Monday 21 October 2013

Leviticus 17 Blood

Leviticus 17

In this chapter it says that any sacrifice of animals must be at the at the designated place at the entrance of the tabernacle, and that it must be carried out by the ordained priest.
The reason for this is to stop random people heading off and making sacrifices to any old god in the fields.
In fact anybody slaughtering an animal is guilty of bloodshed.
This is hard to relate to in the modern world but was obviously quite important at the time.

Eating blood is forbidden, which means that Black pudding is not allowed (though given that this particular dish is made from pork, it probably does not matter!). But in fact, non Jews are not constrained by the Jewish food laws, so my full English breakfast is safe (apart from the calories and fat! - everything is relative!)

There is an interesting dichotomy here, where blood is strictly forbidden and the Christian communion service where wine is drunk to represent the blood of Christ. I will re-visit this when we get to the gospels (promise)

Also it seems that animals that are attacked by wild animals or die of natural causes are forbidden, I suspect road kill may fall under this category? I don't know on that. If anybody knows a Rabbi who can answer this, feel free to leave a comment, I would like to know (not that I am going to eat road kill)




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