Should Christians Drink Intoxicating Beverages? Compare the Production
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Read the series.
Christians need to understand the differences in the production and consumption of intoxicating beverages in Bible times compared to modern times. This difference is a significant concern that needs to be addressed as we ponder Christians and social drinking.
Christians need to understand the differences in the production and consumption of intoxicating beverages in Bible times compared to modern times. This difference is a significant concern that needs to be addressed as we ponder Christians and social drinking.
Before we get into this, let’s do a quick recap of the first two articles in the series. Drunkenness is not an option for a follower of Jesus. This is quite plain in Scripture (see Part 1). This being understood, the question remains as to whether drinking with moderation is acceptable for a Christian. Arguments in favor of social drinking have already been discussed (see Part 2). It would be most helpful to read these two articles before continuing here.
Now we need to consider the differences in the production and consumption of intoxicating beverages in ancient times compared to today. It seems that not many Christians are aware of these differences. If they are true, these distinctions effect the discussion significantly.
Drinking Wine in Biblical Times
Wine in the Bible was alcoholic; it was fermented grape juice. Those that drank wine in Bible times could get drunk from the wine (and examples in Scripture are easy to find). However, there is a significant difference between the wine that used then and what is made in factories and distilleries today.
In ancient Bible times, water was scarce. Water that was available was often contaminated and unclean. Fermented wine was used to purify and keep the water for extended periods of time. People did not have many beverage choices like we do today.
What it took to get drunk
People did not have an abundance of fruit juices, soda, bottled water, fresh milk, or other options available all around them like we do today. Wine that was produced in ancient times was mixed with a lot of water.
When they drank the wine, the alcoholic content was not strong enough for them to become easily drunk by it. To get drunk, a person would have to drink many glasses of it. That is why in Proverbs 23 we are told that drunkards are those that linger over wine:
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wine. (Prov 23:29-30)
Because of this difference in alcoholic content, Paul could encourage Timothy to drink a little wine as medicine for his stomach without concern for his becoming drunk. However, it’s worth noting that Timothy did not want to drink any wine at all until Paul persuaded him to do so for his health.
No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. (1 Tim 5:23)
Now we will look at the differences in how alcoholic beverages were made in ancient times versus the present.1
How alcoholic beverages were made in ancient times
In ancient times, there was not yet the technology to distill wine to increase its alcoholic content like there is today. However, they made wine by pressing the grapes with their feet in a stone vat. They collected the grape juice into cisterns, large jars, or leather bottles where the juice fermented on its own over time. In this way the taste also improved as it fermented.
The grape harvest occurred once per year, so they needed to make wine in order to keep the grape juice good over the course of at least a year, until the next harvest. If they did not do this, the grape juice would go bad and the crop would be wasted, as the juice turned to sour vinegar, which is undrinkable.
Furthermore, it was impossible to seal up unfermented fruit juice because it began to ferment starting the very first day it was pressed in the vat. They did not yet have the technology to keep fruit juice from going sour. If they made wine, however, the juice would not be lost, because the alcohol in the wine would preserve the juice, even for many years.
How alcoholic beverages are made in modern times
In modern times many people no longer consider drunkenness a vice or even shameful. Over the course of hundreds of years, the methods and technology for increasing alcoholic content in alcoholic beverages has led to many becoming dependent upon alcohol for happiness. Drunkenness has become a normal part of life.
Today, wine makers are able to alter and select seeds, engineering grapes that have a much higher sugar content than was originally true. The extra sugar results in a much higher alcohol content in the wine because it breaks down, turning into alcohol. Sometimes wine makers even add sugar to the process to encourage higher alcohol content.
Modern, high-tech chemical machines heat and pressurize the beverage, resulting in a much higher alcohol content than would be possible through natural processes. Ethanol is also added to some kinds of alcoholic beverages, and other added gases cause the alcohol to enter the blood stream faster than normal, resulting in quicker inebriation. Modern factories are able to make an enormous volume of alcoholic beverages very quickly, lowering the price of the intoxicating drinks in the market and making the alcohol inexpensive so that buyers can drink to their heart’s content.
