What is our scriptural basis for refusing transfusion of products rendered from blood?

[JW Insider]

5 hours ago, Many Miles said:

But he was given permission to gather from every food eaten and to use it as food for himself and the animals. (Gen 6)

Good point. But if meat was not a food eaten by humans at this point, then it still isn't proof that Noah and his relatives ate meat. He might have, but we don't know for sure.

5 hours ago, Many Miles said:

Hence, the "NOW" you refer to could easily be God referring to the fact that NOW that you've done as I said and preserved these animals alive, NOW you can kill some for food BUT, for the very first time, humans were told not to eat the blood of slaughtered animals, and that to use their flesh as food they had to first kill the critter.

Another good point. As you say, it "could" mean this.

4 hours ago, Many Miles said:

What gave Abel permission to kill an animal in the first place?

Another good point. It is implied that he had permission based on God's positive reaction. Or, he may have assumed that he needed to follow Jehovah's recommended tailor-made clothing styles based his parents wardrobe. Pre-shed snake skins might not have cut it and perhaps he had already been through several sizes of animals for his own since childhood.

At any rate, I won't worry about all the details of these conjectures because I still fall back upon other reasons relevant to the use of blood products by true Christians. So I'll skip to your most recent post before this one.

[Many Miles]

27 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Quite probably the ideal (or even the idealized) diet for Adam and Eve did not include milk, but not because milk was forbidden. It is probably because the important diet for them was all provided within the Garden of Eden where there was no mention of livestock being cared for.

JWI, unless women evolved since Eve, then they've always had mammary glands that produced breast milk to nurture newborn humans. Please rethink your thought train on this.

30 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Not at all. But we don't know if Adam and Eve ever tried it, or if they were supposed to try [MILK]. As I said before, we don't even know for sure if meat was supposed to be forbidden to early humans prior to Noah. But I still think it was purposeful that meat and even milk were not specifically included in the ideal "garden-variety" diet provided to Adam and Eve.

There is a lot that was not said in the Genesis account that we find profound testimony to in Creation. Eve was a woman. Women give birth to babies. Babies are fed milk from their mother's breasts. And, how about water? The Genesis account doesn't mention that either.

34 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

...up to the point where we find a set of statements to Noah very similar to the original statements given to Adam and Eve about their purpose and their diet that changed in only one important way. Because this time it includes an express permission for meat that we didn't see before, along with the idea that there is something new in this version of the statements ("now" I give you meat), and something that would be recognized as having already been given in the earlier statements about diet (just as I [previously] permitted vegetation). The way it was expressed should therefore give us food for thought.

Yes. I've addressed this elsewhere in this discussion. In both instances there exists the same antecedents and consequents, and the implications are there for both. You'll get to it.

 

[Many Miles]

28 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Good point. But if meat was not a food eaten by humans at this point, then it still isn't proof that Noah and his relatives ate meat. He might have, but we don't know for sure.

We have the written word that in some cases tells us things in explicit/express terms. Based on these things we can then draw logical conclusions, and I underscore those conclusions must conform to known and accepted conventions of logical construction.

In this case, the text says in express terms that Noah had permission to gather from every food eaten and use that to feed himself and the animals. I'm not saying that. The biblical text says that. I'm not the one saying that animal flesh dead of natural cause has always been a food eaten. The created world around us testifies to this; it is essential to earth's ecosystem. Hence, if we accept the solid evidence before us, we can only conclude that, among other things, Noah had permission to gather animal flesh dead of natural cause as food for himself and the animals. Whether Noah opted to eat that particular food was up to him. But he had God's permission to do so.

28 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

5 hours ago, Many Miles said:

What gave Abel permission to kill an animal in the first place?

Another good point. It is implied that he had permission based on God's positive reaction. Or, he may have assumed that he needed to follow Jehovah's recommended tailor-made clothing styles based his parents wardrobe. Pre-shed snake skins might not have cut it and perhaps he had already been through several sizes of animals for his own since childhood.

