Posts by JanH

U NDER THE MOSAIC LAW, killing an animal was in one sense the same as murder. The sacredness of life was a central tenet of the Law. This sacredness showed up in many ways, including the many regulations related to procreative powers and the lifeblood. We will concentrate on the latter. We read from the Law:

Lev 17:3,4 "As for any man of the house of Israel who slaughters a bull or a young ram or a goat in the camp or who slaughters it outside the camp and does not actually bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to present it as an offering to Jehovah before the tabernacle of Jehovah, bloodguilt will be counted to that man. He has shed blood, and that man must be cut off from among his people"

So, unless the man who killed an animal heeded the dietary law, he was worthy of death just as if he had killed a fellow human. Life was holy, even the life of animals. To compensate for the taking of life, the blood had to be offered to God:

Lev 17:6 "And the priest must sprinkle the blood upon Jehovahs altar at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and he must make the fat smoke as a restful odor to Jehovah."

In the case of hunting and killing, the rules were simpler, but still the person had to return the blood to God:

Lev 17:13 "As for any man of the sons of Israel or some alien resident who is residing as an alien in your midst who in hunting catches a wild beast or a fowl that may be eaten, he must in that case pour its blood out and cover it with dust."

These rules were compulsory and unvarying in Israel, even applying to foreigners living in the land.

Lev 17:11,12 "For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have put it upon the altar for you to make atonement for your souls, because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul in it. That is why I have said to the sons of Israel: No soul of you must eat blood and no alien resident who is residing as an alien in your midst should eat blood."

This compulsory and absolute nature of these laws demonstrates that they are moral, as opposed to ceremonial law, which may or may not apply to all inhabitants. Again, we see that blood is the soul or life of the creature. The provision to pour out the blood and give it back to God had nothing to do with the blood itself, as if the fluid was magical in some way. It had to do with respect for life. This can be seen from the fact that in cases of animals who had been killed by predators, strangulation or natural causes, and still had the blood in it, they were not covered by this absolute prohibition against eating blood. Sure, the Israelites were not allowed to eat it, but this was purely from a ritualistic point of view. The person had no bloodguilt, as a person who had killed an animal himself would have:

Lev 17:15,16 "As for any soul that eats a body already dead or something torn by a wild beast, whether a native or an alien resident, he must in that case wash his garments and bathe in water and be unclean until the evening; and he must be clean. But if he will not wash them and will not bathe his flesh, he must then answer for his error." (see also Lev 11:39,40)

That this rule was ritualistic and had little to do with the holiness of the blood itself, is clear from these verses:

Deut 14:21 "You must not eat any body already dead. To the alien resident who is inside your gates you may give it, and he must eat it; or there may be a selling of it to a foreigner, because you are a holy people to Jehovah your God."

The basis for the prohibition against eating animals that died of themselves was the holiness of the people, not the sacred nature of blood.

To summarise, the law in Leviticus chapters 17 and 18 contains a number of regulations. What is common for these, is that unlike the other dietary laws and holiness standards, these also applied to foreigners living in Israel. We will see this as very important later, when we handle the apostolic decree in Acts chapter 15. These rules were:

1. Offerings (really, meal offerings where the person took part in the meal) should be brought to Jehovah only, not other gods ( Lev 17:1-9 )

2. They were not permitted to eat blood ( Lev 17:10-14 )

3. They could not (unless in an emergency; see Deut 14:21,28,29 ) eat animals that were torn apart or had died by themselves ( Lev 17:15,16 )

4. They had to abstain from certain sexual practices and relationships ( Lev 18:1-27 )

We will come back to these rules later, since they play an important part in the so-called apostolic decree.

Next Chapter: The Christians and Blood

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Is the Bible Really the Word of God?

by gumby in

jw
friends

is the bible really the word of god?

while sitting in my garage having a smoke, i reached up to an old publication (which i keep handy on my shelves).

it was the book stated above.

JanH

gumby,

It seems to me many points are already answered here, but here are some short takes.

Chapter 5 "Early Christianity- Is the Record Sound?, had some good argumentation that I could use some help with to see the 'other side of the coin'.

Not entirely honest argumentation, though, but I agree it is a good start for a rebuttal.

Here are the 'jist' of what it said; 1. Jesus WAS a historical figure as writers other than christians testify. Wether he DID THE THINGS the bible said he did, OR WAS who the bible said he was.......is the debate.

