Wine Means : 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 , even though they don’t believe the 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 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 . 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. 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 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 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 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 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.

But, the argument goes, it is so much easier to get drunk now then in Biblical times. Perhaps. But people still had no problem getting drunk. And that is still irrelevant: Thanks to the modern invention of MacDonald’s and pre-packaged food, it is much easier to get fat now than in ancient times. But the problem is not the food, it is the consumption. The Bible’s issue with wine was and is the amount consumed, not the fact that we are consuming it.

Is Wine Really Wine?

The second main argument used to say the Bible prohibits drinking is to say that the wine in the Bible does not necessarily mean an alcoholic beverage and all the positive reference to wine (including when Jesus made and drank wine) must be referring to grape juice. This is the view articulated by the late Samuele Bacchiocchi in “Wine in the Bible.”9 To begin with, let’s look at look at all the Biblical terms for alcohol:

1. Yayin (!yIy:)– the Hebrew word translated wine.

2. Teyrosh (vAryTi)– the Hebrew word translated new wine.

3. Sheychar (rk've) – the Hebrew word translated beer, strong drink, or fermented drink, depending on the translation.10

4. Oinos (oi=noj) – the Greek word translated wine.

5. Gleukos (gleu/koj) – the Greek word translated wine or new wine, depending on the translation.

If your look up these words in any of the major Greek or Hebrew lexicons (i.e. dictionaries), they are all defined as intoxicating drinks; they seem to have no doubt about the meaning of these words. However, Prohibitionists would rightly argue that

8 Despite what some authors say, there is no reason to believe that ancient wine was lower in alcohol than today. Then, as now, the ABV is limited because the alcohol will kill the yeast that creates the alcohol. The yeast used in wine-making naturally occurs on the grape skin. Also despite was some authors say, nothing is now added to wine to make it stronger. Then as now, proper wine is made with grapes. That’s it, just grapes. 9 You can read most of his book online at: http://biblicalperspectives.com/books/wine_in_the_bible/1.html. I choose his material to respond to because he is endorsed by Dr. John Walvoord of Dallas Theological Seminary, among others. I don’t want to be accused of finding the weakest Prohibitionism arguments; these are the strongest I could find. 10 The Greek version of this word, sikera (si,kera) occurs once in the NT, in Luke 1:15, in a clear allusion to the Vow from Numbers 6:3.

lexicons are written by human authors and can make mistakes. Accordingly, we must go back further and look at how these words were actually used in the antiquity (which is basically what the authors of lexicons do).

First we look at how the words were used in the Bible itself. The best judge of what the Bible means by any given word is how the Bible itself uses it. If you do a search, you will see that each of them is used at least once to clearly describe an intoxicating beverage: Yayin is what got drunk on (Genesis 9:21). Teyrosh “takes away understanding” in Hosea 4:11.11 When accused of drunkenness, Hannah defends herself by saying that she hasn’t had and wine or sheychar (1 Samuel 1:13-15). We are commanded to not get drunk on oinos in Ephesians 5:18. When the crowds hear the disciples speaking in tongues, they accused them of being drunk on gleukos (Acts 2:13).12 On other hand there is no clear references to any of these beverages not be alcoholic.

Looking at other ancient sources we see that oinos typically refers to alcoholic wine.13 While gluekos is occasionally used to refer to something that is either non-alcoholic or very low in alcohol, I could find no clear sense in the antiquity of oinos having a generally accepted meaning of “grape juice.”14 In fact, Aristotle makes the explicit point, “Really [gluekos] is not wine at all in spite of its name: for it does not taste like wine and consequently does not inebriate as ordinary wine does.” 15