Tsk-tsk! That's a logical leap!

We don't know that the skins God provided to Adam and Eve were from animals God killed for their skin. It could have been from animals already dead of natural cause, which did not need killing. The text does not say which.

Also, Abel would not have known permission based on a consequent that was yet to occur (God's approval). Abel needed something already known to him. According to biblical text, Abel should have known that humans had dominion over animals, and from this understood he could take animals and use them according to his needs/wants. Abel was compelled to offer a sacrifice to God, so his sacrifice was to kill an animal and offer God its choicest pieces.

Humans being given domination of animals was the permission to kill animal for human needs.

[Pudgy]

Intent is simple enough to test.

Try feeding puppies only vegetation, and see how that works out.…. all else is playing with words.

[JW Insider]

34 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

For starters, the notion that the Christian biblical decree to "abstain from blood" is a resurrection of provisions of Mosaic Law is a nonstarter. The intra-Acts account of Cornelius demonstrates this. For a moment, we can set aside potentially conflicting teachings Paul wrote by just focusing on the same (and sole!) biblical text containing the decree to "abstain from blood", and we need look no further than the account of Cornelius at Acts 10. This man was gentile. He was not worshiping God according to Mosaic Law. According to the vision Peter beheld, Cornelius was doing things that would make a proper Jew puke! Yet his worship was acceptable to God. The text says in relation to Cornelius, "in every nation the man that fears [God] and works righteousness is acceptable to [God]."

I am not trying to say it was a resurrection of Mosaic Law provisions, only that it was decided through a conference of and entire congregation of Jewish Mosaic-Law-abiding Christians. Therefore it was part of a context that would make sense to a "Mosaic" congregation and could be approved by a "Mosaic" congregation. I don't deny that the motivation for creating a set of "Rules for Gentile Christians" was the same motivation for Rabbinical Noahide Laws. But there is some good evidence that James (maybe also Peter and the entire congregation) agreed that this particular set of Noahide Laws should find a precedent in the ONLY section of the Mosaic Law that addressed rules for Gentiles. As I said before, they just happened to closely match the four rules of that section of Mosaic Law, and just happened to be listed in the same order as that section of Mosaic Law.

This might even be implied in the very statement in Acts if we read the next sentence after the decree:

(Acts 15:19-21) . . .Therefore, my decision is not to trouble those from the nations who are turning to God, ²⁰  but to write them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from what is strangled, and from blood. ²¹  For from ancient times Moses has had those who preach him in city after city, because he is read aloud in the synagogues on every sabbath.”
 

Also, notice that Paul was accused of apostasizing from Moses well after being asked to accept the Acts 15 decree.  

(Acts 21:18-21) . . .But on the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. ... but they said to him: “You see, brother, how many thousands of [Christian] believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the Law. ²¹ But they have heard it rumored about you that you have been teaching all the Jews among the nations an apostasy from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or to follow the customary practices. 
 

Granted, this isn't the exact same as the problem of Acts 15, but we can easily see where the rumors likely had come from (Galatians).

[Many Miles]

14 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

Try feeding puppies only vegetation, and see how that works out.…

I realize your comment is sarcasm, but it's ironic that you make this particular comment within this discussion. It was precisely by IV administration of washed red cells (what we'd call packed red cells today) to litter mate puppies that it was demonstrated once and for all that, despite being rich in protein, transfusion of red cells offers no nutritional support whatsoever. This has to do with human pathology and how it makes use of circulating blood. Even under extreme starvation our bodies will not catabolize its own red cells for sake of nutrition.

[Pudgy]

I think a much BIGGER question needs to be asked.

If Cornelius was a worshipper of Jehovah God, and his worship was acceptable to God, as stated specifically that it was …and he was a Roman Soldier …. what does that say about “… render unto Caesar …”.?

To me, the conclusion is inescapable and profound, and logical … but even so, I am afraid to even utter the words.

