The Blood Taboo - The BAS Library
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The Blood Taboo

Blood should not be ingested because it contains life. Whoever does so is guilty of murder.

By Jacob Milgrom

Genesis 9:1–4, a priestly text, bans the entire human race from ingesting animal blood: God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fertile and increase, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky, on everything that creeps on the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; into your hand are they Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all (these). Only, you shall not eat […]

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Endnotes

1.

See Ancient Near Eastern Texts, ed. James B. Pritchard (Princeton: Princeton Univ., 1969), pp. 75, 77.

2.

C.H. Brichto, “On Slaughter and Sacrifice, Blood and Atonement,” Hebrew Union College Annual 47 (1976), pp. 19–56.

3.

See M. Bockmuehl, “The Noahide Commandment and New Testament Ethics,” Revue Biblique 102 (1995), pp. 72–101, esp. 44–95; J. Taylor, Les Actes des Deux Apôtres (Paris: Gabalda, 1994), vol. 5, pp. 209–214; C.K. Barrett, “The Apostolic Decree of Acts 15:20, ” Australian Biblical Review 35 (1987), pp. 50–59; E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971).