11 This is the only clear case where teyrosh causes intoxication. Some will note that the passage also refers to yayin, but this is case of parallelism, where two words are basically used to refer to the same thing. It is very clear that both yayin and teyrosh “take away understanding.” 12 Bacchiocchi tries to say that gleukos is not alcoholic. As we will see shortly, there is some evidence that gluekos can mean grape juice, but a plain reading of the story shows that the crowds assumed the gluekos to be an alcoholic beverage. 13 I am sticking with tracing out oinos’ usage in secular literature because it is roughly contemporary with the NT’s usage. On the other hand, to try to use the secular use of yayin to define Biblical usage is problematic because it is not until Talmudic literature that we have any significant secular use of the word and the majority of the OT (and the majority of the positive references to yayin) was written well before the Talmud began to be developed. 14 Bacchiocchi cites several examples of oinos meaning grape juice, but every time I dug into his citations, I found them to be weak at best and erroneous at worst. In the next footnote you will see one such example. Another example is that he takes references that are clearly figurate and makes them literal. For instance, he says freshly squeezed grape is sometimes called oinos and then quotes Irenaeus as saying that certain grapes, when pressed will yield x gallons of oinos (“Wine in the Bible,” Chpt 2, Part I, Sec. 3). The first problem is that at this point the passage he quotes is in Latin, not Greek, so quoting it as oinos and not vini is incorrect. Not a big error, but is makes one wonder how well he checked his sources. But more importantly, to say that the grapes will yield wine does not mean that the crushed grapes (prior to fermentation) are being called wine. Rather the sense is “will yield wine when pressed and allowed to ferment.” If this statement and ones like it are the best case for oinos to mean grape juice, it is a very weak case indeed. 15 Aristotle, Metereologica Book IV, 9-13. Bacchiocchi misquotes Aristotle by starting the quote a little late and making it sound as if he is saying the very opposite (“Wine in the Bible,” Chpt 2, Part I, Sec. 3).

And there is one more important point: There was a Hebrew term meaning grape juice, mishrat ‘anabayim (~ybin"[] tr:v.mi).16 This term was then available to the writers of the Greek New Testament via the ancient Greek translation of the (the , LXX for short). So, if the Biblical authors ever needed to distinguish grape juice from wine, they could.

Given all that, I see no compelling reason to say that wine ever means grape juice in the Bible. Every reference I could find indicates to me that when the ancients said “wine” they basically mean it the same way we do. When they mean it to mean something else, they tend to modify it, much as we would say “non-alcoholic” wine because wine typically has alcoholic. Or for another example, when we say “coffee” we typically mean the caffeinated version, unless we say “decaf. Finding the occasionally exceptions doesn’t mean that “coffee” would generally mean “decaf.” No, people are pretty clear when they want decaf (as a Starbuck barista, you can trust me on this).

But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend wine can mean grape juice. In fact let’s hypothetically say that half the time the Bible says wine in means grape juice and the other half it means wine. Now, how are we supposed to know which times it means which? What objective standard do we have? If the Bible makes no attempt to clarify which is which, perhaps it doesn’t care. Back to what I said earlier – if God really cared about us not drinking alcohol, wouldn’t he make it just a tad bit clearer?

Instead, the basic logic I see used by the Prohibitionists is that when the Bible speaks of wine in a positive light, it must mean grape juice and when it uses speaks of it in a negative light, it must mean wine. And that, my friends, is no logic at all. It is eisegesis, pure and simple – leading one’s preexisting conclusions into one’s interpretation. Put all of this together, I see no reason to believe that wine and beer in the Bible mean anything other than wine and beer.

Questionable commands

Moving away from the meaning of wine, I want to turn to some Biblical commands that have been inappropriately applied to drinking:

1. The Nazirite Vow

In Numbers 6:1-21 God institutes a special type of vow, the Nazirite Vow, that allowed Israelites to voluntarily dedicate themselves to God in a special way for a limited time. It was basically the highest level of commitment a non- could make. It was kind of like becoming a monk or nun, but for a limited period of time. During this time, the Nazirite could not:

16 The Greek is staphulen prosphaton (stafulh.n pro,sfaton). Admittedly, this is a rare term, only occurring once in the entire OT, in Numbers 6:3. Nonetheless, there is not much disagreement as to its meaning; every lexicon I found lists mishrat as meaning “juice.”

a. Have any alcoholic beverages nor any grape products including raisins and grape juice.

b. Cut his or her hair.

c. Be in the presence of a dead body, even if it was a close relative.