Contrasting the beverages of the times
The alcohol we see for sale today is very different from the wine made in ancient times. Those who produce and distribute intoxicating beverages know that intoxicating beverages will sell well and make an easy profit. They know that customers want alcoholic drinks for receptions and parties—people want them for every event. Very few people can drink these beverages in today’s world and not get drunk, at least sometimes.
With these differences in mind, It is no surprise that frequent alcohol abuse has become a huge problem in many societies. For example, as of 2021 in the United States, 29.5 million people ages 12 and older (10.6% in this age group) had “alcohol use disorder” in the previous year. The research also says that approximately 10.5% (7.5 million) of U.S. children ages 17 and younger live with a parent who has alcohol use disorder (See: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism).
When we, as believers in Jesus Christ, read His Word and come across the word “wine,” let us not equate it mentally with modern alcoholic beverages – beer, wine, whiskey, or other liquor. The substances are not the same. Jesus did not turn the water in those pitchers into the kinds of intoxicating beverages that we are so familiar with at the world’s parties in our time. The apostle Paul did not insist that Timothy drink beer, hard liquor, or anything else that you see sold at stores and markets around the world today.
For an accessible and yet well-documented explanation of these differences in production, see Dr. Randy Jaeggli’s book, Christians and Alcohol.2
These differences should give pause
As believers take all of this in, they have to reckon with the reality that what people are drinking in their homes, restaurants, sporting events, backyard barbeques, and bars in today’s world is quite different from what is being described to us in the Scriptures. Jesus, David, Peter, and Jacob were not drinking the same thing. This should give us pause.
If the differences in alcoholic beverages then and now really are significant, it should cause Christians to give greater attention to other arguments from those urging abstinence. In the next article, we will look at other biblical arguments that favor abstinence.
Notes
1 Credit goes to Michael Carlyle for his help in concisely laying out this explanation here.
2 This book dives deep into all related Biblical texts, the original languages, and ANE (Ancient Near Eastern) cultural studies that come to bear on this topic in Scripture. He also gives helpful illustrations throughout. Many research sources are cited as well.
Rooted Thinking Articles
Reposted from Rooted Thinking.
Forrest McPhail Bio
Forrest has served as a missionary in Buddhist Cambodia in Southeast Asia since 2000. He presently serves as the Asia/Australia/Oceania regional director for Gospel Fellowship Association missions. He enjoys writing and teaching on missions and the Buddhist worldview. He and his wife, Jennifer, have 4 children.
- 1976 views
You don't have to respond to anything. I'll take it that you either don't understand the concept of metaphors or you don't want to.
So I agree many drinks do have higher concentrations of alcohol, via distillation, I would not say the same thing of wine or beer. The limits would have been reached when the alcohol began killing the microbes needed to produce more alcohol. The Jews appear to have felt it was the wine, not the water that needed cleansing, to make it a bit weaker.
I would also suggest before next time thinking through the metaethics underlying the position you intend to take, a virtue theory is going to be different than a deontological approach. I believe Galatians 5-6 favors virtue in these regards.
Don, I would appreciate less “or you don’t want to” and “You all want to justify your point of view, so you are grasping at this straw.”
Certainly debates like this can be frustrating. We each might suspect the other is grasping at things and we might suspect the other is frustrated and desperate to justify a cherished point of view. But it’s easy to stay into ad hominem when you go that way.
participants refuse to engage actual data presented.
One can only conclude some other motive is involved. That is not ad hominem.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
OK, so Don agrees that wine diluted with water is worthless, and the verse therefore indicates that, at least at the time of the Prophet, diluted wine was seen as undesirable. Agreed.
