ACTS 15:19 Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God,20 but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality,[d] from things strangled, and from blood.
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Now, let's ask the following question. "Why is there no prohibition on murder?"
Oh, but you see--THERE IS!
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF THE NOAHIDE LAWS?
These are also known as the "Laws of the sons of Noah."
Please consider these and get them firmly in mind before you continue.
SEVEN NOACHIDE (or Noahide) LAWS
The seven Noachide laws, as traditionally enumerated are:
- Do Not Deny God
- Do Not Blaspheme God
- Do Not Murder
- Do Not Engage in Incestuous, Adulterous or Homosexual Relationships.
- Do Not Steal
- Do Not Eat of a Live Animal
- Establish Courts/Legal System to Ensure Law Obedience
What was the purpose of these Laws?
The Noachide Laws are seven laws considered by rabbinic tradition as the minimal moral duties required by the Bible on all men. While Jews are obligated to observe the whole Torah - 613 commandments, every non-Jew is considered a "son of the covenant of Noah" and he who accepts these obligations is considered a righteous person who is guaranteed a place in the world to come.
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In the Book of Acts, the Jerusalem Council offered a compromise to Paul (as the evangelist
to Gentiles) for a minimum number of prohibitions for Gentile Christians.
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While the Jews had been under the Moses Covenant of 613 ritual laws, those requirements had been nullified/ fulfilled by Jesus' death.
What remained was only Noah's son's Law for righteousness--as far as Jerusalem Council was concerned.
Are we prepared to say the Jerusalem Council DID NOT think Noahide Law #3-Do Not Murder
was important?
Is it not more logical, reasonable, and persuasive to view "and from blood" as MEANING the same thing as Do Not Murder, as in "and from BLOODSHED?
NOTORIOUS BLOOD FEUDS among tribes were a terrible problem in Jewish and Semitic society. These feuds have continued for centuries!
Entire "Cities of Refuge" became necessary to mark off a Sanctuary Zone where such retribution killings were off-limits.
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In the book of Acts, every mention of "blood," has reference to blood guilt or in some way connected to the shedding of blood, RATHER THAN the eating/consuming of it.
These are the occurrances of "blood" in Acts: 1:19; 2:19; 2:20; 5:28;15:20, 29; 18:6; 20:26, 28; 21:25; 22:20
As follows:
15:20, 29; 21:25 - The letter/directive from Jerusalem
1:19 - Judas' field of blood (from Judas' bloody death)
2:19, 20 - figurative, but drawing on the color of blood
5:28; 18:6; 20:26; - blood guilt
20:28 - Jesus' shed blood, thus related to murder
22:20 - Stephan's shed blood, thus related to murder
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WHAT DOES THIS REALLY MEAN?
( Acts 15) : "abstain from ... things strangled,"
The Noachide Law teaches us being careful to eat only meat from an animal that is fully dead is merciful, and this is by no means always the case in our factory society where slaughterhouses handle meat animals quickly and carelessly, sometimes only stunning them before cutting them up for sale. Care in this observance fosters all requirements for the love of nature and the preservation of the environment, and safeguards the passage of souls as manifested in the life and consumption of food animals until the ultimate destiny of the world._________________________
Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century, in Contra Faustum 32.13 noted:
"The observance of pouring out the blood which was enjoined in ancient times upon Noah himself after the deluge is thought by many to be what is meant in the Acts of the Apostles, where we read that the Gentiles were required to think that to abstain from blood means not to be polluted with the crime of murder ." (see #3 above)
With the words of Augustine firmly in mind we now ask this important question:
Unless the Jerusalem Council failed to prohibt murder (bloodshed) wouldn't "abstain from blood" cover that very important prohibition?
*From Wiki:
The Noahide Laws are regarded as the way through which non-Jews can have a direct and meaningful relationship with God or at least comply with the minimal requisites of civilization and of divine law.
A non-Jew who keeps the Noahide Law in all its details is said to attain the same spiritual and moral level as Israel's own (high priest) (Talmud, Bava Kamma 38a). Maimonides states that a Gentile who is precise in the observance of these Seven Noahide commandments is considered to be a Righteous Gentile and has earned a place in the world to come.___________________________
Jehovah's Witnesses want to interpret the words of the Jerusalem Council in a way that doesn't exactly fit the CONTEXT!
Acts 15:19-21
English Standard Version (ESV)
19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 21 For from ancient generations, Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
CONSIDER THE CONTEXT of purpose!
The Law preserves and improves life. Abstaining from Blood(shed) preserves Life! Abstaining from Blood(transfusion) has resulted in the DEATHs of observers of this prohibition.
Questions:
WHAT GOOD ARE DEAD KEEPERS OF A LAW to God or the world of mankind?
What is better a Living or a Dead worshipper?
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The Watchtower's "famous" scholars have yet to publish any instances of the Laws of the sons of Noah that I am aware of. If this is correct, we have to ask ourselves WHY a theological education should overlook this important piece of bible history!
