Question: Do Mormons believe that we will have blood in our bodies when we are resurrected or will it be just flesh and bone?

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Question: Do Mormons believe that we will have blood in our bodies when we are resurrected or will it be just flesh and bone?

In the resurrection, our bodies will undergo a much more significant change than simply not having blood, but we can only speculate on what this change will be

These sorts of categories aren't very helpful in understanding the nature of the resurrected body. The distinction between 'just flesh and bone' and flesh and bone and blood was one that was common in the early years of the Church. And it was a view that was developed (not just by LDS members) to try and harmonize several different passages of scripture. The challenge is that these sorts of categories don't really match up well with what we know about our physical bodies today - which isn't limited to ideas of flesh and bone but to an understanding of complex systems, and molecular biology and genetics.

Part of our challenge is the reliance on Biblical translations to create these ideas. One of the proof texts used in this discussion historically has been the resurrected Jesus, talking to his apostles in Luke 24:39:

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."

But no blood is mentioned. However, the Greek word used here for flesh isn't a word that means somehow flesh without blood -

https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4561&t=KJV

flesh (the soft substance of the living body, which covers the bones and is permeated with blood) of both man and beasts"

Flesh in the New Testament usually includes blood by definition. It encapsulates the idea of the physical body with all of its parts (including blood). And this is how Jesus is using it in this context. Jesus isn't teaching us some great mystery about the resurrection, merely pointing out to his apostles that he does in fact have a very real body. And this sort of thing is true in other places. Our attempts at times to parse scripture to help us understand questions that aren't explained clearly sometimes leads us into this sort of speculation. I think that we do far better looking at the descriptions we have have glorified beings (God, for example, as he appears to Joseph Smith) for an understanding of the nature of the resurrected body rather than at our own physical natures.

In the resurrection, our bodies will undergo a much more significant change than simply not having blood. But what that change will be, we can only speculate.


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