What it Means that there is ‘Life in the Blood’

What it Means that there is ‘Life in the Blood’

From Weird Stuff in the Bible by Luke Taylor

February 27, 2026 · 31 min · Episode 112

About this episode

This episode explores the biblical command regarding blood consumption and its implications on the concept of life and soul in scripture.

When Noah stepped off the Ark, one of the first things God said…was weird. God told Noah things are gonna be different in this new world. First of all, you can eat animals now. However, you gotta do it right. Genesis 9:4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. In other words, drain out all the blood before you consume the animal. And in the previous episode, we talked about why this command was probably given: because the giants of the pre-flood world were said to be cannibalistic and that they regularly consumed blood. By putting this command out there right as Noah got off the Ark, God was saying we don’t want to go back into the mindless violence and chaos of the pre-flood world. We’re not eating blood. And this command is so important, it’s repeated in the Levitical law, and again later in the New Testament. But what I find most fascinating is the Hebrew behind this command. When it said “life” is in the blood, it’s the Hebrew word “nephesh,” and the main way this word is usually translated in the Bible is “soul.” So another way you could say this is that the soul is in the blood. Which I find to be weird. And I’d like to explore what this means…

People in this episode

Host: Luke Taylor

Topics covered

  • life in the blood
  • Noah
  • biblical commands
  • Hebrew translation
  • soul
  • cannibalism
  • pre-flood world

Keywords

  • blood
  • life
  • soul
  • Genesis 9
  • cannibalism
  • Hebrew
  • nephesh

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Genesis

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