This text is an edited google translation by me of a german article by Detlef Löhde. The article has also a lutheran aspect in it. (the bible quotations are taken in English from the NABRE, while in the german original the Luther-bible is used)
„The conclusion of the Jehovah's Witnesses that the Apostle
Council also forbids medical blood transfer, borders on the absurdity.“
Are christians allowed to eat blood sausages? Are christians only allowed to eat like Jews slaughtered animals? Meaning of the Apostolic Council?
To one who has not yet dealt
with the question, it may seem almost ridiculous. But in Acts Chapter 15, 19-21 and 29,
as well as in Chapter 21, 25 is
written that the apostles, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, have imposed
on the Christians who came from the Gentile nations to abstain from idols, from
blood, from strangled animals and fornication. How is the decision of the Apostolic
Council to understand?
Inventory
The Orthodox churches of the
East have adopted the text of most New Testament Greek manuscripts[1], to which later also Luther
joined: "That
you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things
strangled and from fornication."
For the Church of the West
until the Reformation and for the Roman Catholic Church until today, the Vulgata
is the the binding text of the Bible, which was translated from Greek to Latin approx.
380 - 400 AD. by Hieronymus. He took the few Greek manuscripts as
basis, which lack the "suffocated“ and therefore corresponding to that it
is also lacking in the dogmatized Latin Vulgate.(Note: The Roman Catholic
translation of the Bible into the respective local languages have to orient
themselves at the Vulgata, although the Roman-Catholic so-called German
ecomenical translation "Einheitsübersetzung" in Acts 15, 29 has also
the "suffocated".)
The followers of the Greek
minority texts and of the Vulgata argue that "suffocated" in the
majority of Greek handwritings is only a later commenting and misleading
addition.
Thus it is only necessary to
clarify what is meant by "abstaining from blood". It was and is interpreted that it
meant not to shed human blood. Others
interpret that it means not to enter into a marriage with close blood relatives
("incest"), analogue to the Old Testament marriage prohibitions
(Deuteronomy 18), to which is also referred to later by Paul (1 Cor. 5, 1-5). If appropriate, the exhortations to
abstain from blood and fornication would be in the close mutual commentarial context.
If, however, one proceeds
from the majority of the Greek manuscripts, which speak of the "containment
of blood and suffocated," then those both are closely connected. Then the apostolic council presumably
oriented itself to Leviticus 17:11-15. James
expressly refers to Moses (Acts 15, 19-21). After
that, it was not only forbidden to Israel to eat blood and meat of suffocated
animals but also to the strangers who lived in the midst of the people of
Israel.
According to the Old
Testament, blood is the bearer of life, nay, life itself, and to dispose of it
is the sole concern of God (Genesis 9: 4; Leviticus 17:11). And the Son of God does this when he
gives us his blood to drink in the Lord's Supper. There he gives us his life and gifts
us new eternal life (Jn 6, 53ff.).
If one thus proceeds from
the basis of the text, "abstain from blood and suffocated food," this
is to be understood as a prohibition to enjoy fresh blood and flesh with fresh
blood in it. (Note: The use of
fresh blood can lead to a "bloodlust", comparable to the intoxication
of drugs.)
The term "suffocated food" refers to
meat of animals which have not been slaughtered with the knife and have not
been bled, but have perished otherwise with its blood in the body (Catch with
the snare or carcase, cf Genesis 17, 3.17. In certain pagan religions the
sacrificed animals were not slaughtered, but strangled.)
An animal slaughtered with
the knife, whose meat naturally loses almost all blood, is thus not a
"suffocated food"! Even
with a stabbing of the heart or today's usual slaughter with a bolt shot device,
the killed animal still exsanguinated.
The legal provision of the
Jewish Talmud (written from the 2nd to the 8th century AD), according to which
the prohibition of eating no suffocated food is only followed when the animal
is "slaughtered properly kosher" (throat section and the still living
animal bleeds to death), is a typical exaggeration of the Pharisaic-rabbinical
theology, which had already begun in the time of Jesus (cf Mt 23:23).
However, in this view the
processing of the blood discharged after the slaughter to sausage remains
problematic. The old church and
the Roman Catholic church have banned this until the 12th century, the Eastern
Orthodox churches to this day.
