Jehovah's Witnesses And Blood

[Miles]

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After reading another thread mentioning Jehovah's Witnesses I became interested in their beliefs about blood. They reject blood transfusions and don't eat meat with more than a trace of blood in it. Searching around a bit I came across the following from a pro-JW web site.

"Do Jehovah's Witnesses Eat Red Meat Since it May Contain a Trace of Blood?

Though Christians are to abstain from blood (Acts 15:29), the Bible shows that the eating of flesh by Christians is proper, for God Himself told us that we could eat meat from "every animal". "Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for YOU." (Gen. 9:3)

But God commanded that before eating the flesh of an animal, his people were to pour out its blood on the ground and cover it with dust, being careful not to eat the blood, on pain of death. (Deut. 12:23-25; Lev. 7:27) This is our way for us to show respect for God's view of life.

So when someone carefully takes the strict precautions that God outlined by making sure that an animal is properly bled before consumption, they wouldn't be breaking God's command of eating blood. Since God Himself has issued these directions, obviously, if properly done, God does not have a problem with eating the meat from "every animal".

People can rest assured that nearly all blood is removed from meat during slaughter, which is why you don’t see blood in raw “white meat”; only an extremely small amount of blood remains within the muscle tissue when you get it from the store. (Also see: The Red Juice in Raw Meat is Not Blood (todayifoundit.com)"
source
(My emphasis)

However, from a comprehensive explanation of the slaughtering of animals: (I urge anyone who's interested to access the link below)

"Blood loss as a percentage of body weight differs between species: cows, 4.2 to 5.7%; calves, 4.4 to 6.7%; sheep, 4.4 to 7.6%; and pigs, 1.5 to 5.8%. Blood content as a percentage of live weight may decrease in heavier animals since the growth of blood volume does not keep pace with growth of live weight. Approximately 60% of blood is lost at sticking *, 20-25% remains in the viscera, while a maximum of 10% may remain in carcass muscles."
source

So my question is, if the muscle (meat) can contain up to 10% of an animal's blood wouldn't this make it unacceptable to Jehovah's Witnesses?



*"Cattle and pigs are usually exsanguinated [drained of blood] by a puncture wound which opens the major blood vessels at the base of the neck, not far from the heart. The trade name for this process is sticking"
Source: ibid.



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[onewithhim]

How wrong is any given author or any given story allowed to be?

I said, if we put all accounts in the Bible together we can see how they harmonize.

We apparently can't see that until we've changed some of them, though. How harmonious to the texts have to be before we can allow them to say exactly what they say?

You insist on saying that JWs have changed the Bible. On the contrary, we go as far back as possible in the MSS and of the original languages. The changes have come about by other men in the superstitious expunging of God's name and, in more recent years, the warping of the Scriptures by the apostate Churches of Christendom. We can still get the main theme of the Bible from current versions. It is God's Kingdom by Christ. (Genesis 3:15; Matthew 24:14)

[Difflugia]

You insist on saying that JWs have changed the Bible. On the contrary, we go as far back as possible in the MSS and of the original languages.

There are no Greek manuscripts of the New Testament containing any form of the Tetragrammaton.

The changes have come about by other men in the superstitious expunging of God's name and, in more recent years, the warping of the Scriptures by the apostate Churches of Christendom.

All of which is speculative. You claim to be restoring the original state of the Bible, but that original state exists nowhere but somebody's imagination.

[onewithhim]

You insist on saying that JWs have changed the Bible. On the contrary, we go as far back as possible in the MSS and of the original languages.

There are no Greek manuscripts of the New Testament containing any form of the Tetragrammaton.

The changes have come about by other men in the superstitious expunging of God's name and, in more recent years, the warping of the Scriptures by the apostate Churches of Christendom.

All of which is speculative. You claim to be restoring the original state of the Bible, but that original state exists nowhere but somebody's imagination.

I said that we go back as far as we can, not that we have the original state of the Scriptures.

[Difflugia]

All of which is speculative. You claim to be restoring the original state of the Bible, but that original state exists nowhere but somebody's imagination.

I said that we go back as far as we can, not that we have the original state of the Scriptures.

Then how is that an argument that you're not changing what we do have?

[onewithhim]

All of which is speculative. You claim to be restoring the original state of the Bible, but that original state exists nowhere but somebody's imagination.

I said that we go back as far as we can, not that we have the original state of the Scriptures.

Then how is that an argument that you're not changing what we do have?

"'Restoring the Divine Name.' Throughout the centuries many translations of parts or of all the Christian Greek Scriptures have been made into Hebrew. Such translations, designated in this work by 'J' with a superior number, have restored the divine name to the inspired Christian Greek Scriptures in various places. They have restored the divine name not only when coming upon quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures but also in other places where the texts called for such restoration."

See the NWT study Bible, pp. 1564-1566.