The Scripture alone is authoritative.
Such an approach, however, does not prevent us from illustrating, exemplifying,
and illuminating the Word of God with historical evidences.
I am convinced that when the Bible
speaks of wine it is sometimes referencing alcoholic wine and at other times it
is referencing non-alcoholic wine. To the modern ear such a sentence sounds
asinine. After all, wine obviously means alcohol. Furthermore, the long term
preservation of fresh grape juice is a relatively new discovery. Thus, it is
assumed that there was no capacity in antiquity to preserve juice without
fermentation.
This assumption is widely used as the basis for a pro-drinking
position in modern Christianity. Ergo the Bible speaks both positively and
negatively about wine. Since wine is obviously alcoholic it then follows that
as long as we control our drinking alcohol is both allowable and enjoyable. In
essence, then, Scripture condemns drunkenness but encourages drinking.
To state it simply such a position is just plain ignorant. Today's post consists of a veritable plethora of quotes from verified historical sources. These quotes reveal that the ancient world knew perfectly well how to preserve juice in an unfermented state, that they did so often, and that they called this product wine. I do not get my biblical position on alcohol from these quotes but these quotes perfectly illustrate the validity of that position.
Herman
Boerhave, Elements of Chemistry, 1668
By boiling,
the juice of the richest grapes loses all its aptitude for fermentation, and
may afterwards be preserved for years without undergoing any further change.
Parkinson, Theatrum
Batanicum, 1640
The juice or
liquor pressed out of the ripe grapes is called vinum (wine). Of it is made
both sapa and defrutum, in English cute, that is to say boiled
wine, the latter boiled down to the half, or former to the third part.
William
Patton, Bible Wines, 1874
Archbishop Potter, born AD 1674, in his Greek
Antiquities, Edinburgh edition, 1813 says, vol. ii. p. 360, “The
Lacedaemonians used to boil their wines upon the fire till the fifth part was
consumed; then after four years were expired began to drink them.” He refers to
Democritus, a celebrated philosopher, who traveled over the greater part of
Europe, Asia, and Africa, and who died in 361 BC, also to Palladus, a Greek
physician, as making a similar statement. These ancient authorities called the
boiled juice of the grape wine, and the learned archbishop brings
forward their testimony without the slightest intimation that the boiled juice
was not wine in the judgment of the ancients.
…
W.
G. Brown, who travelled extensively in Africa, Egypt, and Syria from A.D. 1792
to 1798, states that "the wines of Syria are most of them prepared by
boiling immediately after they are expressed from the grape, till they are
considerably reduced in quantity, when they were put into jars or large bottles
and preserved for use." He adds, "There is reason to believe that
this mode of boiling was a general practice among the ancients."
…
Caspar
Neuman, M.D., Professor of Chemistry, Berlin, 1759, says: "It is
observable that when sweet juices are boiled down to a thick consistence, they
not only do not ferment in that state, but are not easily brought into
fermentation when diluted with as much water as they had lost in the
evaporation, or even with the very individual water that exhaled from them.”
…
The Rev. Dr.
Jacobus, commenting on the wine made by Christ, says: "This wine was not
that fermented liquor which passes now under that name. All who know of the
wines then used will understand rather the unfermented juice of the grape. The
present wines of Jerusalem and Lebanon, as we tasted them, were commonly boiled
and sweet, without intoxicating qualities, such as we here get in liquors
called wines. The boiling prevents the fermentation. Those were esteemed the
best wines which were least strong."
…
Horace,
liber i. ode xviii. line 21, thus wrote: "Hic innocentis pocula Lesbii
Duces sub umbra.” Professor Christopher Smart, of Pembroke College, Cambridge,
England, more than a hundred years since, when there was no controversy about
fermented or unfermented wines, thus translated this passage: "Here shall
you quaff, under a shade, cups of unintoxicating wine."
…
We
cannot imagine that Pliny, Columella, Varro, Cato, and others were either cooks
or writers of cookbooks, but were intelligent gentlemen moving in the best
circles of society. So when they, with minute care, give the recipes for making
sweet wine, which will remain so during the year, and the processes were such
as to prevent fermentation, we are persuaded that these were esteemed in their
day.
 |
| Aristotle, 385-322 BC |
Aristotle,
384 BC
The wine of
Arcadia was so thick that it was necessary to scrape it from the skin bottles
in which it was contained, and to dissolve the scrapings in water.
