Alcohol

[Scott]

I remember a Bible lesson that stressed that the word wine in the Bible had two Greek versions. One for grape juice and one for fermented wine. I just took their word for it but this was the reason behind you shouldn't drink alcohol at all. I remember talk about cooking with alcohol and that non alcoholic beer has some alcohol in it also so it was a no no. From what I remember as a child the Catholics use fermented wine on Sundays. I think the Jews use fermented wine also. Just curious how valid the grape juice teachings are. Is it wrong for me to drink a few beers tomorrow watching the Super Bowl? Can I place a bet?

[agricola]

Since the ancients had no sure way of preserving fresh juice, but fermentation preserves, you can be pretty sure any 'grape juice' floating around the ancient world was fermented, and pretty fast, too. They wouldn't even have to do it on purpose: natural floating wild yeast would do it for them.

That said, the phrase 'fruit of the vine' can certainly be taken LITERALLY as berries and grapes, but it is also an idiomatic expression for wines.


However, beer is completely different, since there is no 'fruit of the vine' included - beer is a grain product (unless you count hops, and you don't HAVE to add hops to get beer). Enjoy it anyway: beer was invented practically before WRITING and people have drunk it for - quite literally - THOUSANDS of years. Brewing beer with it makes your water safer to drink.

Distilling though - that's awfully new. Probably the coc would oppose distilled spirits, since they aren't mentioned in the Bible.....

[Lev]

Agricola,

Isn't "strong drink" in the Old Testament usually understood to refer to distilled spirits or another similarly potent drink? I don't know the history of the technology at all but I know that "wine" and "strong drink" are often mentioned together in the OT as what would appear to be distinct but related beverages. (Example: Deuteronomy 14:26)

Lev

[Lev]

I remember a Bible lesson that stressed that the word wine in the Bible had two Greek versions. One for grape juice and one for fermented wine. I just took their word for it but this was the reason behind you shouldn't drink alcohol at all. I remember talk about cooking with alcohol and that non alcoholic beer has some alcohol in it also so it was a no no. From what I remember as a child the Catholics use fermented wine on Sundays. I think the Jews use fermented wine also. Just curious how valid the grape juice teachings are. Is it wrong for me to drink a few beers tomorrow watching the Super Bowl? Can I place a bet?

The COC is simply wrong on this one. Drunkenness is expressly forbidden in both testaments. However, the consumption of alcoholic beverages in moderation seems to be assumed throughout the Bible.

Lev

[margin overa]

The traditional CofC teaching about Biblical lands grape juice being unfermented is deeply absurd, and deeply colored by Prohibition-era sentiments. I've heard more than one silly joker talk about Jesus turning the water into strictly unfermented grape juice because Jesus would never create something that made people drunk - all this delivered while contextually referring to a story wherein people were getting elevated on wine during a wedding feast! If Jesus was so opposed to wine at all, why would he have "diminished his witness" and "made others stumble" by being present at the sort of party where it was well-known that wine would be drunk and enjoyed? I've also heard a couple of people state that if Jesus had turned the water into alcoholic wine that it would have clearly refuted his divinity.

The entire context of the wedding feast at Cana indicates that wine was being drunk, and that enjoying wine was a part of the feasting culture. If Jesus had indeed delivered the master of the feast a bunch of pots of fresh grape juice, why would the reader not think the plain juice would have been noted as such by the master, instead of the beverage being praised as a fine vintage wine?

[margin overa]

Agricola,

Isn't "strong drink" in the Old Testament usually understood to refer to distilled spirits or another similarly potent drink? I don't know the history of the technology at all but I know that "wine" and "strong drink" are often mentioned together in the OT as what would appear to be distinct but related beverages. (Example: Deuteronomy 14:26)

Lev

I'm talking off the top of my head, but alembics of some kind have been found in archaeological digs in Greece and Turkey, I believe. Distillation has been around for a long time, I believe, but not as long as relatively simple fermented berry or grape juice, or wheat mash.

[agricola]

Somebody with more historic info than I have would have to talk about distillation -

HOWEVER - there is a Hebrew thing which a lot of folks fail to recognize when they see it:
doublets.

'Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging (whatever)...'
'Riding on a colt and on the foal of an ass..'
'The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs'
'He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the dunghill'
'I will praise Thee, O Lord, among the people and I will sing praises until thee among the nations'
'He turns the wilderness into standing water and dry ground into watersprings'
'He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death'
'O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord'

So I would venture to at least speculate that 'wine' and 'strong drink' are the same thing.
But if distillation was a thing, then wine and strong drink might not be exactly the SAME things, but they are certainly covered under the same general CLASS of things: drinks that make you drunk.

Drinking is seldom condemned, but getting drunk is almost always condemned.




These are doublets, and they don't refer to two DIFFERENT things but to (essentially) the SAME thing. It is how you do poetry when the whole darned language rhymes NATURALLY (and therefore 'rhyming' is nothing whatsoever).

[GMan]

Moderation in ALL things.

[Lev]

I've also heard a couple of people state that if Jesus had turned the water into alcoholic wine that it would have clearly refuted his divinity.

Man, they're really not going to enjoy "heaven."

The LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, And refined, aged wine. (Isaiah 25:6)

Lev

[Lev]

Somebody with more historic info than I have would have to talk about distillation -

HOWEVER - there is a Hebrew thing which a lot of folks fail to recognize when they see it:
doublets.

'Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging (whatever)...'
'Riding on a colt and on the foal of an ass..'
'The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs'
'He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the dunghill'
'I will praise Thee, O Lord, among the people and I will sing praises until thee among the nations'
'He turns the wilderness into standing water and dry ground into watersprings'
'He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death'
'O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord'

So I would venture to at least speculate that 'wine' and 'strong drink' are the same thing.
But if distillation was a thing, then wine and strong drink might not be exactly the SAME things, but they are certainly covered under the same general CLASS of things: drinks that make you drunk.

Drinking is seldom condemned, but getting drunk is almost always condemned.




These are doublets, and they don't refer to two DIFFERENT things but to (essentially) the SAME thing. It is how you do poetry when the whole darned language rhymes NATURALLY (and therefore 'rhyming' is nothing whatsoever).

Thanks, Agricola. Actually I do know about doublets--it's one of my favorite characteristics of Biblical poetry. I usually see the two things mentioned as being distinct but closely related. The examples you cite (mostly) show this:

colt - foal of an ass
mountains/rams - hills/lambs
poor/dust - needy/dunghill

Based on the language alone, and not knowing for sure about the history of distillation, your speculation about wine and strong drink being slightly different members of the same class sounds right to me. The reason I ask is more than just linguistic curiosity. As I'm sure most everyone here knows, one of the big COC arguments against any drinking whatsoever is that "wine" in the Bible only means alcoholic wine when the drinking of it is condemned. If the drinking is approved then it's grape juice. Instances of the consumption of "strong drink" being approved help to show that alcohol is not a Biblically-forbidden substance.

How's that for arguing like a COCer?

Lev