And for reference, Don, I did my own "Google" search, and what I found, again, is very consistent with the links you provided; watering down wine appears to be a Greek habit initially that was sometimes found among Jews in the Diaspora, but was relatively unknown in Israel. And I am still unclear on why any sane person would recommend the wine-drinking habits of the ancient Greeks as any antidote to drunkenness is beyond me. They had temples to Bacchus/Dionysius.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
It is no discussion when participants refuse to engage actual data presented.
Oh, do you mean a refusal like when someone says, "I won’t be dragged into a back and forth with you."? I WAS engaging with the data you presented. I even used part of one of the quotes you presented as I asked you some questions. You were the one who shut down the conversation.
OK, so Don agrees that wine diluted with water is worthless, and the verse therefore indicates that, at least at the time of the Prophet, diluted wine was seen as undesirable. Agreed.
Bert, what fallacy is it when you put words in someone else's mouth? I am sure you know (I don't).
The point is that Isa 1.22 says "Your silver has become dross" (ie, it isn't silver) and adds a parallel metaphor "Your drink is cut with water" to the point, according to the commentaries, that it is no longer water. He is describing, not silver, not wine (actually "drink", probably beer or some kind of grain alcohol), but the rulers.
To put it in our vernacular, Isaiah is criticizing the rulers as being "empty suits" (or in a western sense, "all hat, no cattle"
That is the point of the passage.
If silver was transformed to dross, it wouldn't be silver any more
If wine (drink) had all its substance cut so that it had become water, it wouldn't be water any more
No one runs around with dross and says "look at how much silver I have"
No one shares around water and says, "look at how much wine (drink) I have"
The verse isn't commenting on Israelite practice with wine at the time at all. That isn't the point.
And for reference, Don, I did my own "Google" search, and what I found, again, is very consistent with the links you provided; watering down wine appears to be a Greek habit initially that was sometimes found among Jews in the Diaspora, but was relatively unknown in Israel. And I am still unclear on why any sane person would recommend the wine-drinking habits of the ancient Greeks as any antidote to drunkenness is beyond me. They had temples to Bacchus/Dionysius.
First, I am not recommending any drinking habits. I oppose all consumption of alcohol as a beverage.
Second, I don't see dilution as an antidote to drunkenness. Obviously people can get drunk on diluted alcohol. It might taste funny and take longer, but drunkenness is still possible.
The reason I bring this up at all is to correct statements you made about the history of alcohol use. I think you have mischaracterized the practices of the ancients. I think if we went back through this thread we would find you mischaracterizing the practices of the Gentiles, and I am certain you are mischaracterizing the practices of the Jews of the first century.
Here are the links supporting that assertion. Some of these are blogs, so you will have to track down their sources. Nonetheless, they make the point that Jews commonly diluted their wine.
Was New Testament Wine Alcoholic? - Christ and Culture (sebts.edu)
The Fruit of the Vine - BYU Studies (note source)
Common Table Drink. “The ordinary table beverage of the Mediterranean world in Roman times was wine mixed with water.” This mixture was not only preferred for reasons of taste and custom, but mixing water with wine also helped to purify the water. The wine was poured through a strainer (to remove lees and insects) into a large bowl, where it was mixed with various amounts of water. From there it was poured into individual cups or bowls. Jewish literature before and after the first century records mixing wine with water: “It is harmful to drink wine alone, or again, to drink water alone, while wine mixed with water is sweet and delicious and enhances one’s enjoyment” (2 Macc. 15:39). Rabbi Eliezer (circa A.D. 100) is quoted in the Mishnah: “They do not say the Benediction over the wine until water has been added to it.” The ratio is thought to be one part of wine to two parts water, but later Talmudic sources record a one to three mixture.
2Ma 15:39 For as it is hurtful to drink wine or water alone; and as wine mingled with water is pleasant, and delighteth the taste: even so speech finely framed delighteth the ears of them that read the story. And here shall be an end.
Why Did the Rabbis of the Talmud Speak of Diluting Wine? – Excerpted
Note, this one says that diluting wine came from the Greek world. I don't deny that. However, the point is that during the Second Temple period (ie, post Maccabees to Christ) Jews commonly diluted wine.
