Is eating blood a sin?

[chosen_people]

Personally, I tend to subscribe to the theory that most of these Mosaic laws (including prohibition of blood, avoid touching corpses, circumcision, no pork or shell fish, etc.) were intended to prevent disease. There was no such thing as adequate health care back then, so the best thing they could do was avoid things that were known to cause disease or infection. There was also no such thing as FDA or USDA inspectors back then to inspect food and stuff. So, just like today governments require vaccinations, back then they required everyone to avoid such possible contaminants. It’s ancient preventive medicine. But, it could also be that they intended to distinguish themselves from the pagans. It could be more than one reason for it.

The main reason for the commandments and their adherence is that they are God’s commandments. That being said they are indeed a myriad of reasons that may be raised to explain the reasoning behind these commandments. For instance, it was a practice to milk a mother goat and then cook the kid of the mother in the mother’s milk. This was considered by the Jews to be repugnant. From here the commandment that it is forbidden to cook a kid in its mother’s milk. This one commandment led to the whole development of the various kashrut laws preventing eating milk and milk together. Modern medical studies find that Jewish circumcision prevents over fifty per cent of AIDS in heterosexual contact as well as certain other STD’s and even certain cancers. Certainly none of these things could have been known thousands of years ago. The participation of man in his own completion through the act of circumcision is another explanation.

 

[Geremia]

If these early followers of Christ actually believed that they were drinking the blood of Christ during the communion meal

They should have believed it even if they just received Him under one species, for:

By reason of the hypostatic union and of the indivisibility of His glorified humanity, Christ is really present and is received whole and entire, body and blood, soul and Divinity, under either species alone; nor, as regards the fruits of the sacrament, is the communicant under one kind deprived of any grace necessary for salvation (Trent, Sess. XXI, c., iii)

 

[TLM08]

They should have believed it even if they just received Him under one species, for:

The Council of Trent’s position is not only unscriptural it is disobedient to the Word of God. Acts15:20 says we are *not *to drink blood!

 

[Roman_Army]

Sacred Scripture has two main levels of meaning:

1. literal/figurative sense
2. spiritual sense
   So the many passages on the ceremonial precepts have two levels of meaning.
   On the literal level of meaning, they provided the Jews with exterior acts to make it easier to worship God. On the spiritual level of meaning, they prefigured Christ. This is perhaps clearest in the precepts about sacrifices.

Saint Thomas Aquinas: “I answer that, As is clear from what has been said (101, 2; 102, 2), the legal ceremonies were ordained for a double purpose; the worship of God, and the foreshadowing of Christ. Now whoever worships God must needs worship Him by means of certain fixed things pertaining to external worship. But the fixing of the divine worship belongs to the ceremonies; just as the determining of our relations with our neighbor is a matter determined by the judicial precepts….”

Saint Thomas Aquinas: “The Old Law is said to be ‘forever’ simply and absolutely, as regards its moral precepts; but as regards the ceremonial precepts it lasts forever in respect of the reality which those ceremonies foreshadowed.”

The various rules, such as dietary rules, ritual purity and impurity pertaining to sexuality, circumcision, etc. were a useful means for the Jews to consider the will of God in every area of life, every day, even if they were considering only disciplines, so that they could more readily also consider the will of God in matters of morals. The Jews had to consider every day what the will of God was in Scripture in order to fulfill this OT discipline, and this habit made it easier to also consider the will of God in Scripture on matters of faith and morals.

Okay, I understand what you mean. It’s similar to the various ascetical practices of the Church. Through fasting, abstinence from meat, celibacy, hair shirts, sackcloth, etc. one disciplines the flesh and is better disposed to discern and follow the will of God in faith and morals. Also, they had to refer to the Scriptures frequently which included the moral laws and faith teachings. It also makes sense in that some of the dietary laws were intended to remember an event in Salvation History (e.g. how avoiding eating the meat on the hip of the animal recalls Jacob wrestling with an Angel and getting injured in the hip in the book of Genesis, etc.). In regards to the ceremonial laws, I agree they served to foreshadow Christ and his New Covenant in the Church.

Thank you for clarifying.

 

[Geremia]

The Council of Trent’s position is not only unscriptural it is disobedient to the Word of God. Acts15:20 says we are *not *to drink blood!

How do you explain John 6:56ff.? Acts 15:20 condemns idolatry, which Communion with Christ definitely is not. Read more here.

 

[TLM08]

How do you explain John 6:56ff.? Acts 15:20 condemns idolatry, which Communion with Christ definitely is not. Read more here.

As I have explained in other threads, In John 6, Jesus was rebuking those in the crowd of followers who were only seeking Jesus for a free meal. The bread of life discourse immediately follows the feeding of the five-thousand. The unbelievers in the crowd were physically hungry and only had their minds on one thing… their stomachs.