DOES "ABSTAIN FROM BLOOD" really mean "Do not murder?"
by TerryWalstrom 10 Replies latest watchtower bible
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TerryWalstrom
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Crazyguy
It's hard to figure since I think the Bible is full of contradictions. In acts it may have very well been about not killing because even this idea of abstaining from eating blood is in contrast to what Paul supposedly wrote in I think 1Corinthians chapter 10 to eat whatever you want even meat given to Idol's as long as your not upsetting the ones your eating with. Jesus and supposedly said at Mathew 12 they we desire mercy not sacrifice showing that life is more sacred then even the Sabbath. But on another note if one looks at the ten commandments is was more important not to cook a baby goat in its mothers milk then Rape. -
cofty
I think the formula of Acts 15 is simply about the minimum requirements for foreign residents under the Law.
The question was about whether Gentile christians needed to get circumcised and keep the whole Law. In the OT there were just a few things that were required of foreigners staying in Israel. These things included idolatry, fornication and blood.
The decision of the 1st century church was that as long as gentile christians kept these necessary things then Jewish christians could have fellowship with them - "For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath."
Under the Law blood was only sacred in-so-far as it represented a life that had been taken. There was nothing in Acts 15 that adds to that principle.
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Saintbertholdt
Hi cofty,
Read the posts.
Leviticus 11:39, 40 :)
Does the GB know about the new light?
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opusdei1972
Firstly I have to say that not always we can get the logic of the christian theologians of the first century. However, it is interesting the quote that mentions what Augustine heard about the policy : "abstain from blood", because it seems that the prohibition of eating unbled animals was already mentioned in the abstention of "things strangled". This is why Tertullian at the end of the second century mentioned that christians do not eat sausage of blood. So, it makes sense if "to abstain from blood" meant "do not murder".
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TerryWalstrom
As a religious, historical, and logical approach to diffusing the pretzel logic of J-Dubs
in their holier-than-thou preachments, I personally think this argument might stop them in their tracks. At least they'd have to promise to research and return. In other words--you'll never see them again!
A good alternative to J-Dub blood policy--IF PRESENTED at the right moment of decision--gives a parent just cause to plunge ahead and permit the life-saving transfusion for the life of the child.
Just as the Sabbath was for man and not man for the Sabbath, logically the Laws of Noah are for man and not man for the Noahide Laws.
What does that mean?
Law is pro-LIFE in the sense that observing Law benefits, extends, enhances, and improves the lives of observers. Fanatics, on the other hand, get it backwards in a Pharisaical attempt to make obedience and martyrdom supercede life itself.
A fanatic doesn't want to LIVE FOR GOD; a fanatic wants to DIE for God.
A loving parent wants to SAVE THE LIFE of a beloved child, but a fanatic parent
wants to USE THE DEATH of a child to earn favor for divine brownie points!
The bargain of Christianity is: humanity doesn't have to be bound by Laws of God as the only resort to life.
Jesus Life=Life for humanity and death is out of the picture forever.
Otherwise, the Jewish ritual blood sacrifices would go on forever with temporary bloodshed = temporary forgiveness.
Binding Gentiles to ritual blood taboos makes no sense under Christian Freedom.
Binding Gentiles to a commonsense injunction against Murder makes all the sense in the world.
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Marvin Shilmer
From The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV:
"Sufficient it is, that in this place withal there has been preserved to adultery and fornication the post of their own honour between idolatry and murder: for the interdict upon "blood" we shall understand to be (an interdict) much more upon human blood."--Tertullian, emphasis added
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TerryWalstrom
Thank you, Marvellous Marvin! -
CalebInFloroda
Terry is 100% correct from the standpoint of with we teach in Judaism and the commentary on this verse as found in The Jewish Annotated New Testament (with NRSV text).
This is also reflected in the very interesting rendering of this verse found in the official Catholic version for the U.S., the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE):
"...abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell."
The rendering of the Greek PORNEIA as "unlawful marriage" demonstrates that the Noahide prohibition on unions forbidden due to close degrees of sanguinity were understood here by the scholars who worked on the NABRE text (which consisted of Catholics and Protestants). The term PORNEIA refers to "illicit sexual union" with the word "illicit" capable of reflecting mores of a pagan or Jewish culture. In this instance the scholars who worked on this translation chose the term to reflect Jewish understandings, and thus the Noahide sanctions against incestuous unions colored this particular rendition.
These disinterested conclusions would support Terry's OP regarding the notion that abstaining from blood in this context refers not merely to its consumption but its being mishandled with disrespect, including its being spilt in murder. The apostolic letter of Acts 15 is not developing a new standard of limited Torah observance for Gentiles, but instead imposing only the Noahide Laws which Jews have seen binding upon the nations since antiquity.
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CalebInFloroda
But I should add that the Apostolic college at the time did not see the Mosaic Law as lifted from Jewish Christians.
On the contrary, this resolution and the Pauline epistles that existed by this time must be read in light of Acts 21.17-26 which clearly states that neither the elders in Jerusalem nor Paul meant to suggest by such teachings that Jewish Christians were not free to pursue mizvot (obedience to/observance of the Mosaic Law).