Alcohol in the Bible - Wikipedia
(Ok, so yes, Wikipedia - not an unbiased source necessarily)
Alcoholic wine in the ancient world was significantly different than modern wines in that it had much lower alcohol content and was consumed after significant dilution with water (as attested by even other cultures surrounding Israel), thus rendering its alcoholic content negligible by modern standards.[6][101][8] The low alcoholic content was due to the limitations of fermentation in the ancient world.[9][6] From the Mishnah and Talmuds, the common dilution rate for consumption for Jews 3 parts water to 1 part wine (3:1 dilution ratio).[6] Wine in the ancient world had a maximum possible alcoholic content of 11-12 percent (before dilution) and once diluted, it reduced to 2.75 or 3%.[6] Other after-dilution estimates of neighbors like the Greeks have dilution of 1:1 or 2:1 which place the alcohol content between 4-7%.[101]
To close: I am only arguing against your assertion that the Jews did not dilute wine. I'm pretty sure I've read it in the secular books I quoted earlier, but I didn't find that reference in my notes. Nonetheless, these websites repeat the things I remember reading.
What is the point of bringing up dilution? The point is to simply say that drinking culture in Bible times was quite different from drinking culture today. Thus, in trying to understand Bible teaching about the subject, we need to take this into consideration.
But to repeatedly assert that the Jews did not dilute wine in the face of apparent evidence to the contrary shows an unwillingness to take all these facts into consideraton. Your mind is made up, don't bother me with the facts.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
I wouldn't draw on 2nd temple Judaism in relation to the practices from the time of Isaiah, a lot may have changed between these two points in time.
Might I also suggest examining Christian practice here? Why is it that teetotaling is primarily a feature that starts with American Christianity?
All of this dilution talk made me curious. If in fact wine was commonly diluted with water in Biblical times, would it follow that a person drinking it then would have a lower alcohol intake than a person who chooses to drink in moderation today?
Let's assume a person consumes a half-gallon (64 oz.) of liquid per day. (Google gives a variety of responses on recommended and average consumption per day, based on geographic location, weight, and various other factors, but let's just select 64 oz. for our purposes here.)
A 3:1 dilution ratio would mean that 48 oz. of that total would be water, and 16 oz. wine. Now, for ease of calculation, let's assume the wine is 12.5% ABV. Under those parameters, a person would have a daily consumption of 2.0 oz. of alcohol.
Now, let's say a person today consumes a glass of wine daily with their dinner (as part of their overall daily 64 oz. liquid intake). A 5 oz. glass of wine with a 12.5% ABV contains .625 oz. of alcohol.
2.0 oz. compared to .625 oz. would mean that the person back then would be consuming over 3 times as much alcohol on a daily basis as someone who chooses to drink in moderation today. To take in as much alcohol today, a person would need to drink 3+ glasses of wine on a daily basis. And as I've already pointed out de facto dilution today can occur simply by someone consuming other beverages along with the wine.
I don't drink wine, but it's realizations such as this that prevent me from judging other Christians who choose to do so in moderation.
This is just the problem ofnthe heap. Looking for a specific quantity of alcohol doesn't resolve much because the body filters alcohol out during the day, so drinking it in higher concentrations will have an impact on its effects-so will drinking on an empty stomach, body weight, etc.
Distilled liquor is a problem in this regard--I mentioned that to Forrest when I saw the first one. But with wine or beer--I'm not sure what we're are talking about is significant (hence the problem of the heap, distilled liquor is too concentrated, but we can't set an absolute point of x-concentration is where it goes bad).