Meaning of the apostolic council for the first greek gentile christian
communities namely for that of Antioch
After this inventory, the
question of what the decision of the apostolic council at that time meant for
the first gentile-christian communities, namely that of Antioch, is to be
asked. The apostolic council did
not follow the temptation of Judaist circles that the Gentile Christians must
submit themselves entirely to the Jewish law, to be circumcised, and to comply
with Jewish purity and dietary laws. With
Christ this is all fulfilled and has an end (Rom 10: 4, Galatians 5, 1).
The Jewish Christians,
however, had probably still aquired the behaviour to feel revulsion,
repugnance, and disgust at eating of blood. Presumably,
they did not wan to touch the disposal of God over any blood as the bearer of
life.
Therefore the Gentile
Christians will in regard and love (to the Jewish), to give no cause for an
offence of conscience and annoyance, and for the sake of fellowship, forgo
drinking and eating blood and bloody flesh. There
should be a full, undisturbed table-fellowship between Jewish and Gentile
Christians. Not the food, but
reprehensible behaviors lead to the failure of the table-fellowship (1 Cor. 5,
11).
The Apostle Paul goes one
step further personally and writes: "But make sure
that this liberty of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.g Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I
will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause my brother to sin."(1 Cor. 8: 9.13 NABRE).
(http://www.usccb.org/bible/1cor/8:1 The NABRE has a good
comment for this passage.)
The decision of the
apostolic council was, therefore, an outflow of consideration and the law of love. It was also properly understood. It
is said, when the church of Antioch received the letter with the decision of
the Apostles, they were glad about the encouragement (Acts 15, 30.31).
(Emphasis mine)
The behavioral directives
may therefore not have been regarded as a burden, especially with regard to the
demands of the Judaists that the Gentile Christians should submit themselves to
the whole Jewish law with circumcision, and to all provisions of food and
purity.
Only a small renunciation was required by the Gentile Christians,
while the Jewish Christians had to overcome a far higher hurdle with the
tolerance of meat-eating of unclean animals, for example, of pork (compare Acts 10, 10 ff.) Emphasis
mine)
As mentioned the demand was to forgo the eating of blood
and of suffocated meat of animals, an outlet of the love-offer for the sake of
fellowship, and not an old or a renewed dietary law. Jesus clearly said that what does defile
man is not what comes in the mouth, but what comes out (Matthew 15:11). And the Apostle Paul constantly
struggled for liberty in Christ and against all Judaistic-legal demands,
especially with the letters to the Romans and the Galatians.
On the subject, he writes,
(Col. 2:16)- " Let no one, then, pass judgment on you in matters of food
and drink"
(1 Cor. 8: 8). "Now food will not bring us closer to God.“
It also speaks for itself
that the prohibition to eat blood and bloody flesh is mentioned in the whole
New Testament only once. One of the first catechism-like ordinances, the
Diadache, written in the middle to the end of the first century, mentions the
prohibition of idolatry, but no longer addresses the question of the
consumption of blood and suffocated. The
directive of the apostolic council was due to the unique historical situation.
This raises the question
whether the directive of the Apostolic Council is still binding for us today. We are no longer in the situation of
the tensions and emotions between newly-converted Gentile Christians and
newly-converted Jewish Christians, just as the question of the idolatry does
not concern us directly.
The conception that the
prohibition of the consumption of blood and suffocated animals was valid only
in terms of time and situation, are shared by the various confessional churches
(the Eastern Orthodox Churches, limited). The conclusion of the Jehovah's Witnesses
that the Apostle Council also forbids medical blood transfer, borders on the
absurd.
The Confessions of the
Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Augsburg Confession (CA) and their Apology
address very much to the question of biblical and new Roman-church-lawful
ceremonial and dietary laws. In
Art. 28 CA is stated that (straightened): "The apostles have commanded
that one should abstain from the blood and from the suffocated meat. But who's holding it now? But still
they who do not keep it do not sin; For the apostles did not want to complain
the consciences with such servitude, but
have forbidden it for a time for the sake of annoyance. It is necessary to exercise caution
with regard to this statute, and to observe the principal part of the Christian
doctrine, which is not abolished by this apostolic decree. "
See also the subject: Has
God forbidden certain foods?
Detlef
Lohde
Source: http://www.biblisch-lutherisch.de/bibelauslegung/d%C3%BCrfen-christen-blutwurst-essen/
[1] Majority text is the texttradition that leans
on the majority of the manuscripts, this
tradition is testified mostly by greek manuscript from the bycantine empire,
abbr. „Byz“ , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_text-type{\displaystyle
{\mathfrak {M}}}short
