Numbers 6 proves "wine" isn't a misprint

[jmowreader]

Your standard fundamentalist will tell you that every single word in the Bible is the absolute literal and correct word of God, except for one: "wine." Apparently this was mistranslated and should have been "grape juice."

I was trying to find the passage in the Bible's Numbers 5 that tells you how to do an abortion, and decided to flip forth to Numbers 6...where I find this:

1 The Lord said to Moses,

2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of dedication to the Lord as a Nazirite,

3 they must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or other fermented drink. They must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins.

4 As long as they remain under their Nazirite vow, they must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins.

5 “‘During the entire period of their Nazirite vow, no razor may be used on their head. They must be holy until the period of their dedication to the Lord is over; they must let their hair grow long.

6 “‘Throughout the period of their dedication to the Lord, the Nazirite must not go near a dead body.

7 Even if their own father or mother or brother or sister dies, they must not make themselves ceremonially unclean on account of them, because the symbol of their dedication to God is on their head.

8 Throughout the period of their dedication, they are consecrated to the Lord.

9 “‘If someone dies suddenly in the Nazirite’s presence, thus defiling the hair that symbolizes their dedication, they must shave their head on the seventh day—the day of their cleansing.

10 Then on the eighth day they must bring two doves or two young pigeons to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

11 The priest is to offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to make atonement for the Nazirite because they sinned by being in the presence of the dead body. That same day they are to consecrate their head again.

12 They must rededicate themselves to the Lord for the same period of dedication and must bring a year-old male lamb as a guilt offering. The previous days do not count, because they became defiled during their period of dedication.

13 “‘Now this is the law of the Nazirite when the period of their dedication is over. They are to be brought to the entrance to the tent of meeting.

14 There they are to present their offerings to the Lord: a year-old male lamb without defect for a burnt offering, a year-old ewe lamb without defect for a sin offering, a ram without defect for a fellowship offering,

15 together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and a basket of bread made with the finest flour and without yeast—thick loaves with olive oil mixed in, and thin loaves brushed with olive oil.

16 “‘The priest is to present all these before the Lord and make the sin offering and the burnt offering.

17 He is to present the basket of unleavened bread and is to sacrifice the ram as a fellowship offering to the Lord, together with its grain offering and drink offering.

18 “‘Then at the entrance to the tent of meeting, the Nazirite must shave off the hair that symbolizes their dedication. They are to take the hair and put it in the fire that is under the sacrifice of the fellowship offering.

19 “‘After the Nazirite has shaved off the hair that symbolizes their dedication, the priest is to place in their hands a boiled shoulder of the ram, and one thick loaf and one thin loaf from the basket, both made without yeast.

20 The priest shall then wave these before the Lord as a wave offering; they are holy and belong to the priest, together with the breast that was waved and the thigh that was presented. After that, the Nazirite may drink wine.

21 “‘This is the law of the Nazirite who vows offerings to the Lord in accordance with their dedication, in addition to whatever else they can afford. They must fulfill the vows they have made, according to the law of the Nazirite.’”

Note that 6.3 contains both the words "wine" and "grape juice." Since it does, the word "wine" couldn't have been mistranslated and Jesus' first miracle couldn't have been making 200 gallons of grape juice for a party that had run out.

[cbayer]

1. I have never heard of this before. What is the objection to the word wine?

[okasha]

3. I've never heard a fundamentalist maintain

that there's a mistranslation. While many fundamentalist groups forbid alcohol, it's because of the possible negative effects drinking, not because "nobody in the Bible drank wine."

[cbayer]

5. Agree. I have met some fundamentalists that don't drink because they think

it's sinful, but I never discussed possible biblical origins of this.

[rrneck]

7. I've heard the grape juice thing when i was a kid. ntt

[cbayer]

9. That it was a mistranslation? I believe you.

[rrneck]

10. Can't say for sure.

It was a long time ago, but that sort of thing usually gets stovepiped right to you from the SBC.

[okasha]

17. My Southern Baptisi mother

told me that alcohol and dancing were against the church's belief because they constitute "revelry."

[cbayer]

18. Did she never read Ecclesiastes?

It's all about revelry, imo.

[okasha]

21. Ecclesiastes?

Or the Song of Solomon? They're both glorious poetry, especially in the KJV, but I've always thought Ecclesiastes was a bit grim.