[Many Miles]

15 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

But there is some good evidence that James (maybe also Peter and the entire congregation) agreed that this particular set of Noahide Laws should find a precedent in the ONLY section of the Mosaic Law that addressed rules for Gentiles.

An apple is fruit, but not all fruit is apples.

Mosaic Law upheld Noahide Law, but the Noahide Law was not an equivalent to Mosaic Law.

Hence it is unremarkable that the two have some parallel.

[Pudgy]

I used to have a Naugahide sofa, made from a very rare Nauga with attached buttons.

[JW Insider]

47 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

Based on the biblical record we have, looking through God's eyes, Cornelius would have been bound to extra-Mosaic Law standards, which would have included everything of the Genesis account but not much afterward. Hence, in relation to blood, how would Cornelius have demonstrated "fear" of God and evidenced works of "righteousness"? He would have had to show respect for life by abstaining from unjustified homicide, which might have been tough as a soldier. Out of godly "fear" he also would have respected life by taking care not to eat an animal without killing it first, and when he killed it for food he would have refrained from eating it's blood. THAT is how he would have demonstrated "fear" of God and evidenced works of "righteousness" in respect to 'abstaining from blood'. That was it.

In the past, even on this forum, I have argued the necessity of the Noahide Laws (the Acts 15 version at least partially motivated by them) for Jehovah's acceptance of Gentiles. Not that it was counted as righteousness, but "acceptableness" at least.  But we don't know that Cornelius actually feared God through a knowledge of those Noahide Laws, specifically, the law about blood, strangulation, or even the law about not eating a portion of his nutrition derived from a living animal.  It's quite possible. And that idea that Cornelius may have been a proselyte actually comes from a similar idea that Jews (and therefore early Christians) would call someone a "God-fearer" only when they had already shown a desire to follow the true God. It could be a step below a proselyte. The Watchtower publications are clear that Cornelius was not a proselyte although acknowledging that some commentators have made that claim. 

But Cornelius may have been considered a God-fearer for other reasons, unrelated to any knowledge of or practice of Noahide-style requirements. For example, there is the reference to natural law in Romans 1:

(Romans 1:19, 20) . . .because what may be known about God is clearly evident among them, for God made it clear to them. ²⁰  For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, . . .

(Acts 17:22-28) . . .“Men of Athens, I see that in all things you seem to be more given to the fear of the deities than others are. ²³ For instance, while passing along and carefully observing your objects of veneration, I found even an altar on which had been inscribed ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you are unknowingly worshipping, this I am declaring to you. ²⁴  The God who made the world and all the things in it, being, as he is, Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade temples; ²⁵ nor is he served by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. ²⁶ And he made out of one man every nation of men to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he decreed the appointed times and the set limits of where men would dwell, ²⁷ so that they would seek God, if they might grope for him and really find him, although, in fact, he is not far off from each one of us. ²⁸  For by him we have life and move and exist, even as some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his children.’
 

 

[Many Miles]

21 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Also, notice that Paul was accused of apostasizing from Moses well after being asked to accept the Acts 15 decree.

Indisputably there was internal struggles related to growing the Christian church. Worshipers were being welcomed into the fold that, from the Jewish Christians' paradigm, were disgusting. (Think Cornelius) I don't know if the vision Peter had was real or if he just invented it. But the biblical account says it was real, so I run with that. But, could be Peter just didn't want to get the push-back he saw Paul getting, so he conveniently had a vision that set everything straight insofar as how he saw fit to address expansion of the church among gentiles. And, who was going to question Peter's word?

[Pudgy]

25 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

I think a much BIGGER question needs to be asked.

If Cornelius was a worshipper of Jehovah God, and his worship was acceptable to God, as stated specifically that it was …and he was a Roman Soldier …. what does that say about “… render unto Caesar …”.?

To me, the conclusion is inescapable and profound, and logical … but even so, I am afraid to even utter the words.

Perhaps this is why NOWHERE in the Bible is warfare by any side against any people for any reason considered … by God … to be murder.…

... if it was how could there ever be peace?