Parallels have often been drawn between the Pharisees' condemnation of healing on the Sabbath, with JWs' condemnation of life saving blood transfustions. In a question on Y!A, I attempt to hightlight the folly of JW anti-blood arguments and reasoning by equipping the Pharisees with comparable arguments for refuting healing on the Sabbath. Since the Pharisees are portrayed as being wrong for condemning Jesus' healing on the Sabbath, then giving them JW-anti-blood-like arguments and reasoning should hopefully help JWs to see that such reasoning used by them is wrong. What follows is a quote of a fictional conversation where a Pharisee is employing JW thinking to condemn Jesus' action of healing on the Sabbath. I have included numbers in brackes [n] at the end of key arguments within the text and corresponding end notes with explanations of the parallels with JW thinking on blood:
"The law at Exodus 20:10 strictly forbids doing *any work* on the Sabbath [1] - not even to light a fire in your own house on the Sabbath! (Exodus 35:3) At the very least we can agree that any activity which one might engage in to make a living, is work. Doctors make a living by healing or trying to heal people. Therefore it is clear that healing people is a form of work. [2] But aside from that the phrase "any work" means . . . *any* work! So your healing of others is clearly a form of work and should not be done on the Sabbath! [1]
Or why are you violating the sanctity of the Sabbath just to give someone a few more years of good health in this dying old system? [3] Aren't you making them complicit in your violation of God's Sabbath law and putting them in jeopardy of losing out on everlasting life in the new system? Is it right to give someone healthy living now only to have them lose out on the prospect of everlasting life, later? [4]
This healing by you is not done with God's power because God would never direct someone in a way that is contrary to his revealed word in the written Law, which is what you're doing. It is by satan's power that you perform these Law-defying miracles! Satan is using you to mislead others away from the truth of God's word which we teach!" [5]
ENDNOTES:
[1] This focus on the scriptures use of the phrase "any work" to highlight a very broad application that precludes even healing work, mirrors the JWs focus on the phrase "abstain . . . from blood" to suggest a very broad application that precludes even life-saving blood transfusions. This text in Exodus 20:10 can thus be used to as a mirror to show JWs the folly in their reasoning on the use of "abstain" in Acts 15:29.
[2] This 'doctors work as healers means Jesus' healing is work' analogy, mirrors the JWs 'food is fed intravenously therefore intravenous blood transfusions is feeding' analogy. The difference here is that this kind of reasoning actually seems more valid and convincing when applied to the issue of healing on the Sabbath - and yet the Pharisees were clearly wrong, if we are to go by scripture.
[3] Prolonging someone's imperfect life in this dying old system - how often have you heard JWs use that kind of fanatical, fatalistic reasoning to devalue present human life as a means of justifying their fanatical and fatal refusal of blood? They make it seem as if present human life is cheap and valueless and we shouldn't shirk from sacrificing it for life in the new system. What fanatics! But the Pharisees could also make use of the same reasoning - to defend a less egregious action of delaying healing someone to another day.
[4] This mirrors the JW's habit of devaluing present human life and scaring others into fanaticism by talking about the supposed better, perfect, eternal life in the new system that they stand to lose if they accept a life saving blood transfusion.
[5] This one is not actually specific to the matter of blood, but more or less deals with JWs view on the 'miraculous works' done by other professed christians. JWs would say that such works are done with the power of demons and not God. That such persons can't possibly have God's approval if they're teaching things contrary to the bible [as understood by Watchtower]. The point here is that the Pharisees could have used this reasoning as a thought stopper to dismiss miraculous nature of the healing as being any evidence that he did it with God's approval and backing.