Special Stipulations for "Clean" Meats
Even more interesting and more important are the dietary rules that extended beyond the unclean, and encompassed all animal products. God says very plainly and emphatically,
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat Genesis 9:4.
Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off ... Leviticus 7:22-27.
... abstain ... from things strangled, and from blood Acts 15:20.
Notice that in both Leviticus and Acts, the writers are speaking about clean animals. God has placed precautions on the eating of even clean animals because certain elements of them are also harmful to our bodies.
It is interesting to realize that scientific experimentation has revealed that the blood actually acts as a virtual poison. When researchers injected the blood of one species of animal into one of another species, for example a rabbit and a cat, the recipient died. When the animals where of differing "families," the blood would literally kill them. If they were of the same family, the blood could be interchanged without baleful results. 1
We have very little in common genetically with cows, sheep, chickens, etc. Thus, when people ingest their flesh with the blood, they are really ingesting a poison.
The blood serves a very important purpose. It acts as a house cleaner, delivering fresh oxygen and nutrients wherever it goes and collecting the wastes and impurities. Obviously there are very good reasons for not eating the blood.
Another important thing often not realized is that a large percentage of meat comes from animals that have been strangled (see slaughterhouse employee reports in chapter 25). The only way to guarantee that the animal hasn't been strangled would be for you to go to the farm and kill the animal yourself. This, of course, is a lot of work and not very appealing, but it is the only way anyone desiring to persist in a meat-based diet can do so within the Biblical requirements. And, of course, one must still remove all the blood, an arduous undertaking indeed. The results of which are most unpalatable, much like eating cardboard.
All rights reserved Copyright © 2006 By J. Lee