A teaching based on a totally false exegesis of Acts 15 too Hamsterbait.
Nobody should put faith in the WT explanations of anything, that is putting faith in men who have been proved not only to be in error, but to be liars too.
How strong is our faith on this issue of the Blood?
by wannabe 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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TD
wannabe,
First of all, you are anachronistically projecting pseudo scientific concepts into the text that the original audience could not possibly have understood and presenting them as the greater meaning of the Scripture. You are committing the fallacy of the invisible interpreter (Again)
Second, you are failing to distinguish between literal and metaphorical usages of the word, 'Blood.' (Gen 9:5,6) Most animals don't have hands (Gen 9:5) and even with humans, hands are not the source of blood. 'Hands' in this case are a metaphor for instrumentality and 'Blood' is a metaphor for life. There is no lucid way to interpret God asking 'Blood' back from the 'Hands' of both man and beast except as a reference to 'Bloodguilt' or 'Lifedebt.' i.e. 'Blood on your hands.'
Third: Erythrocytes in circulation carry no DNA. The differences in blood groups are the result of the presence or absence of surface antigens on the cell membranes. If you're going to make an issue over the protein structure on cell membranes, then as 'Hamsterbait' has already pointed out, both pre and post exposure innoculations and vaccines alter your blood more than this.
Fourth: The idea that physical blood may not be altered is untenable unless you go back and start reading even more unstated stipulations and provisos into the text. Pregnancy permanently alters a woman's blood. A woman can still have fetal nucleated precursor cells in circulation more than forty years after her last pregnacy. Just the act of growing up permanently alters your blood. Fetal erythrocytes are different in structure and contain a different form of hemoblobin than those of an adult.
Fifth: Your line of reasoning does not account for the fact that monochorionic twins, triplets ect. share a common placenta and blood supply in utero anymore than JW reasoning on blood does. If God is fundamentally opposed to the physical exchange of blood between two individuals, then why does it happen naturally?
Sixth: Transfused blood is very transitory. Erythrocytes only last 90 to 120 days in circulation. When the membrane becomes damaged, they are destroyed in a process called erythrophagocytosis. They are gone after that.
Seventh: You start jumping between a physical and ontological comparison again when you get onto the subject of race. Why should anyone believe that the type A, Kell and RH negative blood of a black man is different in God's sight than the same blood from a white man especially when you provide no scientific basis for that idea? Your reasoning smacks of racism.
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Disillusioned JW
Something which the NT attributes as a saying of Jesus might indicate that the biblical Jesus would be fine with a human receiving a transfusion of blood which came out of the body of a willing human, in order to save the life of a human. See John 6:53–57:
'53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, the one who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.'
Whether or not these words attributed to Jesus are meant to be understood literally or only metaphorically, it would seem to indicate that according the gospel writer that Jesus didn't consider it forbidden under God's law for a human to ingest human blood which was donated by the human whose internal organs made the blood. In other words, if according to Bible (and the writer of the gospel named John) God prohibited every situation of a human ingesting another human's blood, then surely Jesus wouldn't have said, even with a metaphorical meaning, the words mentioned in John 6:53-57.