notion that Gentiles ought to take on more of the burden of the Law. Not only that, but Paul even viewed the Noachide Laws as only loose guidelines that can be abrogated. Thus, in 1 Corinthians, Paul even permits his followers to eat "things sacrificed to idols" if it would not stumble a fellow Jewish believer. Paul's position is sharply condemned in Revelation, and certainly among Jewish-Christians who regarded Paul to be an apostate and "false apostle" because of his antinomianism. Regarding the issue of blood, by accepting meat that has been sacrified to idols (without kosher blood-letting), Paul was also not strict on the matter of "abstaining from blood". The Society has taken the Jewish-Christian and Pharisee view that the Apostolic Decree incorporates inviolate laws for Gentiles and apparently is unaware of the fact that Apostle Paul did not regard the rules as hard-and-fast laws.

  I hope to go much more in detail in a future post, with complete references.
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  mkr32208

  This is one I loved. My wife was showing me something in a watchtower recently about blood and the quote was something like "according to the historian josephus (sp) early christians refrained from blood in all forms even refusing to use it as a cure for epilepsy" there by showing that blood WAS used as medicine and that early christians refused it... we were unable to find that quote in the sorce listed... hmmm mysterious! So I asked my wife if the WBTS is willing to follow the teachings of this josephus guy on this topic would they agree with him on all aspects of what the early christians did? She made a provisional yes and so we started looking at all the stuff in the book the quote was supposedly from (my mom had it) and it's all talking about jesus being god and hinting at the trinity... we never got far I was laughing too hard and she was screaming at me for being an apostate... oh well
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  heathen

  Wow , those are some good arguments . The eating of blood is very unhealthy in that there is a high level of cholesterol content and causes heart disease as known today by specialists . I think the apostle Paul stated that the mosaic law was obsolete but was still useful for teaching until things could be determined in the new religion of christianity as being applicable . I still say there is nothing wrong with the 10 commandments but the laws that applied to the nation of Israel in the pentateuch are no longer enforced by the secular society and no longer hold the weight of the covenant . There is a new covenant under the blood of jesus christ and only 2 commandments , Love the lord thy God with whole mind heart and soul and love your neighbor as yourself , which fundamentally was the mosaic law .

  I think somewhere in the WTBTS reasoning is the belief that people will leave all their belongings to the WTBTS when the die , so kinda works out good for a greedy dysfunctional religion.
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  Leolaia

  I think you might mean Tertullian. He was the one that the Society quotes on the matter of blood, and he was the author of De Trinite.
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  TD

  "according to the historian josephus (sp) early christians refrained from blood in all forms even refusing to use it as a cure for epilepsy" there by showing that blood WAS used as medicine and that early christians refused it... "

  This is great example of the type of false analogy Witnesses resort to. Regardless of whether blood has been eaten as a curative or as a food, it has still been eaten --which is what the Law ostensibly forbade. The Law made absolutely no distinction on the basis of motive.

  In contrast, receiving the kidney of a family member via transplant and eating that kidney for dinner are two entirely different things, neither morally nor physically analagous. This is the difference we are dealing with when we discuss transfusion.