Michael
Donovan, Bible Commentary, 1830
In
order to preserve their wines to these ages, the Romans concentrated the must
or grape-juice, of which they were made, by evaporation, either spontaneous in
the air or over a fire, and so much so as to render them thick and syrupy.
…
Those
ancient authors who treat upon domestic manners abound with allusions to this
usage. Hot water, tepid water, or cold water was used for the dilution of wine
according to the season…Hesiod prescribed, during the summer months, three
parts of water to one of wine…Nicochares considers two parts of wine to five of
water as the proper proportion…According to Homer, Pramnian and Meronian wines
required twenty parts of water to one of wine. Hippocrates considered twenty
parts of water to one of the Thracian wine to be the proper
beverage...Athenaeus states that the Taeniotic has such a degree of richness or
fatness that when mixed with water it seemed gradually to be diluted, much in
the same way as Attic honey well mixed.
Benjamin
Parsons, Anti-Bacchus, 1840
Horace, born
65 B.C., says "there is no wine sweeter to drink than Lesbian; that it was
like nectar, and more resembled ambrosia than wine; that it was perfectly
harmless, and would not produce intoxication."
…
Pliny
says "some Roman wines were as thick as honey," also that the
"Albanian wine was very sweet or luscious, and that it took the third rank
among all the wines:" He also tells of a Spanish wine in his day, called
"Inerticulum" - that is, would not intoxicate - from
"iners," inert, without force or spirit, more properly termed
"justicus sobriani," sober wine, which would not inebriate.
…
Columella
says the Greeks called this unintoxicating wine "Amethyston," from
Alpha, negative, and methusis, intoxicate - that is, a wine which would not
intoxicate. He adds that it was a good wine, harmless, and called
"iners," because it would not affect the nerves, but at the same time
it was not deficient in flavor.
John
Kitto, The Olive, Vine, and Palm, 1848
The
Mishna states that the Jews were in the habit of using boiled wine.
…
[quoting
Pliny] "That wine is produced by care." He then gives the method:
"Mergunt earn protinus in aqua cados donec bruma transeat et consuetudo
fiat algendi." "They plunge the casks, immediately after they are
filled from the vat, into water, until winter has passed away and the wine has
acquired the habit of being cold.”
Constantin
Volney, Travels in Syria, 1801
The
wines are of three sorts, the red, the white, and the yellow. The white, which
are the most rare, are so bitter as to be disagreeable; the two others, on the
contrary, are too sweet and sugary. This arises from their being boiled, which
makes them resemble the baked wines of Provence. The general custom of the
country is to reduce the must to two-thirds of its quantity…It is probably that
the inhabitants of Lebanon have made no change in their ancient method of
making wines.
Alexander
Adam, Roman Antiquities, 1791
 |
| Virgil, 70-19 BC |
[referring
to Pliny and Virgil] In order to make wine keep, they used to boil (deconquere) the
must down to one-half, when it was called defrutum, to one-third, sapa.
…
…that
the Romans fumigated their wines with the fumes of sulphur; that they also
mixed with the mustum, newly pressed juice, yolks of eggs, and other articles
containing sulphur. When thus defaecabantur (from defaeco, 'to cleanse from the
dregs, to strain through a strainer, refine, purify, defecate'), it was poured
(diffusum) into smaller vessels or casks covered over with pitch, and bunged or
stopped up.
William
Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1870
A
considerable quantity of must from the best and oldest vines was inspissated by
boiling, being then distinguished by the Greeks under the general name Epsuma
or Gleuxis, while the Latin writers have various terms, according to the extent
to which the evaporation was carried; as Carenum, one-third; defrutum,
one-half; and saps, two-thirds.
…
The
sweet, unfermented juice of the grape was termed gleukos by the Greeks and
mustum by the Romans - the latter word being properly an adjective signifying
new or fresh…A portion of the must was used at once, being drunk fresh…When it
was desired to preserve a quantity in the sweet state, an amphora was taken and
coated with pitch within and without, it was filled with mustum lixivium, and
corked so as to be perfectly airtight. It was then immersed in a tank of cold
fresh water, or buried in wet sand, and allowed to remain for six weeks or two
months. The contents, after this process, was found to remain unchanged for a
year, and hence the name, aeigleukos - that is, `semper mustum,' always sweet.
