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And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said
unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be
upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of
the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon
all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they
delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat
for you; even as the green herb have I given you all
things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the
blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
(Genesis 9:1-4 KJV)
But that we write unto them, that they abstain from
pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from
things strangled, and from blood.
For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay
upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;
That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from
blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication:
from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare
ye well.
As touching the Gentiles which believe,
we have written and concluded that they observe no such
thing, save only that they keep themselves from things
offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled,
and from fornication.
(Acts:15:20,28-29; 21:25 KJV)
The receiver of a blood transfusion must be cut off from
God’s people by excommunication or disfellowshiping.
(Watchtower, Jan. 15, 1961, pg. 64)
Avoid bloodguilt from (1) eating blood [blood
transfusions], (2) sharing in bloodguilty
organizations...
(Watchtower, June 15, 1978, p. 25)
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The Watchtower Society agrees with most Christian
denominations that the "Law of Moses" passed away.
However, they contend that the covenant made with Noah
was "everlasting" and affected all races of the human
family (since all are descendants of Noah). This idea
appears to be backed up by the injunctions set forth in
the book of Acts: the Gentile Christians were to abstain
from blood.
The Society maintains that this "everlasting covenant"
covers blood transfusions, because, they contend, having
a blood transfusion is equivalent to eating blood. In
support of this, the Society often cites the example of
intravenous feeding: when a patient is too ill to eat,
the patient is fed intravenously. Hence, receiving a
substance into one's body intravenously is the same as
eating that substance.
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