Watchtower’s Deception — Transplantation of Blood

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Watchtower publishes a great deal about blood in an effort to persuade the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses that its blood doctrine is biblically valid. One persuasion employed is to leverage the historical record of ancient peoples eating blood as a medicinal remedy.[1-2]

As the story would have readers believe, since eating blood is wrong, and since ancient practices of eating blood for medicinal value was something ancient worshippers of God understood as wrong, then medicinal use of blood was considered wrong whether in ancient or contemporary society.

That sort of presentation represents a fallacy known as converse accident and for that reason is unsound. But that aside, the presentation completely ignores a piece of damning information.

What Watchtower does not talk about

This treatment of the subject by Watchtower avoids the many ancient remedies transplanting blood as a medicinal agent, which is where Watchtower’s deception enters.[3]

If true that eating blood is the prohibition then using blood other than eating it would not be contrary to the prohibition.

If, as Watchtower’s presentation assumes, ancient worshippers of God were aware of ancient medicinal remedies then they would have been as aware of those involving transplantation of blood as those involving eating of blood.

Blood transplantation was something all ancients were familiar with. It was unavoidable for anyone slaughtering an animal. This transplantation occurred in the form of blood pouring and running all over their flesh, including any wounds of their flesh. One thing ancients would have recognized readily is the soothing effect of fresh blood on wounds such as burns and blisters. It is absurd to think anyone back then would have considered this transplantation as an act of eating blood; hence they would have seen nothing wrong with it as though conflicting with a decree against eating blood.

Therefore, and contrary to what Watchtower writes above, since transplantation of blood was practiced by the ancients, and because ancient worshippers would have known this, then a need did exist for God to issue a decree against such use of blood if that was His will. Yet we find no such decree in the biblical holy script.

Watchtower’s ploy in this instance is to bank on a readership being ignorant of the very broad medical use of blood in ways other than eating it, and specifically by transplantation.

The clincher?[4-5]

Hence the title

Watchtower’s Deception — Transplantation of Blood

Can be re-expressed to read:

Watchtower’s Deception — Transfusion of Blood

Marvin Shilmer
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References

1. The Watchtower, May 15, 1950 p. 158-9

2. The Watchtower, June 15, 1991 pp. 9-10

3. Historical Medicinal Uses of Blood

4. Awake!, published by Watchtower, August 8, 1978, p. 15.

5. For more on this subject see the article Ancient Blood Transplantation, and Noah

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