Blood is not a variety of animal. The vision of St. Peter
and the food laws about clean and unclean meats
dealt with types of animals, birds and things that
live in water.
Blood is not prohibited as unclean but as sacred to
God, "the blood is the life" and should not be taken
with the meat but poured out, returned to God.
It is interesting that there was never a prohibition on
eating fish that was cooked whole, and fish has a kind
of blood in it, sometimes red, which serves the same
purpose as animals and birds. Ditto shellfish, though
it is never red.
It may be, that we were originally allowed to eat fish,
and scavenge things that died of themselves, but
once allowed to kill land animals and birds, the blood
prohibition was added. It seems to be a claiming by
God perpetually of some things that we would be
tempted to play God in our attitudes about. Modern
mankind may be distant from the life and death
procedures of food preparation except for a "special"
few, who do the dirty work, but that wasn't the case
in ancient times. And still isn't many places.
St. Paul says to eat without question whatever is
sold in the shambles or bazaar (or Safeway) but
if something was loaded with blood it would be
obvious or it could be squeezed out. When eating
liver I wash off the excess blood that drained from
the blood vessels (there is always SOME blood
retained no matter what you do, that oozes out
later) and don't eat the congealed blood that
sometimes turns up in cooking. But when this is
invisible I don't worry.
Remember, "things strangled" is a more extreme
lack of exsanguination than even an arrow to the
heart, where the bleeding out is into the body
cavity, and still leaves the flesh a lot.
It is about an attitude issue, one more easily
avoided by right handling and one easily without
right handling held wrong in a hidden and therefore
unchallengeable way. The attitude of all for me,
while forgetting God and treating the animal as
totally a thing, and the attitude of carelessness
about the blood.
God says that blood is to be dealt with this way
because it makes atonement for us on the altar.
That was in Moses' time and the sacrifices to God
and use of special animals for this predates Moses.
All point to Christ, but blood is not to be treated
carelessly with disdain. Blood AS A CATEGORY
is what is important. Not the kind of animal it
comes from.
Again, there is no conflict between this and
eating Christ's Blood, because He is alive, not
dead.
Mary Christine Erikson
