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The text of Genesis 1:26 and 28 and the Watchtower organization are uncooperative. One fights the other.
Rulership over animals
Genesis 1:26 and 28 evidences humankind was granted ruling authority over the animal kingdom. Watchtower agrees with this.[1-2]
◄ Human ruling authority of animals was permission for humans to use animals as slaves by forcing them to bear burdens and other demanding and toilsome work, and to pleasure him. Watchtower agrees with this.[3-5]
◄ Human ruling authority of animals was permission for humans to kill animals to service personal needs of their human masters. Watchtower agrees with this.[6-7]
◄ Human ruling authority of animals was permission for humans to peel the skin off animals and use it for themselves as clothing. Watchtower agrees with this.[8]
◄ Human ruling authority of animals was permission for humans to carve up carcasses of slaughtered beasts. Watchtower agrees with this.[8-10]
◄ Human ruling authority of animals was permission for humans to dissect slaughtered animals and tinker with the many tissues to learn how to use these parts for practical uses and for purpose of entertainment. Watchtower agrees with this.[11-14]
In each instance above the Watchtower organization asserts a humane approach to avoid infliction of wanton slaughter and suffering.[15] Yet ancient methods of killing necessarily resulted in countless instances of extreme suffering, and the same is true of ancient methods using animals as slaves to plow fields and bear heavy burdens (including their own masters!).
Man’s ruling authority of animals stood as permission to inflict this slavery and suffering, and all the post-slaughter butchery, tinkering and uses carcasses were submitted to. I know this sounds very harsh, and many readers will take great umbrage reading it. But that’s the biblical depiction, and Watchtower teaching agrees with it.
The rub
So where is the uncooperative struggle between the text of Genesis 1:26 and 28 and the Watchtower organization?
Watchtower teaching leverages these two texts to evidence that humans had permission to enslave, kill, skin, dismember, dissect, manipulate and otherwise experiment with animal organ tissue to service practical needs and pleasure, including the putting of animal tissue onto their own human tissue (for instance, as clothing). Yet the Watchtower organization does not recognize the same text grants permission to put any of this animal organ tissue into the mouth as food for humans, and therefore excludes the possibility of Genesis 1:26 and 28 extending permission for humans to eat animals as food.
What is Watchtower’s basis for asserting this exclusion? The organization depends solely on a correlation of Genesis 1:26-28 and Genesis 9:3.
Watchtower advances the idea that Genesis 1:26-28 offers no roundabout means to evidence humans had permission to eat animals as food because “First after the flood God specified in so many words that Noah and his family and their descendants could eat bloodless meat or flesh.”[16]
Wrongheaded reasoning
It’s true the text of Genesis 1 does not say “in so many words” that humans could eat animal meat, and it’s true the text of Genesis 9:3 says “in so many words” that humans could eat animal meat. So why is Watchtower’s reasoning wrongheaded?
First, the text of Genesis 1 does not say “in so many words” that animals could eat meat and it does say “in so many words” that animals could eat vegetation, yet natural creation demonstrates animals have been eating meat since before humans were on the scene, and Watchtower acknowledges this.[17-19] Hence neither the absence nor presence of “in so many words” removes the potential of Genesis 1 extending authority to eat animal meat.
Second, the text of Genesis 9:3 presents no bifurcation that antediluvian humans did not have authority to eat animal meat whereas postdiluvian’s did because there is an alternate explanation for why postdiluvians would have been told they could kill animals as food. What is the alternate explanation?
The biblical account expresses that in preparation to survive the flood and to repopulate earth with animal life, Noah was told not to kill animals but, rather, to preserve them alive.
“Of every clean beast you must take to yourself by sevens, the sire and its mate; and of every beast that is not clean just two, the sire and its mate; also of the flying creatures of the heavens by sevens, male and female, to preserve offspring alive on the surface of the entire earth.”—(Genesis 7:2-3, NWT)
The directive to preserve animals alive was expressed three times to Noah, at Genesis 6:19, 20 and 7:3, the purpose of which was not just to survive the flood but to “preserve offspring alive on the surface of the entire earth.”
Accordingly, from the time of this directive Noah was effectively prohibited from killing any animal to service his own needs as humans had always had permission to do. Yet after the flood God apparently wanted Noah to be able to kill animals as food. Hence a specific need existed that God would have to so inform Noah animal life was again placed in human hands to kill for human needs. Genesis 9:3 is that statement.
For these reasons the Watchtower organization’s sole basis is dismantled for claiming Genesis 1:26 and 28 granting ruling authority over the animal kingdom does not extend to using animals as food. In other words, the correlation of Genesis 1:26-28 and Genesis 9:3 that Watchtower teaching depends on is undermined by facts the organization acknowledges on one hand[17-19] and on the other hand by the explicit biblical statement of Genesis 6:19, 20 and 7:3.
Why the fight?