Alexander
Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo, 1851
The
inspissated juice of the grape, saps vina, called here dibbs, is brought to the
city in skins and sold in the public markets; it has much the appearance of
coarse honey, is of a sweet taste, and in great use among the people of all
sorts.
Inspissated
defined - to thicken, as
by evaporation; make or become dense
Eli Smith, Bibliotheca
Sacra, 1846
The
only form in which the unfermented juice of the grape is preserved is that of
dibbs, which may be called grape-molasses.
Henry Homes,
Bibliotheca Sacra, 1848
Simple
grape-juice, without the addition of any earth to neutralize the acidity, is
boiled from four to five hours, so as to reduce it one-fourth the quantity put
in. After the boiling, for preserving it cool, and that it be less liable to
ferment, it is put into earthen instead of wooden vessels, closely tied over
with skin to exclude the aft. It ordinarily has not a particle of intoxicating
quality, being used freely by both Mohammedans and Christians. Some which I
have had on hand for two years has undergone no change…The manner of making and
preserving this unfermented grape-liquor seems to correspond with the recipes
and descriptions of certain drinks included by some of the ancients under the
appellation of wine.
 |
| Plutarch, AD 45-120 |
Plutarch, Symposium,
60
Wine
is rendered old or feeble in strength when it is frequently filtered. The
strength or spirit being thus excluded, the wine neither inflames the brain nor
infests the mind and the passions, and is much more pleasant to drink.
…
The
most useful wine has all its force or strength broken by the filter.
Samuel
Lee, Dr. Lee’s Works, 1783
Captain
Treat, in 1845, wrote: "When on the south coast of Italy, last Christmas,
I enquired particularly about the wines in common use, and found that those
esteemed the best were sweet and unintoxicating. The boiled juice of the grape
is in common use in Sicily. The Calabrians keep their intoxicating and
unintoxicating wines in separate apartments. The bottles were generally marked.
From enquiries, I found that unfermented wines were esteemed the most. It was
drunk mixed with water. Great pains were taken in the vintage season to have a good
stock of it laid by. The grape-juice was filtered two or three times, and then
bottled, and some put in casks and buried in the earth - some kept in water (to
prevent fermentation).”
…
Captain
Treat says, "The unfermented wine is esteemed the most in the south of
Italy, and wine is drunk mixed with water."
Columella,
De Re Rustica, circa 50
That
your must may always be as sweet as when it is new, thus proceed: Before you
apply the press to the fruit, take the newest must from the lake, put into a
new amphora, bung it up, and cover it very carefully with pitch, lest any water
should enter; then immerse it in a cistern or pond of pure cold water, and
allow no part of the amphora to remain above the surface. After forty days,
take it out, and it will remain sweet for a year.
Frederic
Millet, Gardener’s Dictionary, 1731
The
way to preserve new wine, in the state of must; is to put it up in very strong
but small casks, firmly closed on all sides, by which means it will be kept
from fermenting. But if it should happen to fall into fermentation, the only
way to stop it is by the fumes of sulphur.
Alexander
Henderson, This History of Ancient and Modern Wines, 1824
[commenting
on the boiled wine preferred by Virgil] The use of this inspissated juice became general.
 |
| Columella, AD 4-70 |
So what do these quotes reveal? Three
things… First, that unfermented beverages existed and were commonly drunk
millennia before the modern nineteenth century process of pasteurization. Second, they achieved
this mainly by boiling the juice and storing it in an airtight environment.
Third, these were also called wine.
…but go ahead. Keep maintaining
that no such thing existed in Jesus' day. Force
your twenty first century definition of the word wine on a
two thousand year old Bible. And then go quaff your alcoholic beverages with a
clear conscience.
There is a phrase for that:
ignorance is bliss.
That
is the big picture of my approach. Now let me give you something more specific
to Deut 14.26. There are some conservative Christians who assert that 'strong
drink' here doesn't mean alcohol. I disagree. I do agree that 'wine' doesn't
always mean alcohol, but 'strong drink' is rather clear to me, and as a KJV man
who doesn't believe in correcting the Bible I cannot hold that position only
until it is convenient for me to correct the Bible. IOW, I do believe Moses is
here stating that one is free to purchase alcoholic beverages and consume them
during the consumption of the tithe feast at Jerusalem.