I don't know what her take was on the SoS, or indeed if she had read it. Come to think of it, I don' know how the SBC feels about it at all.

[cbayer]

25. I like both of those books, as well as many of the Psalms.

They, along with some other religious writings, got me through some tough times. And when I thought I had hit bottom, Job brought me back to reality.

[okasha]

33. There's a lot of wisdom in those books,

and you don't have to be Jewish or Christian to appreciate it. I also like the apocryphal book of Wisdom, not least because Holy Wisdom (Sophia) is personified as a woman.

There is a branch of theology developing that identifies Holy Wisdom as the second person of the Christian trinity, incarnated as a man in Roman Palestine only because of cultural norms of the time and place. It should be interesting to watch as it unfolds.

[cbayer]

35. Not familiar with Wisdom. Interesting stuff.

Thanks!

[rrneck]

23. Southern Baptists never have sex standing up.

They're afraid it will lead to dancing.


That's what I got out of it as well, the horrible specter of the joy of living. I guess it's a throwback of our Calvinistic roots.

[okasha]

24. Someone has defined Calvinism

as the terrible fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. At bottom, I think, it's about avoiding anything that could lead to loss of self control. Herod got drunk, and Salome danced, and look how that turned out.

That never stopped half the Baptists in Amarillo from drinking, though, and dumping their empties in the Catholic churches' trash cans.

[rrneck]

26. I learned from the staff at a hotel in Nashville

that when the SBC had their convention there deliveries of liquor to the rooms skyrocketed.

[okasha]

28. And I'll bet

the local working girls made a boodle, too.

[Nay]

29. The porn channels do well, too. nt

[jmowreader]

36. Remember the old phrase "Protestant work ethic""?

Old-line Protestants believe that passage to Heaven is earned through a joyless existence on Earth. My mother, who was raised Catholic, still believes this...and she has no problem with running down anyone who's enjoying themselves in any way, shape or form.

[jmowreader]

11. There is this...

http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/books/wine_in_the_bible/2.html

http://www.learnthebible.org/jesus-and-wine.html

http://www.builders-of-faith.org/article/22/bible-topics/the-biblical-teaching-on-wine-and-alcohol

[2ndAmForComputers]

40. The fundies I met say all wine drank by the good guys in the Bible were magically made non-alcoholic

Not the exact words, but that was the gist of it.

[longship]

4. Hic! I dunno.

Couldn't resist.

I grew up in a UCC church (aka Congregational) often portrayed as the most liberal of the Protestant sects. Indeed, that was my experience. Not much dogma -- of course, there was the Apostle's Creed, but little else. As Daniel Dennett (a fellow UCC former attendee) has aptly observed, the music was always great and the Christmas celebrations were indeed joyful.

I always wondered why our church served grape juice (OMG, it was Welch's) rather than wine. Growing up in a Catholic neighborhood taught me that much. With such liberal theological policies, why half-step? There certainly was no fire and brimstone from the pulpit and I don't remember alcohol ever being mentioned.

Just something that makes one think.

[cbayer]

6. Our church served grape juice out of respect to those who did not or could not

take alcohol for whatever reason. There are certain meds used in the treatment of alcoholism that can cause serious reactions if the person takes even the tiniest bit of alcohol.

And kids started taking communion at 12 or 13, which I think may have also been an issue.

But in the protestant denomination I was raised in, it was understood that it was symbolic and the issue of "real wine" never seemed to come up.

[blueridge3210]

16. Welch's

I was taught a few years ago that Welch's got into the grape juice business in order to provide a non alcoholic element for Communion/Lord's Supper. Found it to be an interesting bit of information.

[jmowreader]

37. Welch's invented the grape juice business for exactly that reason

[Warpy]

2. Of course they read it wrong

They can't forbid their believers alcohol if Jesus not only drank it, he produced it.

When the grapes were first pressed, they probably did enjoy grape juice. However, the harvest ended and the grape juice started to ferment and they needed to control the conditions so that it wouldn't ferment all the way to vinegar, although they did produce that, too.

What you get with grapes that ferment anaerobically is wine, not mere grape juice, and it's time the pious figure that out.

It's only recently that refrigeration and treating our water have allowed us to avoid alcohol.