The primary debate, of course. That a historical person lived called Jesus is surely open to debate, but it is not in itself a remarkable claim. The problem is that once the mytholigical claims about Jesus are removed, very little is left. Even his birth stories are mythical.

2.The 4 Gospels all harmonize even though written by different writers.

Totally untrue. They are widely different, and contradictory on many key issues. Where the synotpics agree, they can be demonstrated to be collaborated.

3. The jewish TALMUD, though clashing with the gospels in that they argue in the Means by which Jesus performed miracles, do not DENY they happened.

Too late to have real historical value. Nothing indicates Talmud authors had any independent sources to Jesus; they just tried to turn around the claims Christians made about Jesus. It is naive to expect early superstitious writers to actually deny supernatural events among their enemies. In their world view, the world was full of good and evil spirits, so they attributed even the wildest claims about miracles to demons.

4. Celsus, a philosopher of the second century C.E., denied Jesus as divine in that his ORIGIN was of humble begginings....poor, humble, betrayed, suferred, being put to death. The argument is he believed Jesus existed.....but he used his personal opinion on how he VIEWED him.

No writing of Celsus is extrant. It is partially preserved through quotations in the rebuttal Against Celsus by Origen. Celsus lived in the 2nd Cnetury, and had no independent sources about the historical Jesus excpet what Christians claimed.

5.Unlike mythical writings, the bible is built on people who REALLY existed, and PLACES that exist to this day.

The Bible also deals with many mythical places and people. It is not at all unusual for myths to be placed in a historical setting. That some parts of the Bible is about real people and real events is no argument that other parts of it is true. The Bible is a quite arbitrary collection of stories in many genres, written over a long period. Some parts are historically quite reliable, others pure legend.

6. Luke 3:1,2 names 7 political and religious officials who actually lived in the time Jesus lived. "This can be verified by consulting history books" say's the article on P.67 (thought that was interesting!)

It would not at all be remarkable that a number of political rules contemporary with the author of Luke actually lived. It is not unsual for even pure fiction today to use the names of real historical characters, e.g. American presidents or people like Hitler or Churchill.

7. The writers freely admited their waeknesses. Would writers who are fabricating stories, speak so humbly?

Most writers admitted the weaknesses of their protagonists, yes, but I see few examples of authors admitting their own mistakes, except as a rhetorical effect (e.g. Paul).

8. Last...the book also mentioed the THEME of the bible running throughout it's pages and say's in affect...."What are the chances of one theme weaving itself throughout the bible over that many years.

It is to be expected that the religious writings within one tradition has a similar set of ideas. But except in a very broad sense, the claim is flat-out wrong. For example, the afterlife, which is very crucial to the NT, is mentioned only in some few, late books of the OT, and outright denied in others. Most typical, modern religionists superimpose their own religious ideas onto the old texts. For example, there is nothing in Genesis 2 & 3 of what modern Christians believe about the "fall of man". It is a myth about a God who lied to the humans to keep them ignorant, a snake telling the truth, and a God getting angry. That this snake was Satan, and that death come into the world through the "fall", is entirely a later construction that moderns often read into the text without realizing it. - Jan

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Poll: Affection or sex

by Mimilly in

if...... you had to choose just one to have for the rest of your life, which would it be?

affection or sex?

by affection here i mean snuggling, kissing, hand holding, all the little things.

JanH

How would sex without affection be? The partner doing a perfect impersonation of an inflatable? No thanks. Been there done that. But romantic affection without sex is frustration. Meaningless.

- Jan

13

I personally would like to thank JanH

by zenpunk in

jw
friends

your series on the history of the blood issue was amazing.

my husband left the organization before i did but he always held on to the belief that blood transfusions were just wrong.

so one night we read your series, parts 1 through 6 together.

JanH

* bowing down *

Thank you all! Much appreciated.

I'll post the rest of the series when I find the time for it.

BadSeeds, but of course, as long as it's not for sanitary purposes!

om, I bet many JWs would pay a bit to avoid that happening.

Wild Turkey, my mate. Don't worry about killing some of my brain cells. I support the theory that alcohol, like predators in nature, go for the weaker prey. So drinking weeds out the crappy brain cells and leaves the brain healthy and strong.

Now that's my theory, and I'll stick to it!

- Jan

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