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Rough Draft; for Review Wine Means Wine: The Biblical Case against Prohibitionism Rough Draft; For Review While more and more Christians are drinking today, the “I don’t drink, smoke, or chew or dates girls who do” is still the majority view among Evangelical and Fundamental Christians – it might be one of the few things that the Baptists and Pentecostals agree on! Strictly speaking, Christian teetotalers can be divided into two groups1: Abstentionists are those who voluntarily abstain from drinking alcohol, even though they don’t believe the Bible expressly forbids it. They believe it is not necessarily sinful per se, but that is unwise and should be avoided. The potential harm to “weaker brothers” and recovering alcoholics makes even moderate drinking unloving. They look at all the damage done by alcohol and don’t believe that it could ever be justified. Prohibitionists, on the other hand, believe that drinking is wrong and that the Bible forbids it. While I disagree scripturally and personally with both of these groups, I have a far bigger disagreement with Prohibitionism. While I find Abstentionism to be unbalanced in their application of Biblical principles, I am convinced that Prohibitionism twists Scripture to suit their own preconceived ideas, no less than Jehovah Witnesses have twisted Scripture to say that Jesus is not God. I am not saying that Prohibitionism is heresy, but that they employ similar methodology. Strong words I know, but I am passionate for the Word of God and to see it “rightly divided.” To me, this is an even bigger issue than drinking or not drinking. In the body of my upcoming short book “Drinking to the Glory of God,” I believe I am able to effectively address the Abstentionism views, but I decided to save my argument against Prohibitionism for the appendix because I think most of my readers agree with its basic point. As an appendix it can be easily ignored by those don’t care but simple to find for those who do. My goal in this appendix is simple: To conclusively show that the Bible does not prohibit the consumption of alcohol. An Uphill Battle The Bible speaks frequently and (typically) positively about wine and (less frequently) beer. Wine is seen as a blessing from God, its removal is a sign of God’s curse, and Jesus 1 These terms come courtesy of Wikipedia. Regardless of how commonly accepted they are, they effectively describe the two groups. I say “strictly speaking” because there is a certain amount of bleed over between the two groups and it is not uncommon for Abstentionism frequently uses some of Prohibitionist’s arguments to support their case. 2 This is a very condensed summary of my findings from an extensive study I did on alcohol in the Bible. The full study can be found http://bit.ly/rnxwine 3 Qu’ran, Al-Ma’idah 90, Sahih International 4 There is something pretty ironic here: It is my observation that many from the Prohibitionism camp tout hyper- literal readings of the Bible and resist attempts by scholars to make the Bible less accessible, but on this issue they clearly drank wine.2 To my knowledge, no one who has studied wine in the Bible has disagreed with that point, even if they disagree with the definition of wine. Given sheer number of such references, Prohibitionism faces an uphill battle to say the Bible prohibits drinking. It is this uphill battle that is the first argument against Prohibitionism and a rather strong one at that: Having read a fair amount of literature arguing the Prohibitionism view, I can’t help but noticing just how complex the arguments get. It would be so much easier for them if the Bible actually said “don’t drink alcohol.” Muslims don’t have this problem: O you who have believed, indeed, intoxicants, gambling, [sacrificing on] stone alters [to other than Allah ], and divining arrows are but defilement from the work of Satan, so avoid it that you may be successful.3 But there is no such verse in the Bible. Some things are pretty clear – we don’t need a 200-page book to convince us the Bible says “Don’t murder.” It may take a book to explain what makes murder different than killing or how to not choke the living daylights out of an annoying co-worker, but not to say that we shouldn’t murder. But for some reason, it takes rather lengthy work to show that the Bible prohibits alcohol. What I am saying is this: If God really didn’t want us to drink alcohol, wouldn’t he have made it a little more clear? Wouldn’t he have constantly spoken against it? Wouldn’t he have used clear and understandable language? But instead, Prohibitionism requires long, complex arguments appealing to Homer and the fermenting process. Even though I can make my