It’s well known the Watchtower organization asserts a teaching against blood transfusion. It’s also well known the organization has over the years been hard pressed by internal and external forces to defend this teaching.[20-21] Along the way so much of Watchtower’s defense has been dismantled that today it relies on a single premise that blood is sacred and accordingly the only approved use of blood is found in the biblical Mosaic Law where it was offered in sin atoning sacrifices.[22]
Of this premise that God holds sacred the substance known as blood, and writing of Genesis 9:3-4 the Watchtower asserts the premise saying:
“Why was this prohibition made? To impress strongly upon humans that life is sacred. Jehovah decreed that the blood of a creature symbolizes its life. Just as life is sacred to Jehovah, the blood of a creature, symbolizing its life, is sacred and must be respected. The only approved use of blood from an animal was on the altar under the Mosaic Law.”[23]
In support of its major premise the Watchtower organization appeals to a unique provision of Mosaic Law asserting it stands as “The only approved use of blood from an animal”. That assertion explains Watchtower’s decades old fight against Genesis 1:26 and 28.
If the text of Genesis 1:26 and 28 evidences human ruling authority of animals was permission for humans to use animals as food then it’s false to claim “the only approved use of blood from an animal was on the altar under the Mosaic Law.” This would be the case because nothing whatsoever about Genesis 1:26 and 28 suggests humans should make a distinction between using animal tissue based on blood or not-blood; hence authority to eat animals as food would have included blood of those animals.
Making matters more tenuous, the biblical depiction is that Jesus’ death abolished the Mosaic law, which means unique features of that Law places no burden on followers of Christ.[24] The organization goes further by specifying the later Apostolic Decree of Acts chapter 15 to ‘abstain from blood and things strangled’ is “not an imposing on Gentile Christians of a responsibility to conform to the Mosaic Law or some portion of it but, rather, there was a confirming of standards recognized prior to Moses” and in making this statement Watchtower cites Genesis 9:3-4 to be precise.[25]
The problem
Watchtower’s problem with Genesis 1:26 and 28 looks like this:
◄ If Genesis 1:26 and 28 authorizes humans to use animals as food then eating animal blood is an approved use of blood.
◄ If eating animal blood is an approved use of blood then it’s false that “The only approved use of blood from an animal was on the altar under the Mosaic Law”.
◄ If it’s false that “The only approved use of blood from an animal was on the altar under the Mosaic Law” then there is no evidence whatsoever outside the text of Genesis 9:3-4 suggesting blood should be treated as a sacred substance by Christians.
◄ If there is no evidence whatsoever outside the text of Genesis 9:3-4 suggesting blood should be treated as a sacred substance by Christians then we are left to find a requirement internal to Genesis 9:3-4 that Noah was to treat blood as a sacred substance.
◄ If we are left to find a requirement internal to Genesis 9:3-4 that Noah was to treat blood as a sacred substance and we don’t find it then the sole premise underpinning Watchtower’s blood doctrine is in ashes.
What does Genesis 9:3-4 require?
The text reads:
“Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for YOU. As in the case of green vegetation, I do give it all to YOU. Only flesh with its soul—its blood—YOU must not eat.”—(NWT, published by Watchtower)
Other than abstaining from eating blood of animals slaughtered as food, this text places no limitation on humans using blood no matter how unholy or secular is that use. In other words, the text of Genesis 9:3-4 does not require anyone to treat blood as a sacred substance.[26-27]
It ends up that Watchtower fights Genesis 1:26 and 28 because this text represents a formidable adversary assailing the organization’s blood doctrine. The Watchtower organization has made itself a fighter actually against God.—(Acts 5:39)
Marvin Shilmer
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References:
1. “When God created humans, he gave them authority over the animal kingdom.”—(The Watchtower, October 15, 2001, p. 4)
2. “God’s commissioning Adam to fill the earth, subdue it and rule over earth’s animal creation was also an expression of His love toward Adam and his offspring to come.”—(The Watchtower, January 15, 1976, p. 63)
3. “Man has dominion over the lower animals and, while he may not abuse that dominion, either by killing them for sport or causing them to suffer needlessly, it is for him to determine just how they can best serve him, dead or alive, with or without their reproductive powers.”—(The Watchtower, January 15, 1963, p. 63)
4. “God gave man dominion over the lower animals to serve man’s purposes, for joy of association, for beasts of burden, and for … clothing.”—(The Watchtower, November 15, 1953, p. 680)
5. “The righteous man has respect for all of God’s creation. He also knows that animals were created for man’s service and pleasure…”—(The Watchtower, November 1, 1976, p. 653)
6. “[Animals] will have to recognize that humankind is their master who has dominion over everything that moves upon the earth, just as was the case of Adam in the garden of Eden when he named all the animals without fear.”—(Worldwide Security Under the “Prince of Peace”, published by Watchtower, 1984, p. 175)
7. “God made it clear that animals could be properly used and killed by man. For instance, their skin could be used as garments.”—(The Watchtower, June 1, 2003, p. 31)
8. “Animal skins could also be used for clothing. This would not violate man’s God-given dominion over the animal kingdom.”—(Awake, published by Watchtower, July 8, 1990, p. 11)
9. “Does the fact that man has stewardship over the animals mean that he is forbidden to kill them at all? No. Remember, God himself prepared clothing from animal skins for the first human pair and accepted the sacrifice of a lamb from their son Abel.”—(Awake, published by Watchtower, May 22, 1983, p. 19)
10. “Abel sacrificed the lives of some of his sheep, firstlings, and poured their blood upon the ground and presented fatty pieces of them to God.”—(The Watchtower, February 15, 1959, p. 124)
11. “[Harp] strings may have been made from the small intestines of sheep…”—(Insight on the Scriptures Vol. 1, published by Watchtower, p. 1039)
12. “Now we come to the stringed instruments. They consisted of a body of wood with strings of gut and were played with the fingers or were struck with a plectrum of wood, ivory or metal. The harp was in general use.”—(The Watchtower, August 15, 1960, p. 490)
13. “[Jubal] proved to be the founder of all those who handle the harp and the pipe.”—(Genesis 4:21, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, published by Watchtower, 1984 revision)
14. Short of divine intervention it would have taken quite a bit of inventive curiosity, tinkering and experimentation for early humans to figure out that animal intestines could be used as strings for music making and how to consistently extract this organ, preserve and process it for this utility.
