It was the year 1944 when Watchtower introduced its notion that to eat blood and/or accept transfusion of blood is sinful.[1]
Immediately the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses began voicing disapproval of the teaching against transfusion of blood.[2-5] This disapproval was based on several perspectives. Some objected to the teaching on the basis that eating and drinking blood was only a prohibition laid upon Jews and not Christians.[2] Others disapproved on the basis that transfusion and eating are not the same, and the biblical prohibition was only against eating blood.[4]
In response to these and other objections from the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and as underpinning for its blood doctrine, in 1950 the Watchtower organization asserted the following:
“If transfusion of human blood in the modern way was not practiced back there in Noah’s day or in Moses’ day, there was no need for God to expressly state a law against it; just the same as he included no law against smoking tobacco in his commandments to his typical people.”[6]
With those words Watchtower offered a reason to the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses as to why God did not express in more specific terms a prohibition to Noah against medicinal use of blood by transplantation and, instead, addressed only eating of blood. In short Watchtower proposed that God expressed a prohibition against eating blood and not other medicinal uses because there was no then contemporary reason to do so. Since there was no reason to address medicinal use of blood then there was no need to articulate a prohibition against such use of blood. This reasoning was offered to convince the community of Jehovah's Witnesses to embrace Watchtower’s blood teaching against transfusion of blood.
It turns out the reasoning given by Watchtower is flawed.
Watchtower's presentation of information
Blood is a biological tissue found in many creatures, including animals. Watchtower admits ancient humans used animal substances for medical purposes by pointing to extracts and germicidal agents produced by animal organs.[7-8] Watchtower teaches that using animals was ordained by God, including killing them to use their body parts for personal practical needs.[9] This is consistent with the secular historical record. For instance, various animal substances presented a rich resource for healing among the ancients, which in many cases has led to contemporary medicines.[10]
Frequently Watchtower has pointed to secular historical records of humans eating blood as a supposed medicinal cure.[11] But Watchtower has only rarely pointed to secular historical records of humans using blood by topical transplantation as a medicinal remedy, and these instances are usually connected with grossly immoral acts such as murder.[12] Aside from literally eating blood or murdering to get blood for medicinal use, Watchtower fails to give any serious attention to the extensive use of blood as a medicinal agent by ancient peoples.
Blood as Medicine by the Ancients
Ancient healers frequently transplanted blood topically as a cure or to relieve suffering. Wounds, shingles, blisters, ulcerated flesh, dog bites, snake bites, gout, sunburn and many other conditions were treated by topical applications of blood.[13-14] Though ancient peoples frequently incorporated medicinal use of blood into religious ritual, many of these medicinal uses had a legitimate value to relieve pain or facilitate healing, which is why the uses were widespread and not peculiar to specific religious faiths, geography or peoples.
Though medicinal application of blood was sometimes rendered with religious ceremony, this was not always the case. It turned out that blood offered a real medical value for certain conditions, which is the primary reason medicinal use of blood began, proliferated and remains to this day. Though ancient healers did not understand why these remedies worked they knew they worked often enough to provide value to patients, which also improved the healer’s status in the community.
Ancient biblical characters such as Noah had the same medicinal needs as everyone else alive at the time, and we have no reason to think he would have refrained from using blood medicinally so long as it did not violate the mandate to abstain from eating blood [of slaughtered animals].—(Genesis 9:1-4)
Knowledge
Well trained medical doctors are well aware that allogeneic blood applied topically to an open wound or sore introduces that blood to the patient’s own tissues, including the circulatory system. This is tissue transplantation.
Because medicinal uses of blood were widespread and, in ancient terms, efficacious then had God expected Noah to abstain from such use of blood there was a present need for Him to express this if abstention from such use was His intent. Yet the biblical record contains no such instruction to Noah to abstain from then known uses of blood as a medicine, with the sole exception of eating blood [of slaughtered animals].
Conclusion
Documented history shows Watchtower’s proposition is false that there was no need to address medicinal use of blood to His ancient worshippers, if that was His intent. Ancient peoples made much use of blood by its topical transplantation as medicinal remedy, and toward a wide array of conditions.
The use of blood for medicinal remedy remains with us to this day, only contemporary doctors understand much more about why blood can and does help certain conditions and how to better isolate products from blood for specific patient needs to increase safety and efficacy. If the presence (or lack thereof) of medicinal use of blood is an indicator of the meaning of the biblical mandate to abstain from eating blood as given to Noah (see: Gen. 9:4) then had God intended Noah to abstain from medicinal use of blood He had reason to so inform Noah. But the Noachian Decree of Genesis Chapter 9 contains no language addressing medicinal use of blood when the application did not involve literally eating blood.
Noah’s ancestors were taught by God that using animals to service practical human needs was entirely appropriate.[15] Administration of blood in ways that amounted to what, in contemporary terms, we know as tissue transplantation was a practical and prevalent use of blood by ancient peoples. Just like everyone else of his period and after, Noah had medicinal needs and he would have met those needs with means and methods available to him that did not conflict with God’s instruction that he abstain from eating blood [of slaughtered animals].
Marvin Shilmer
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References:
1. The Watchtower, December 1, 1944 p. 362
2. The Watchtower, July 1, 1945 p. 199.
3. “Your frank statement concerning blood transfusion is appreciated, and for it we are not taking any spiritual action against you or against anyone else, but must let the great Lawgiver be your Judge, as He is ours. Our published statements concerning this matter are something owing to those who look to us for spiritual guidance, and are not issued to cause division among Jehovah’s people. Repeatedly we are confronted with requests for information on blood transfusion, particularly for us to pronounce a sanction of this medical practice.”—(The Watchtower, May 1, 1950 p. 143.)
4. “Answering yours of the 14th instant re blood transfusion: The method of giving blood transfusions today may not follow the normal human procedure as when slaughterhouse men drink the warm blood of animals they have killed or as when people eat blutwurst or blood sausage with its congealed blood. But just because the manner of administering the blood is different is not proving that God’s law concerning blood does not cover or apply to transfusion of HUMAN blood. Whether by eating or drinking or transfusing blood, in all cases it is basically the transferring of blood from one organism human or animal to another organism, and this basic transfer of blood is what God’s Word condemns and forbids to his consecrated people. Just because a blood transfusion does not quench a person’s thirst or satisfy a person’s hunger is beside the point: the transfer of the blood remains an undeniable fact.”—(The Watchtower, March 1, 1950 pp. 79-80.)
5. For more resources addressing the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses voicing disapproval of Watchtower’s blood teaching see the article Blood — What Happened at Watchtower in 1945? available on this blog.
6. The Watchtower, May 15, 1950 p. 158-9; See also: The Watchtower, June 15, 1991 p. 9
7. Awake, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, June 22, 1976, p. 14
8. Awake, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, December 22, 1970, p. 24
9. Awake, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, July 8, 1972, pp. 7-8
10. MacKinney, Animal Substances in Materia Medica, Journal of the History of Medicine & Allied Sciences: January 1946, pp. 149-170
11. The Watchtower, April 15, 1985, p. 12
12. How Can Blood Save Your Life, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1990, pp. 6-7
13. Natural History, Books XXVIII-XXX, Remedies derived from living creatures, Pliny, Translated by Bostock and Riley, London, 1856, p. 275-470.
14. For more sources on ancient medicinal use of blood see the article Historical Medicinal Uses of Blood available on this blog.
15. “And Jehovah God proceeded to make long garments of skin for Adam and for his wife and to clothe them.”—(Genesis 3:21, NWT)
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