My Explanation of Why They Got it Wrong About Blood Using Only the NWT

by cofty 203 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  This is my tigersuit

  @cofty your essay totally kicked ass. thanks for sharing!
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  cofty

  Thank you Tiger.

  Yadda - I think the article you linked briefly hits the key point but buries it under a lot of other stuff a JW could refute.
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  OneEyedJoe

  Thanks, cofty, for this...I hope you don't mind if I claim this research as my own should the need arise.  This is especially pertinent considering the wt study in two weeks veers into a tangent on blood.
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  cofty

  Help yourself Joe.

  I would love to see a JW attempt to refute this honestly.
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  jhine

  Just read this , I know late to the party as usual . Excellent piece of work Cofty . Your reasoning is spot on . 

                                         Jan 
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  EdenOne

  Cofty, there's something that your excellent essay left out and I'd like to hear your take on it.

  How do you explain the seemingly redundant command in Acts to 'abstain from blood' and then 'abstain from strangled meat'? Why the author of Acts [or the apostles and elders in Jerusalem] felt it was necessary to make BOTH items as separate commands, when, in principle, 'abstain from blood' would already rule out unbled meat?

  Your thoughts?

  Eden
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  jhine

  I read somewhere that in places where Roman games were held and Gladiators might be killed in the arena some people , not Jews presumably , thought that to drink the blood of a dying Gladiator would bring luck or something . The writer  seemed to think that the reference to abstain from blood MAY have something to do with these kind of practises , but that was only a theory .

                                       Jan 

                                    
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  cofty

  Interesting question Eden, thanks.

  If we go back to the OT context that I explained in the OP, whenever an animal's life was taken it was to be symbolically returned to god by pouring out the blood on the ground.

  By the way the injunction is phrased in Acts 15 it rules out any use of the blood or the meat of an animal that was not slaughtered correctly. By that I mean the animal's blood was poured out on the ground and not used for any other purpose.

  This raises another very important challenge to Jehovah's Witnesses. 

  In a modern abattoir the blood is salvaged and sold on to be used for all sorts of commercial purposes. According to Acts 15 it would therefore be unlawful for a Christian to eat the meat since the life of the animal has not been returned to god.

  Therefore the Watchtower get it doubly wrong with their rules on blood. Firstly they deny life-saving blood that has no sacred value, since the donor's life was not taken. Secondly, they permit their followers to contravene the bible's law on blood by eating the meat of animals that have not been slaughtered according to god's command.
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  Apognophos

  Oh, that's interesting.  I've wondered about that seemingly-redundant language in Acts too.  I thought "strangled meat" might refer to meat with blood in it and "blood" itself might refer to products made from blood like blood sausage.
  
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  EdenOne

  
  

  I've read an interesting take on this matter, months ago, but I cannot pinpoint it right now off my memory. It goes more or less like this: the jewish DIETARY command regarding blood is covered by the command 'abstain from strangled meat'. However, the command 'abstain from blood' would encompass everything that, under Moses' law, would make someone carry blood guilt, such as intentional murder, or homicide by negligence. There was some pretty convincing scriptural support given, which I don't recall at the moment, but my recolection was that this is the argument that makes more logical sense.

  I would also add another possibility, that happens to possibly merge with the above. The Israelite married males were sternly warned to avoid sex with their wives during their menstrual period. In Jesus' day, one of the reasons the Jews avoided defilement by association with gentiles was because the gentiles kept sexual intercourse with women during their menstrual period. This was a serious issue under Moses' law. I propose it would also be a cause of tension between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. So, the quite generic command to 'abstain from blood' could be a diplomatic way to address a very delicate and intimate issue of sexual conduct.

  Eden