Genesis 9:4

"But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."

We cannot agree with Skinner that the reason for this prohibition was "purely ceremonial,"[5] although, of course, it could have been anticipative of the elaborate blood sacrifices to be instituted later in the Law of Moses. Some of the other reasons that might have lain back of this law are:

(1) to prevent cruelty to animals, such as eating of flesh from a living creature,

(2) to remind men of God's providence in allowing the eating of meat,

(3) to emphasize the sacredness of life, the blood having a special relationship to life. Jamieson thought that the only reason for this was that of curbing "the cannibal ferocity in eating the flesh of living animals, to which men in earlier times were liable."[6]

This writer once saw a group of Indians in a primitive celebration in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma kill and eat a live buffalo in one of the most disgusting exhibitions of human savagery that could be imagined. They began eating the animal before it died, stripped the residue out of the intestines held between two fingers, devouring them like spaghetti, scooped up blood in their hands and drank it, etc., with many other revolting details of which it is a shame to speak. Anyone who ever saw such an action can well understand such a prohibition as that which appears here. And, as Willis observed, "This law is for mankind, not merely Israel."[7] Even under the New Covenant, this law was affirmed again (Acts 15:20). Aalders believed that the eating of raw meat tended to foster a condition in men that would lead to their "becoming wild."[8]