JWs: Where does the bible say you can't have blood transfusions?

Question

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, I just honestly can't find it and I've flipped through the bible twice now looking for it.

Silver-yeah that's the only passage I found, and you're right, it says you can't eat or drink blood.

So that's the passage they're using huh? well, ok then...

justintime: i asked for a bible passage. i never knew all that was in the bible. wow.

jeff b: actually, my previous question was about the alternatives to blood transfusions. i never once mentioned the bible in my previous question. but many of the responses i got to that question made reference to the bible so i was curious as to where the passage was.

Answer 1

Sometimes like the pompous Pharisees some Christians like to add man-made laws to the Law of the Gospel that Christ preached. Christ healed the withered hand of a man on the Sabbath day. The pharisees made a law that was so strict that it was a sin to do so. "Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?" (Luke 6:9). Blood transfusions save lives. Do you know how many JW kids died prematurely because their parents refused to allow them to have blood transfusions? That's insane!

"..."Each time the prohibition of blood is mentioned in the Scriptures it is in connection with taking it as food, and so it is as a nutrient that we are concerned with in its being forbidden. (The Watchtower 9/15/58, p. 575)

Their interpretation that a transfusion is eating which is scientifically wrong. Their is No nutritional benefit from a blood transfusion.No doctor prescribes blood transfusions to treat malnutrition. When you eat anything it is taken into the stomach where it is digested and then is passed through the intestines into the blood vessels where the blood then carries it to the body for nourishment. This is entering the digestive system.

In a transfusion the blood that is transfused travels through the blood stream goes to the intestines where it picks up the digested food passed through the intestines and carrying that food throughout the rest of the body. This is the circulatory system. The transfused blood is not food itself but the carrier of food. The food is broken down into its component parts whereas the blood remains whole. A clear difference, that even those who are not familiar with medical jargon can understand.

Answer 2

before the flood the bible tells us, people only ate fruits and vegetables. God instituted an ew arrangement from Noah coming out of the ark nut told him you must not eat the blood. All flesh may serve as fod for you , you must not eat teh blood, basically.
That's because the soul is the blood. Any man taking another man's soul , from his own hand god would ask it back from him, because every soul belongs to god the hebrew scriptures say.
The principle of ingesting blood would definitely apply the to taking blood intraveinously,. Any transfusion cannot give us permanet relief from death. We will still die. better to remain loyal to god's commnads and benefit from a blessing of the prospect of never ending perfect life than to upset him by deliberately taking in blood, even if to prolong our life.

Answer 3

Since this has already been answered by a brother, I offer you these!
We are learning. If nothing else could convince you, what about Aids?

I wouldn't use a Doctor who needs blood to cover his mistakes.
Now part of an article:

An Inviting Option

“A growing number of hospitals are offering an alternative: ‘bloodless’ surgery,” reported The Wall Street Journal. “Originally developed to accommodate Jehovah’s Witnesses,” states the journal, “the practice has gone mainstream, with many hospitals promoting their bloodless-surgery programs to the general public.” Hospitals around the world are discovering numerous benefits, particularly to patients, when implementing strategies that curtail the use of blood transfusions. Currently, thousands of doctors are treating patients without resorting to transfusions.

Answer 4

Leviticus 17 verse 14, Genesis 9 verse 4 and Acts 15 verse 20. many people who took of blood, even families have died taken of blood. even if I was not a Jehovah Witness, I would never take of blood. I trust Jehovah God and Jesus Christ with my whole heart and leave my life with them. my late husband who was a Jehovah Witnesses, was in the hospital high on morphin and I did not know, they gave him blood. three weeks later he was gone. I blame the hospital and the blood that they gave him. blood transfusions they can test all they want and I would never take of it.

Answer 5

Ok well that is the passage and we take the eating and drinking to mean ingesting. We simply choose alternative medicine there is nothing wrong with that.

Answer 6

I have not seen anything in the Bible that pertains to "no blood transfusions". I believe if that were the case, we would all have different blood types. Does this ring a bell; "Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" Matt 26:27-28

Answer 7

No where in the Bible will you find the mention of transfusions.
there were no transfusions back then. However there are several referring to the eating of blood. See quoted scriptures at the bottom of post.

Does the Bible’s prohibition include human blood?

Yes, and early Christians understood it that way. Acts 15:29 says to “keep abstaining from . . . blood.” It does not say merely to abstain from animal blood. (Compare Leviticus 17:10, which prohibited eating “any sort of blood.”) Tertullian (who wrote in defense of the beliefs of early Christians) stated: “The interdict upon ‘blood’ we shall understand to be (an interdict) much more upon human blood.”—The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV, p. 86.

Is a transfusion really the same as eating blood?

In a hospital, when a patient cannot eat through his mouth, he is fed intravenously. Now, would a person who never put blood into his mouth but who accepted blood by transfusion really be obeying the command to “keep abstaining from . . . blood”? (Acts 15:29) To use a comparison, consider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?

How did those who claimed to be Christians in early centuries C.E. understand the Bible’s commands regarding blood?

Tertullian (c. 160-230 C.E.): “Let your unnatural ways blush before the Christians. We do not even have the blood of animals at our meals, for these consist of ordinary food. . . . At the trials of Christians you [pagan Romans] offer them sausages filled with blood. You are convinced, of course, that the very thing with which you try to make them deviate from the right way is unlawful for them. How is it that, when you are confident that they will shudder at the blood of an animal, you believe they will pant eagerly after human blood?”—Tertullian, Apologetical Works, and Minucius Felix, Octavius (New York, 1950), translated by Emily Daly, p. 33.

Minucius Felix (third century C.E.): “So much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food.”—The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, Mich.; 1956), edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, Vol. IV, p. 192.

Acts 15:28, 29: “The holy spirit and we ourselves [the governing body of the Christian congregation] have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled [or, killed without draining their blood] and from fornication. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper. Good health to you!” (There the eating of blood is equated with idolatry and fornication, things that we should not want to engage in.)

(Leviticus 3:17) “‘It is a statute to time indefinite for YOUR generations, in all YOUR dwelling places: YOU must not eat any fat or any blood at all.’”

(Leviticus 7:26) “‘And YOU must not eat any blood in any places where YOU dwell, whether that of fowl or that of beast.

(Leviticus 17:13) “‘As for any man of the sons of Israel or some alien resident who is residing as an alien in YOUR midst who in hunting catches a wild beast or a fowl that may be eaten, he must in that case pour its blood out and cover it with dust.

(Deuteronomy 12:16) Only the blood YOU must not eat. On the earth you should pour it out as water.


(Deuteronomy 12:23) Simply be firmly resolved not to eat the blood, because the blood is the soul and you must not eat the soul with the flesh.

(Acts 15:20) but to write them to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.

(Acts 21:25) As for the believers from among the nations, we have sent out, rendering our decision that they should keep themselves from what is sacrificed to idols as well as from blood and what is strangled and from fornication.”

Answer 8

Figure..the JW views on blood transfusion are against Gods teaching.They are just pure wrong.

Our Lord Himself asked"was it right to do right or right to do wrong"
David went behind the curtain and stole the bread from the Holy of Holyies so he could feed his soldiers,Jesus gave him a by .

Answer 9

Nowhere, you wont find it anywhere in the Bible, not even in the Bible they designed according to their own beliefs. The problem is that the Watchtower Society insists that "to consume" blood is the same as "to transfuse" blood.

Answer 10

Acts 15:20
" . . .write them to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood."
True, transfusions are not directly mentioned.
However, abstaining from blood covers it, no?