by krzysiek 35 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Sword of Jah writes:
scully: your question is simple to answer: because the law on abstaining from blood was reissued during the 1st century by the apostles in Jerusalem, fat was not mentioned in their letter to the congregations.
So when the Bible says "a statute to time indefinite", the WTS does not really think it means "to time indefinite", but more or less "as long as we decide it means"?
"Re-issued"? I don't think so.
James satisfied Jewish Christians by citing Leviticus. This was a transitional period away from strict adherence to the law.
C.T. Russell got it right when he said that this arrangement was temporary, within the Christian congregation, to keep peace
and unity going, by classifying Gentiles as "alien residents" within Jewish congregations
Further evidence of the Society's death-dealing fraud on this subject is found by comparing the "United in Worship"
book with the newer "Worship the Only True God" book. They just rehashed the same information but DROPPED
the chapter on blood. Show this to Witnesses and they get speechless!
metatron
Don't you love it when human beings take the authority to tell others what the thoughts of a powerful diety are, his (hers, its) feelings, likes, dislikes, etc. Give this god human qualities, convince humans that God needs them. It sounds pagan and full of mythology.
The Bible is clear on Jehovah's thoughts on abstaining from blood.
Really? In those days, didn't some use the blood in their sacrifices? Mirthas? Isn't that what the original Christians did at the "memorial" "last supper"? Jesus was to be the sacrifice, he said the wine was his blood, and they drank it. No doubt (buzzword) the 1/2 informed (rumored) tried to duplicate this ritual and continue their blood sacrifices to the one true god. Remember, this is what their one true religion did. If I was an apostle and saw that people were using/abusing Jesus' demonstration of the bread and wine, I'd say something as well.
The other thought of blood being the symbol of life. I totally agree Met, the life should take precedent over the symbol. Just like Jesus' story of doing something on the sabbath which is against the "LAW" but because what he was doing was more important, the law took 2nd place. Child dying needing blood, hmmmm, Sabbath? help/don't help, Transfuse? yes/no, hmmmm, WHJD?
Also, what about DNA in blood? This is definitely the building block of life, and should be protected and cared for. The JW argument about blood-life-AIDS etc doesn't hold water either since this DNA is also found in other body fluids - saliva, which is readily exchanged, and of course that other stuff that the creator commanded we as a species exchange !!!! GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY !!
WP
It amazes me that intelligent people would read a document, the Bible, that was written (over a long period of time, handed down through generations by word of mouth) by persons whos origin is questionable, translated by human beings like all of us, without any thought or knowledge of the intent of the original composer and without the "proper" background in the language in which the document was written and use such a document to guide their entire life and livelyhood based on "The Holy Bible" whos origin is highly questionable at best.
In accordance with the knowledge available, the WT modified a version of the Holy Bible (NWT) which is claimed to have been written by persons inspired by God. If God does not make mistakes and we are to believe that the NWT has retained its devine inspiration, one would say, the interpreter of the original document must be inspired in order to retain its status of "Devine inspiration". Does anyone know who the inspired person is in the Watchtower? From what I have read, the members of the governing body at the time of the writing and publishing of the NWT were certainly not qualified, academically, to assume that role. Did I miss something here? It appears that anyone with the gift of the gab can throw out anything to the public and get a following. He can make all the mistakes that a human is apt to make and its alright, he just has to make the corrections as he goes along because the followers will continue to blindly support the beliefs presented. I find this sad to have such a situation existing in our society in 21st century.
Well said Dr. Phil!!!
The Bible is clear on Jehovah's thoughts on abstaining from blood.
What SOJ has done here is ungrammatical. You cannot invoke an incomplete predicate apart from the context that completes it and pretend it is a statement of complete thought. Doing so betrays an ignorance not only of the source language, but of what is probably his or her own native tongue. There is no such thing as abstinence from a physical object.
If SOJ has any respect whatsoever for the Bible, he or she should be deeply ashamed.
The whole blood issue simply reflects what the society has been doing in destroying peoples lives over the years.