Jesus was telling them not to work for food that perishes but to work for food that endures for eternal life. I am the bread of life… “Eat ME” or “EAT MY WORDS” not these scraps of bread and fish you saw me give the other day…

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us! Jesus is the “Word”

Go back and read John 6… It’s still a hard teaching, but becomes pretty clear to see when read in context.

Although the drinking of Christ’s blood is central to the salvation of catholics, Acts 15:20 not only makes no exception or provision for such a practice… It actually forbids. It says christians are not to drink blood.

 

[Mintaka]

The rules also say that Christian women are not to speak in church – but nobody ever thought this applied to speaking in a non-authoritative way. You don’t find anybody fining any woman or punishing any woman for saying Hi to her neighbor in church, or tripping and letting out a yell; or even to talking in church when there wasn’t actually any Mass or service going on. Everybody knew what sense to take it in.

Everybody knew that when they said Christian women were to keep their head covered, it didn’t mean “at home” or “in bed when you’re sleeping”. Again, everybody knew what sense to take it in.

So when they told people not to eat blood, Christians knew that what was meant was “don’t do that pagan bloodeating stuff, and just to make sure everybody knows it, don’t eat blood just as food either.” They knew what sense “blood” was meant in, and it meant “animal blood”, not “the Eucharist”; just as Jesus’ command to “take, kill and eat” meant “animals”, not “your annoying neighbor JoeBobius”.

But then, this is exactly why a lot of early Christians were suspicious of the newfangled idea of writing down the Gospel and the scriptures. You were supposed to learn all this stuff from a person, not from a book that you couldn’t ask questions and which didn’t include all the explanations and understandings that a Christian teacher would have. “The letter kills, but the breath gives life.”

 

[Geremia]

John 6

Read this from here:

Ver. 55. Jesus Christ, to confirm the notion his disciples had formed of a real eating of his body, and to remove all metaphorical interpretation of his words, immediately adds, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. … For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed;” which could not be so, if, as sectarists pretend, what he gives us in the blessed sacrament is nothing but a bit of bread; and if a figure, certainly not so striking as the manna.

 

[TLM08]

Read this from here:

***“For my flesh is meat indeed,” (John 6:56)

“…he said to them: I have meat* to eat, which you know not. The disciples therefore said one to another: Hath any man brought him to eat? Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work.” (John 4:32-34)**

“Eating” this meat or flesh means to do the will of God, not ingest his physical flesh. What Jesus meant in John 6 was unless you do the will of God and believe in Him you have no life in you. Whenever Jesus commanded something that would be against the law (like eating human flesh or drinking blood) he was obviously speaking figuratively.

They said therefore unto him: What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered, and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent. (John 6:28-29)

 

[peregrinus_sg]

***“For my flesh is meat indeed,” (John 6:56)

“…he said to them: I have meat*** to eat, which you know not. The disciples therefore said one to another: Hath any man brought him to eat? Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work.” (John 4:32-34)

“Eating” this meat or flesh means to do the will of God, not ingest his physical flesh. What Jesus meant in John 6 was unless you do the will of God and believe in Him you have no life in you. Whenever Jesus commanded something that would be against the law (like eating human flesh or drinking blood) he was obviously speaking figuratively.

They said therefore unto him: What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered, and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent. (John 6:28-29)

This is a classic way in which fundamentalist “link” the words of Scripture together, when there are no connections between the two except in his imagination.

Look at the context of John 6 carefully. The Jews wanted unending supply of earthly bread to fill their stomachs. Jesus told them that to seek the food that leads to eternal life: do the right kind of work that would pay wages in terms of this true food. He then tells them that this work is to believe in him. Those who believe in him will therefore receive the true food: his flesh and his blood, to eat and to drink. If to eat his flesh only means to believe in him, Jesus’ argument would become something like “do the right work (i.e. believe in me) and you’ll be paid the right food (i.e. believe in me)” I don’t think anyone will buy the argument then. I’m sure there are many other positive explanations floating around the forum on why a Eucharistic interpretation of John 6 is the correct one, but I just wanted to address the point you raised.

As for Acts prohibition on drinking blood, the context shows clearly that all the 4 commands there are not about doing what is right in the eyes of God (Acts describes these 4 prohibitions as “essentials” - do these and these alone and you’ll be all right. Surely a fundamentalist must realise the contradiction with what Jesus says elsewhere about love of God and of neighbour being the greatest commandment?). They are only about the 4 things needed for Jewish Christians to mingle comfortably with Gentile Christians.