I don't think one can argue teetotaling from the New Testament without exercising some faulty technique. And no, that isn't my trying to salve my consciousness, I don't drink, and don't plan to start unless a doctor tells me I should. I think there is a problem of trying to boil this down to a rule, I think Paul in Galatians is arguing against an ethic of rules, his discussion of sanctification seems to better fit a virtue theory of ethics than deontological ethics. I plan to do an article on that point and it's part of my final dissertation chapter (dissertation still in progress), as I won't go through my reasoning, but this is one of those issues that can't be.resolved by trying to impose man made rules as a fence around the law, because what inevitably happens is eventually we treat the fence as if it were part of the law itself. Drunkenness is wrong, but a tradition of the elders doesn't ultimately help us to develop the Christian ethic or ethos.
If silver was transformed to dross, it wouldn't be silver any more
If wine (drink) had all its substance cut so that it had become water, it wouldn't be water any more
No one runs around with dross and says "look at how much silver I have"
No one shares around water and says, "look at how much wine (drink) I have"
Ah, thanks for clarifying. I didn't realize you were assuming that the second part of the parallelism was meaning a complete transformation to water. I don't think a Biblical understanding of parallelisms requires one to exaggerate the meaning of "cut" to that degree. None of the commentaries you quoted described the "weakening" by water as a sort of compete transformation.
I guess I suspected you might be thinking of a huge amount of dilution because my last paragraph in a previous post started with "Some people might claim that Israelites could dilute their wine for drinking and it wouldn't be worthless until it reached the levels indicated by Isaiah 1:22, but Isaiah 1:22 doesn't give any specific levels at which the wine has become weakened." I still stand by that assessment, but at least now I understand where your mind was at.
Do you not understand Hebrew parallelism?
22 Your silver has become dross,
Your drink diluted with water.
What is dross? It is the impurities left over when silver is purified. In other words, all the good of Israel has turned into something worthlesss.
In parallel, the metaphor of wine "diluted with water" is saying you are worthless, you have no value. The metaphor is saying the rulers are worthless.
Agreed. Hence I point out, Don, by your own words, that the Hebrew attitude towards diluted wines, at least in the time of Isaiah, is that it was about the same as that of drinkers of real beer towards Bud Light and Coors Light. Or, as a coworker of mine noted when I noted that Anheuser-Busch was canning water to send to hurricane zones, "That's nothing. Coors has been doing that for decades!"
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Hence I point out, Don, by your own words, that the Hebrew attitude towards diluted wines, at least in the time of Isaiah, is that it was about the same as that of drinkers of real beer towards Bud Light and Coors Light.
But Bert, Don's "own words" were saying that the Hebrew attitude toward drinking-practice dilution was different from the Hebrew attitude toward Isaiah 1:22 dilution. He sees Isaiah 1:22 dilution as a near total dilution. I don't think it needs to be read that way, but if is it true, then it really wouldn't be comparable to the drinking practice of diluting wine.
Take my tithe and "spend the silver on anything [I] want: ... wine, beer (CSB) [ESV, strong drink], or anything [I] desire. [and] feast there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice with [my] family" (Deut 14:26)
Note this is the same "strong drink" that is cautioned against in Proverbs 20:1, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler"
This informs that in some contexts שֵׁכָר is approved!
Every English translation that I've found suggests that the wine is simply watered down, not replaced with water, and the Hebrew word for "diluted" means "weakened", Strong's 4107. So the words used do not suggest that a strict parallelism on the lines of what Don suggests is the right way to interpret this verse.
(another way of viewing the matter is that people can and do extract valuable metals from dross or slag, especially when it's precious metals like silver)
(one exception I found in translations is the "Good News" translation, but given that translation's/paraphrase's abyssmal accuracy, I'm pretty sure we're not going to start a "Good News Only" movement on the basis of its translation of Isaiah 1:22)
All in all, I just don't see a whole lot of justification for the notion that the Hebrews of ancient Israel watered down their wine. Not that it makes a huge amount of difference, really; the major question is whether one's allowed to join Jesus when you're invited with Him to the wedding at Cana and the like, and whether we ought to assume that the extensive vineyards of ancient Israel were indeed used for the ordinary purpose we'd assume from the Bible's narratives about wine-presses, wine-skins (bursting), the old wine being better, and the like.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
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