"I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food." (Gen. 1:29)
"and to...everything that has the breath of life in it - I give every green plant for food." (Gen 1:30)
In the beginning, EloKhim did not give animals for food. In fact, it seems as though there weren't even any carnivorous animals! Obviously, it did not remain that way. In Genesis 9:3-4, Elohim ("God") had just brought Noakh and his family through the flood and made a covenant with him.
Every covenant has two sides. In this case EloKhim's side, the sign of which is the rainbow, is that He promised to never again destroy every living creature on the face of the earth through flood. Noakh had several responsibilities in this covenant. The first is found in Chapter 9 verse 1. Noakh and his family are told to be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The second responsibility is found in verses 3 and 4:
"Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it."
Some will surely say, "But EloKhim only made that covenant only with Noakh, right?" Wrong! In verses 8 and following, EloKhim said,
"I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you ... Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between EloKhim and all living creatures of every kind on the earth...this is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on earth."
So EloKhim established a covenant with Noakh and with all of Noakh's descendants forever. Every person on the face of the earth is a descendant of Noakh. Therefore, this covenant applies to everyone on the earth. EloKhim said this covenant was everlasting - not only until He "came up with a better one." Everyone is obligated to adhere to the conditions of this covenant. Although there are various explanations of what is involved in this covenant, one point is certain: we must not eat meat with blood in it! But how does one remove the blood from meat?
Removing 100% of the blood from meat is humanly impossible, and EloKhim knew that when He told us to eat meat without the blood in it. As in all things, we are supposed to do our best. EloKhim's word says we are supposed to remove all the lifeblood, that is, the blood that is flowing through the veins and arteries of the animal when it is alive. The best way to do this is the method used by Orthodox Jews. This method includes killing the animal with an extremely sharp blade across the neck, severing all the major veins and arteries at the same time. This way, the arterial and venous blood is pumped out of the animal's body by the still-beating heart. This method of slaughter is only commercially practiced by the Orthodox Jewish community.
Kosher slaughter is both the most humane (because the animal passes out almost immediately) and the most effective way of removing the blood from the meat. No other method removes as much blood. When salting and soaking of the meat is also done, the meat can be said to be free from blood and acceptable for consumption according to Biblical principles.
Typically, when animals are killed at a non-kosher slaughterhouse, they are stunned with a bullet to the head, then they are killed, and often lay around for a number of hours before they are sliced open and drained of their blood. While the animals lay around waiting to be drained, the blood pools in the muscles. At this point no amount of draining or cooking will cause the blood to leave the meat. Cooked blood is still blood. If the animals were killed the way they are by a shochet (Orthodox Jewish slaughterer), this would not be the case.
In the New Covenant (Acts 15) we are told about the Council at Jerusalem. Until this time in history, the Jews (and those who had attached themselves to the Jewish community) were the only people who had faith in EloKhim. The purpose of the gathering of the Council at Jerusalem was to decide what, if any, observance was required by Gentile believers in Yahshua. Beginning with verse 14, Yaaqov ("James") gives his ruling that in order to not make things too difficult for Gentile believers, they would be required to only follow four standards to be considered followers of Yahshua. Everything else that the Gentiles should do could and would be learned in the Temple. The four standards are: abstain from food polluted by idols; abstain from sexual immorality; abstain from the meat of strangled animals, and abstain from blood.
According to Yaaqov, this is only the beginning - the minimum, so as not to make it "too hard" on the Gentiles who are turning to Elohim. What is remarkable here is that even the minimum requirements for Gentile believers includes abstaining from blood. Obviously this is a foundational standard for moral behavior. It is only within the context of the Pagan/unbelieving world that consumption of meat with the blood in it is acceptable. And so here again we see that the Scriptures clearly teach in both the "Old Testament" and the "New Testament" that believers should not eat meat that has not been properly killed and cleaned so as to remove the lifeblood and render the meat edible. In this case it is not an issue of "clean" and "unclean" meat (for that is another subject entirely), but rather, an issue of blood and respect for EloKhim's commands.
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