What would we do without God’s Church? We’d be blown hither and thither by every wind of human doctrine and subject to the silliness that man’s minds can dream up with.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Well, what I meant was that I do not understand how the specific dietary laws, hygiene, and types of clothing had to do with anything spiritual. I do see how the liturgical rites and sacrifices of the OT, the moral laws, and the various punishments for sins could help the Jews spiritually in seeing an absolute right and wrong as well as how to atone for it. But, I fail to see how the dietary rules, hygienic rules, and specific dress code have anything to do with spirituality or distinguishing right from wrong. I also do not see how the consumption of animal blood causes conflict with one’s belief in the Eucharist. And no, I have not read that part of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, maybe I’ll check it out. I do find it a bit difficult to understand Aquinas at times given that I have no Philosophical background and have never studied Greek Philosophy, he uses a lot of that. Plus, the New Advent website’s translation is old and a bit archaic, makes it a bit harder.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Being clean was and is very important both physically and spirtually.

 

[geometer]

There’s no such thing as sin in my opinion but that’s besides the point. Why would eating blood be a sin? Catholics believe that they drink the blood of Jesus when they receive from the chalice at Mass so why would it be a sin?

Drinking human blood brings on a life threatening diease which is called withering. It is a disease that occurs commonly among canibals.

Jesus thought of himself as the Pilsbury doughboy, with kosher wine flowing through his veins.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Drinking human blood brings on a life threatening diease which is called withering. It is a disease that occurs commonly among canibals.

Jesus thought of himself as the Pilsbury doughboy, with kosher wine flowing through his veins.

There are tribes in Africa who eat blood and they are very healthy. (Not human blood, cattle blood.)

"The Masai of Tankanika, Chewya of Kenya, Muhima of Uganda, Watusi of Ruanda and the Neurs tribes on the western side of the Nile in the Sudan were all cattle-keeping people. Their diets consisted largely of milk, blood and meat, supplemented in some cases with fish and with small amounts of grains, fruits and vegetables. Rich in animal fats, these diets provided large amounts of the fat-soluble vitamins Price discovered to be so necessary for proper development of the physical body and freedom from disease. The Neurs especially valued the livers of animals, considered so sacred "that it may not be touched by human hands. . . It is eaten both raw and cooked."2

These tribes were noted for their fine physiques and great height-in some groups the women averaged over 6 feet tall, and many men reached almost seven feet. Examinations of their teeth revealed very few caries, usually less than 0.5%. Nowhere in his travels had Price yet found groups that had no cavities at all, yet among the cattle-herding tribes of Africa, Dr. Price found six tribes that were completely free of dental decay. Furthermore, all members of these tribes exhibited straight, uncrowded teeth."

from: westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/out_of_africa.html

 

[nuntym]

***“For my flesh is meat indeed,” (John 6:56)

“…he said to them: I have meat*** to eat, which you know not. The disciples therefore said one to another: Hath any man brought him to eat? Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work.” (John 4:32-34)

“Eating” this meat or flesh means to do the will of God, not ingest his physical flesh. What Jesus meant in John 6 was unless you do the will of God and believe in Him you have no life in you. Whenever Jesus commanded something that would be against the law (like eating human flesh or drinking blood) he was obviously speaking figuratively.

They said therefore unto him: What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered, and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent. (John 6:28-29)

Hmm, at the end of John chapter 6, it is stated:

Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”
He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.
John 6:70-71

Where will Judas be again associated with a devil/Satan in St. John’s Gospel?

 

[TLM08]

Hmm, at the end of John chapter 6, it is stated:

Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”
He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.
John 6:70-71

Where will Judas be again associated with a devil/Satan in St. John’s Gospel?

That doesn’t link the Bread of Life discourse with the last supper. They are two completely different events in the ministry of Jesus. Furthermore, nowhere in the New Testament do we see the apostles offering the “Mass” or performing any act that looks like the “miracle” of transubstantiation.

 

[diksuchi]

If I may be allowed to throw in my $.02, this is a question which I’ve looked at before and not received satisfactory answers from catholic apologists.
I understand this command in Acts 15 to be binding even today on christians for the following reasons:

• it was issued by the first council of Jerusalem (if Vatican 2’s teachings are to be accepted, how much more this one, plus it’s also found in scripture)
• it cannot be easily spiritualised and explained away like how you might a command from Leviticus (eg. prohibition on wearing two different types of material in the same garment) by virtue of it being in the NT. Also, this is part of the list of commands given specifically to new believers who “are not to be burdened” with the Old Covenant laws and requirements!
• If you can object using what Jesus said in the gospels that what goes in does not defile,only what comes out - it was the same apostles who wrote that, who also wrote this.
  They should have known what they were talking about - which would mean that blood is not to be understood with other foods in the same way.