way through some rather technical commentaries and read the Bible in Greek and (to a lesser extent) Hebrew, wading through their material makes my head spin.4 This alone makes me very suspicious of Prohibitionism’s case. Why go to such lengths to prove that the Bible prohibits alcohol? I believe it is largely driven by a perceived contradiction. Because the Bible clearly prohibits drunkenness, it must(they reason) also prohibit drinking. Prohibitionists share this with alcoholics: They both cannot fathom how a person could drink without trying to get drunk. Because they cannot believe that a person could ever drink in a godly manner, it must be sin. I address this more fully in the body of the book, but I think it is this logical error (drinking = drunkenness and the Bible prohibits drunkenness, therefore the Bible must prohibit drinking) that drives their impassioned, though eisegetical arguments against moderate drinking. 2 This is a very condensed summary of my findings from an extensive study I did on alcohol in the Bible. The full study can be found http://bit.ly/rnxwine 3 Qu’ran, Al-Ma’idah 90, Sahih International 4 There is something pretty ironic here: It is my observation that many from the Prohibitionism camp tout hyper- literal readings of the Bible and resist attempts by scholars to make the Bible less accessible, but on this issue they are the ones making is less accessible to the average reader. Just saying. Moving on, I would like to address five different arguments Prohibitionists use to say the Bible prohibits drinking. I know that there are more, but I think these represent the bulk of their arguments and are sufficient to remove any “reasonable doubt”: 1. The alcoholic beverages of that day was much weaker than modern drinks, so the pro-drinking verses don’t really translate into today. 2. Wine can mean non-alcoholic grape juice. 3. Nazirites were not allowed to drink. 4. Commands to be “sober-minded” literally mean no drinking. 5. Proverbs commands kings not to drink. Everclear The first main argument is that alcohol in the Bible was much weaker in Biblical times than modern times. There is some truth to this – for instance, distilling apparently wasn’t invented until the Middle Ages, so the Bible didn’t have Everclear in mind when it spoke of “strong drink.” We also know that the Greek and Romans typically mixed their wine with water; a 3:1 ratio seems to have been common.5 However, there is no evidence (archeologically nor Biblically) that the Hebrews followed that practice. Just to say that Greeks in 300 BC mixed their wine with water does not mean that Jews in 1000 BC did the same. These two cultures were very far removed and developed their wine making and drinking habits independently.6 So was the wine the Bible talked about watered down? It is possible, but by no means certain. From how I read the evidence, I am inclined to think that prior to the Greek influence on Israel (“Hellenization”), the answer would be no, but by the New Testament and Early Church era, the answer was increasing yes.7 But in my mind this entire argument is irrelevant: The one thing is very clear about the wine mentioned in the Bible: People could (and did) could get drunk on it. If that were not the case, there would have been no need to prohibit drunkenness. They may not have been throwing back tequila shots (a nasty habit in my mind – I prefer sipping good tequila), but they could get drunk. Even if they were mixing water with wine at a 3:1 5 In Homer’s Odyssey (IX, 208), we are told of a wine that was mixed 20:1, but The Odyssey was fictional account and the point there seemed to be how strong this mythical wine was, that it could be mixed 20:1 and still smell wonderful. While I had a difficult time find citations of ancient literature giving this 3:1 ratio, it seems to be a point that both sides of the argument more or less agree on. 66 More than one Prohibition article suggested that we should assume that the Hebrews did the same as the Greeks and Romans, but we all know what assuming does. I really think the burden of proof is on those asserting that the early Hebrews watered down their wine. 7 For good arguments about wine in the ancient world, see R. A. Baker (Ph.D., Ecclesiastical History) http://www.churchhistory101.com/docs/Wine-Ancient-World.pdf and Daniel Wallace (Th.M., Ph.D.) http://bible.org/article/bible-and-alcohol. ratio, wine naturally ferments to 12-15% alcohol (ABV).8 That still works out to 4-5%, ABV, which is basically the same as a Bud or a Pabst Blue Ribbon, and you can’t tell me that you can’t get drunk on those – millions of college students have the puke stains to prove otherwise.
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