15. “Yet animals were for the service of man, never the other way around. God did not hesitate to use animal skins to clothe the first human pair. (Gen. 3:21) He was pleased with Abel’s offering of a sacrifice of a sheep. (Gen. 4:4) The apostle Peter, in fact, speaks of the unreasoning animals as “born naturally to be caught and destroyed.’’ (2 Pet. 2:12) This does not say that God’s only purpose in creating the animals was for them to be destroyed, nor does it justify wanton slaughter of animals, as in hunting for mere sport.”—(Awake, published by Watchtower, July 8, 1972, pp. 7-8)
16. “First after the flood God specified in so many words that Noah and his family and their descendants could eat bloodless meat or flesh. This indicates that God-fearing men like Abel, Enoch and Noah and his family had not lived on animal and bird flesh prior to the flood. What the ungodly men lived on till the flood we do not know. Abel, Enoch and Noah and his family did not reason in a roundabout manner and violate the Edenic dietary law that God stated to Adam and Eve in Eden, in Genesis 1:29, 30.”—(The Watchtower, December 15, 1961, p. 766)
17. The Watchtower organization teaches that animals are living souls that are not human, including very small life forms such as insects and even microscopic single cell organisms like the amoeba. (See notes 18-19)
18. “No description of one-celled animal life could afford to bypass the amoeba. We often hear of people becoming sick from drinking impure water containing amoebas. However, amoebas have their important role. Amoebas do not have a shell. They move about by a “flowing” action of their soft inner substance. They therefore constantly change shape. Whenever an amoeba encounters food—bacteria, decaying matter or protozoans it stretches out pseudopodia or false “feet” to surround the object and bring it into the amoeba’s body, where it is digested.”—(Awake, published by Watchtower, January 22, 1974 p. 11)
19. “[The cockroach] is essentially a scavenger, doing the work for which he was created: returning trash, garbage, and dead carcasses to the earth.”—(Awake, published by Watchtower, January 22, 1992 p. 22)
22. Though the organization has attempted other premises in support of its blood transfusion taboo, these have all been systematically and thoroughly refuted to a point where Watchtower says its pointless to engage them. An example of this is found in a Watchtower letter to an elder dated 2006, p. 3 saying, “to argue with medical personnel or others strictly on the technical aspect that taking a blood transfusion is not the same as eating blood by mouth would be pointless.”—(Full letter available at: To An Elder — 2006 Watchtower letter on blood)
23. Ibid, p. 1.
24. The Watchtower organization agrees with this and accordingly writes: “[W]hat is implied by arguing that the Mosaic Law is still in force? In effect, this constitutes a repudiation of faith in Jesus Christ. Why is that so? Because such a view rejects the fact that Jesus fulfilled the Law, thus paving the way for God to terminate it.”—(United in Worship of the Only True God, published by Watchtower, 1983, p. 148)
25. “When the issue involving application of the Mosaic Law to Gentile Christians was presented to the governing body in Jerusalem in the first century, their decision was in harmony with these facts. They recognized that Jehovah was not requiring Gentile believers to perform works in obedience to the Mosaic Law before holy spirit was poured out on them. The decision of that governing body did list as “necessary things” certain prohibitions that were in harmony with that Law, but these were based on the Bible record concerning events that predated the Law. So there was not an imposing on Gentile Christians of a responsibility to conform to the Mosaic Law or some portion of it but, rather, there was a confirming of standards recognized prior to Moses.—Acts 15:28, 29; compare Genesis 9:3, 4; 34:2-7; 35:2-5.”—(United in Worship of the Only True God, published by Watchtower, 1983, p. 149)
26. For historical biblical commentary addressing Genesis 1:26-30 and 9:3-4 see: Genesis and meat eating?
27. More resources addressing the subject of Watchtower’s blood doctrine, including scriptural analysis is available at: Watchtower's Blood Doctrine
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