Reasons why this does not mean drinking the blood of Jesus is wrong (in fact the only reason I can put forward for this prohibition) -

• Leviticus says the “life/soul of the animal is in the blood”. Jesus said the same thing in John 6 “Unless you drink my blood, you do not have life in yoruselves”.
  In effect the prohibition was this: if you drink the blood of a creature you share in it’s life. Drink the blood of an animal and you become like that animal . DON’T do it.
  If you drink My blood, you will become like Me. DO IT.

This thing about becoming animal like is attested to by rabbinic sources as well. Also, when you look at Genesis 1, as Scott Hahn puts it, man was created with the animals on the 6th day, but was created for the 7th day, to worship God,be His son/daughter.
When you break the covenant, you slip into the 6th day, becoming animal-like.
Which is the reason that the one who opposes God and His church in the final days is referred to in the Apocalypse as the Beast.
You see this even in other places in scripture such as Daniel adn so on and even in the Psalms - he confesses that when he lost faith, he became “like a brute beast…” (Ps 73).

I don’t see the church prohibiting the drinking of animal blood but I can’t understand why. think it should still be prohibited.

 

[Ron_Conte]

I’ve changed my position on this question. My position is now that all the OT prescriptions have been dispensed, even those pertaining to blood and strangled animals.

“It [the holy Roman church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning.”

“It [the holy Roman church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that every creature of God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because according to the word of the Lord not what goes into the mouth defiles a person, and because the difference in the Mosaic law between clean and unclean foods belongs to ceremonial practices, which have passed away and lost their efficacy with the coming of the gospel. It also declares that the apostolic prohibition, to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled, was suited to that time when a single church was rising from Jews and gentiles, who previously lived with different ceremonies and customs. This was so that the gentiles should have some observances in common with Jews, and occasion would be offered of coming together in one worship and faith of God and a cause of dissension might be removed, since by ancient custom blood and strangled things seemed abominable to Jews, and gentiles could be thought to be returning to idolatry if they ate sacrificial food. In places, however, where the Christian religion has been promulgated to such an extent that no Jew is to be met with and all have joined the church, uniformly practicing the same rites and ceremonies of the gospel and believing that to the clean all things are clean, since the cause of that apostolic prohibition has ceased, so its effect has ceased. It condemns, then, no kind of food that human society accepts and nobody at all neither man nor woman, should make a distinction between animals, no matter how they died; although for the health of the body, for the practice of virtue or for the sake of regular and ecclesiastical discipline many things that are not proscribed can and should be omitted, as the apostle says all things are lawful, but not all are helpful.”

The Council of Florence, Session 11 (4 February 1442)

 

[Cmaker3]

If I may be allowed to throw in my $.02, this is a question which I’ve looked at before and not received satisfactory answers from catholic apologists.
I understand this command in Acts 15 to be binding even today on christians for the following reasons:

I totally agree with you. I’m someone who has recently returned to my faith of birth and I’m beginning to read and learn the Holy Scriptures and about God.

One of the first questions that came to me was about the consumption of blood. We have a delicacy in my country where pig’s blood is cooked with the food. And I’ve begun to question this because I’ve met people, even from my own country, who has refrained from eating blood.

I did ask a priest who happens to be a good friend of my wife’s family. We exchanged emails and he did point out that all animals that were deemed unclean in Leviticus can now be consumed without displeasing God (Acts 11:4-10).

But in the same book, it continues to say that God forbids the eating of blood (Acts 15:19-20, Acts 15:28-29, Acts 21:25).

And it clearly says in Leviticus 3:17 (1899 Douay-Rheims Bible) “By a perpetual law for your generations, and in all your habitations: neither blood nor fat shall you eat at all.” This seem like a permanent law to me.

So my answer? A big YES! It is displeasing to God.

Reasons why this does not mean drinking the blood of Jesus is wrong (in fact the only reason I can put forward for this prohibition)

I think John 6:53-56 best answers this. In the OT, the blood of animal sacrifices was used as an atonement for man’s sins. But Jesus replaced that by being the ultimate sacrificial lamb who paid for our sins with his own flesh and blood. That’s why it’s only His blood that we’re allowed to drink.

I don’t see the church prohibiting the drinking of animal blood but I can’t understand why. think it should still be prohibited.

I also don’t know why. But I’m sticking to the biblical truths. Amidst all the suppositions, innuendos and the volume of data and info out there, I have begun to think like this whenever I’m confronted by anything:

“IF IT’S NOT BIBLICAL, THEN THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT!”

Take care and God Bless! forums.catholic-questions.org/images/smilies/smile.gif