One minute its ok to use certain blood parts, then its not ok, one minute its ok to get body part transfusions then its not ok. Noah was told to be fruitful and fill the earth, then we as young witnesses were told to remain single if possible. College was discouraged in the 80's but then its ok to go to college in the 90's. What are witnesses that need dialysis treatments to do once thier blood leaves their body's? The Society's treatment of df'd ones has changed throughout the years as well. At one time it was ok for elders and family members to speak to df'd ones, then it was changed to family members cannot speak to df'd family members.
Mashugana!
The Bible is clear on Jehovah's thoughts on abstaining from blood.
All that is clear is your idea of the what those biblical writings mean SOJ - the way I hear it is very different.
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Also, concerning the 1st century apostles account - they said that it was good that some 'burdens' were required of those that they addressed - understand what a 'burden' even is SOJ.
Some examples are (literally) "don't eat horses" or "don't eat rabbits" and I suppose 'church' people loaded many others with such burdens. If there were only horses and rabbits about, I'm sure the temptation and burden of guilt would be heavier. A modern example is the wt blood rule (a literal application of a spiritual teaching, as it is applied to life and death situations this one weighs people down, the burden on parents can be overwhelming).
But for the 1st century apostles it was like saying, "Don't eat jelly because the fundamentalist society observes a literal rule about that and they're picky on that one, so it's good for you that you don't go stirring up trouble over such things".
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Do you really think that after hanging round with Jesus all that time, that the apostles just related things in extra-plain literal terms, and did not hear and speak in holy language ?
Is it for oxen that God is concerned?
The whole blood issue used at least to be a simple matter of principle. We said that blood was sacred, becaused God had thus decreed it to be so, therefore it was wrong to donate, store or give it by transfusion. It may have been wrong, but at least it was understandable.
Now the waters have been muddied so much with a list of acceptable fractions and non acceptable parts, the whole thing just is unworkable. If blood were sacred then they would not take from the blood bank, so what principle do they have??
BTW , Scully. You are right of course about the subject, but if in the old days I had received your question , I would have said that "Time indefinate ", may also be read as an indefinate time, geddit?.. therfore it could be changed at the dawn of the christian era
......... The appearance of the new variant of CJD (nv-CJD or v-CJD) in several younger than average people in Great Britain and France has led to concern that BSE may be transmitted to humans through consumption of contaminated beef. Although laboratory tests have shown a strong similarity between the prions causing BSE and v-CJD, there is no direct proof to support this theory. Furthermore, BSE has never been found in the United States, and importation of cattle and beef from countries with BSE has been banned in the United States since 1989 to reduce the risk that it will occur in this country. Many people are concerned that it may be possible to transmit CJD through blood and related blood products such as plasma. Some animal studies suggest that contaminated blood and related products may transmit the disease, although this has never been shown in humans. If there are infectious agents in these fluids, they are probably in very low concentrations. Scientists do not know how many abnormal prions a person must receive before he or she develops CJD, so they do not know whether these fluids are potentially infectious or not. They do know that, even though millions of people receive blood transfusions each year, there are no reported cases of someone contracting CJD from a transfusion. Even among people with hemophilia, who sometimes receive blood plasma concentrated from thousands of donors, there are no reported cases of CJD. While there is no evidence that blood from people with sporadic CJD is infectious, studies have found that infectious prions from BSE and vCJD may accumulate in the lymph nodes (which produce white blood cells), the spleen, and the tonsils. These findings suggest that blood transfusions from people with vCJD might transmit the disease. The possibility that blood from people with vCJD may be infectious has led to a policy preventing people in the United States from donating blood if they have resided for more than 3 months in a country or countries where BSE is common. ..............This was taken from the National Institute of Health. Also an orthropedic surgeon told me that there has been a few cases of people getting CJD from the ground up bones used in surgery to graft or glue into damaged bones; this is done freq'ly for hip surgeries and large bone breaks like the femur. In the late 70's I worked in a lab(before I became a nurse) and a pathologist in our group got CJD from doing an autopsy on someone who died and was undiagnosed before autopsy. The tissue samples(brain) he handled were "fixed" in formailn for sampling but apparently formalin and formaldehyde DO NOT KILL the prion. This is a very deadly organism. Good thing that it is not easily transmitted as far as can be determined.