At the end of this time, the Nazirite would make a special offering to God and shave off his or her hair. After that they could resume all their normal activities, including drinking wine, as expressly stated in Numbers 6:20.17

Some Prohibitionist look to this passage to suggest that drinking is less than holy, since the Nazirites had to give it up. Here are three problems with that logic:

a. It is highly selective. Would they also argue that haircuts and attending funerals is also less than righteous? I mean, we all know how fond conservatives are of long hair, but no funerals?

b. It misses the obviously limited duration of the Nazirite vows. Sure, Sampson and were required to be life-long Nazirites, but their cases were clearly special (unless some of you have also been called to rip apart lions with your bare hands and/or eat grasshoppers).

c. It misunderstands the nature of “common” and “holy.” Many things in the OT are set aside as being holy, but without carrying the connotation of “more righteous.” Rather, common things were completely acceptable and moral, but not appropriate in a holy context. For instance, Israel was told not to have any sex in order to be holy when God visited them at Mount Sinai, but that doesn’t mean sex is less righteous than abstinence (Exodus 19:14-15).

To sum that up, I see nothing in the Nazirite vow to suggest that its temporary abstention from alcohol support a permanent prohibition against it for Christians.

2. Be sober minded. Really sober minded.

Another argument looks at command to be “sober minded” (nephalios nhfa,lioj) in 1 Timothy 3:2, 11 and Titus 2:2 and note that it can literally mean to be completely sober, never drinking. Yes is can mean that, but like many words in Greek (and even more in English) it has separate, distinct meanings. For instance, think of all the different meanings of “to run;” to operate, to jog, to be functioning, etc. To say that the word can

17 Not to rub the point in, but this passage makes is abundantly evident once the Nazirite vow was over, Israelites were quite welcome to drink alcohol. Prohibitionists would be hard pressed to say otherwise. I suppose they could argue that sheychar (found in the in 6:3) doesn’t mean an intoxicating beverage, but then they would have to say that shachar (the verb form) doesn’t mean drunk and then things would really get out of hand.

literally mean sober does not mean that it always means literally sober. Another, more common, use is figurative: Clear-minded and restrained.18

So is nephalios literal or figurative? I think that context makes it clear – Paul also commands that the potential overseers not be given to drunkenness (paroinos pa,roinoj). If he has just commanded these overseers to not drink at all, why would he also say that they cannot be drunkards?19

3. It is not for kings to drink...but help the folks on welfare get tanked!

This is my favorite one. :4-7 reads:

It is not for kings, O Lemuel-- not for kings to drink wine, not for rulers to crave beer, lest they drink and forget what the law decrees, and deprive all the oppressed of their rights.

Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.

The argument goes this way: Look! Here it says that kings can’t drink wine! So at a minimum leaders cannot drink alcohol.

You basically have two options here: 1) This passage is literal: Leaders must abstain from all alcohol but they must also help poor folks get so soused that they forget they are poor, or 2) This passage is figurative: Leaders have no business getting drunk because they must be careful to wisely rule their people. If anyone has an excuse for getting drunk, it is the poor, but even they shouldn’t get drunk.

I think the point is pretty clear: Leaders must be clear mind and not drunkards (sounds a bit like 1 Timothy 3:2-3, doesn’t it?) in order to lead their people well.

Conclusion

18 This is the same basic mistake many cults make when they translate “firstborn” in Colossians 1:15 to show that Jesus was literally born, hence not really God. Prototokos (prwto,tokoj) can indeed mean to be a literal firstborn, but the context of Scripture makes it clear that Colossians is using the second, figurative meaning: To hold the preeminent place of honor (cf. Psalm 89:27 where David is called protokos in the LXX but David wasn’t the first anything – not the firstborn in his family nor even the first king of Israel). 19 Another argument used here is to note that the Greek word for “drunkard” is comprised of the words para (alongside) and oinos (wine) and then suggest that this word means that a overseer should never be near (“alongside”) wine. This is an argument that no Greek scholar could make with a straight face, because it commits the etymological fallacy: Using the components of a word to determine what a word means. We can see the fallacy of this approach by looking at the English word “butterfly,” which are neither made of butter nor flies. Sometimes the parts of a word can help us understand the definition, but it is by no means a sure thing. Far better to look at how the word is actually used, as Liddle and Scott’s lexicon does to give us the definition “drunkard.”

My only purpose here has been to demonstrate the Biblical weakness of the Prohibitionist position – the Bible is very clear that drinking alcohol in and of itself is morally acceptable. If nothing else, scriptural integrity requires acknowledging that.

Whether or not it would be wise or loving for you to drink in your context and with your background is an entirely different matter.