[rug]

8. If I ever run across someone who says that, I'll tell them.

[bmbmd]

12. More people are probably familiar with the wedding

At Cana, where Jesus turned the water in to wine in John chapter 2. The account is clear in that the new, better wine was served at the end of the celebration, after the guests were already drunk. Hard to get drunk on grape juice.

[aquart]

15. New wine is better? Then why vintages?

[bmbmd]

19. "New"

meaning recent. I expect wine made miraculously by the son of God would be pretty tasty.

[cbayer]

20. I would definitely take a case.

[okasha]

22. So would I.

[cbayer]

27. okasha, if you like wine, check out Nakedwines.com

Great company doing a good thing and selling some wonderful wines.

It's kind of like free trade products, but with wine.

[okasha]

34. Thanks!

I'll have a look at this.

[Mariana]

32. When the new wine is made by Jesus, miraculously,

the normal rules probably don't apply.

[jmowreader]

38. When Jesus makes wine he makes the good stuff

What I got out of that was, the standard custom in that era was to serve fine wine until everyone is drunk enough that they can't tell good wine from bad, at which time they switched the party to Cold Duck. Jesus produced fine wine for a room full of drunks.

[d_r]

13. the first thing Noah

did when he found land was plant a vinyard. The second thing he did was get drunk and pass out naked. The third thing he did was curse his son Ham into slavery for laughing at him being drunk and naked.

[aquart]

14. Frankly, I'm more suspicious of a substitution of wine for an original beer.

The entire Lot (OT) episode is a series of ribald puns on women, salt, and beer mash, beer vat...

The patriarchal Hebrews spoke often enough of wine but the surrounding cultures guzzled beer produced and owned by women.

[Politicalboi]

30. What store carries marriage registries for

Rams, Lambs, and Doves. The hair clippers will be easy to get anywhere.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

31. I've come across this one, and my favorite response is by Robert Farrar Capon

The Episcopalian priest, Robert Farrar Capon, in his book The Supper of the Lamb, speaks about the wine/grape juice controversy:

Consider first the teetotalers. They began, no doubt, by observing that some men use wine to excess -- to the point at which, though the wine remains true to itself, the drinker does not. That much, I give them: Drunks are a nuisance. But they went too far. Only the ungrateful or the purblind can see that sugar in the grape and yeast on the skins is a divine idea, not a human one. Man's part in the process consists of honest and prudent management of the work that God has begun. Something underhanded has to be done to grape juice to keep it from running its appointed course.

Witness the teetotaling communion service. Most Protestants, I suppose, imagine that it is part of the true
Reformed religion. But have they considered that, for nineteen centuries after the institution of the Eucharist,
wine was the only element available for the sacrament? Do they serious envision St. Paul or Calvin or Luther opening bottles of Welch's Grape Juice in the sacristy before the service? Luther, at least, would turn over in his grave. The WCTU version of the Lord's Supper is a bare 100 years old. Grape juice was no commercially available until the discovery of pasteurization; and, unless I am mistaken, it was Mr. Welch himself (an ardent total abstainer) who persuaded American Protestantism to abandon what the Lord obviously thought rather kindly of.

That much damage done, however, the itch for consistency took over with a vengence. Even the Lord's own delight was explained away. One of the most fanciful pieces of exegesis I ever read began by maintaining that the Greek word for wine, as used in the Gospels, meant many other things than wine. The commentator cited, as I recall, grape juice for one meaning, and raisin paste for another. He inclined, ultimately, toward the latter.

I suppose that such people are blessed with reverent minds which prevent them from drawing irreverent conclusions. I myself, however, could never resist the temptation to read raisin paste for wine in the story of the Miracle of Cana. "When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made raisin paste...he said unto the bridegroom, `Every man at the beginning doth set forth good raisin paste, and when men have well drunk [eaten?--the text is no doubt corrupt], then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good raisin paste until now.'" Does it not whet your appetite for the critical omnia opera of such an author, where he will freely have at the entire length and breadth of Scripture? Can you not see his promised land flowing with peanut butter and jelly; his apocalypse, in which the great whore Babylon is given the cup of the ginger ale of the fierceness of the wrath of God?

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

39. I just discovered that Father Capon died earlier this month.

Requiescat in pace.