Is the “Law of First Mention” a Legitimate Interpretive Principle?

Jim,

We’ve gotten way off the subject. Another time I’ll be glad to answer your questions.

This post just reminded me of Gentry’s use of the Law of First Mention in favor of drinking.

David R. Brumbelow

David, the simple fact of the matter is if you won’t defend your use of those six verses, and you won’t provide an actual quote from the source you cite (you promised plural sources, by the way), then people have absolutely no reason to take you seriously, and absolutely no reason to purchase your book.

Try something simple; quote the book, or tell us exactly why the fact that fermentation vats are overflowing (Proverbs 3:10, Joel 2:24) would tell us anything about whether the liquid inside is fermented or not, or for that matter was intended to be drunk fermented or not. All that one sees is that it’s abundant.

J. D. Davis points out that yayin must be an intoxicant, due to the interpretive principle of first mention: “When the Hebrew word yayin first occurs in Scripture, it is the fermented juice of the grape (Gen. 9:21), and there is no reason to believe that it has a different meaning elsewhere.” In other words, the very first time we come upon this word in Scripture, we see it intoxicating Noah. It certainly is not simple grape juice. The “argument from first mention” requires that later changes in the denotation of the term should be clearly presented—but none are.

––Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr. God Gave Wine: What the Bible Says about Alcohol (Lincoln, CA: Oakdown, 2001), 37

Gentry’s quotation is taken from
Davis, John D., “Wine,” Illustrated Davis Bible Dictionary (Nashville: Royal Publishers, 1973 [1924] ), 867.

I got curious and pulled the book here at the seminary library. The above-quoted passage is in a chapter called “The Old Testament and Alcohol Use” and a sub-section on the word yayin itself; on yayin, Gentry has a variety of numbered headings on “lexical consensus,” “translation agreement,” “first mention,” “contextual usage,” “wine production,” “limited restrictions,” etc. What I quoted above is the entirety of the “first mention” section, which is by far the shortest of the sections. My conclusion: does Gentry have more to say than first mention? Yes. Does he appear to rely on “first mention” as an in-and-of-itself valid principle? Yes, to that, too.

I can understand looking at Genesis and seeing certain events as programmatic / watershed events for the “plot” of Scripture, for biblical theology. But to give weight to the “first mention” of incidental words for merely lexical purposes is pretty silly.

[M. Osborne]

J. D. Davis points out that yayin must be an intoxicant, due to the interpretive principle of first mention: “When the Hebrew word yayin first occurs in Scripture, it is the fermented juice of the grape (Gen. 9:21), and there is no reason to believe that it has a different meaning elsewhere.” In other words, the very first time we come upon this word in Scripture, we see it intoxicating Noah. It certainly is not simple grape juice. The “argument from first mention” requires that later changes in the denotation of the term should be clearly presented—but none are.

––Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr. God Gave Wine: What the Bible Says about Alcohol (Lincoln, CA: Oakdown, 2001), 37

Gentry’s quotation is taken from
Davis, John D., “Wine,” Illustrated Davis Bible Dictionary (Nashville: Royal Publishers, 1973 [1924] ), 867.

I got curious and pulled the book here at the seminary library. The above-quoted passage is in a chapter called “The Old Testament and Alcohol Use” and a sub-section on the word yayin itself; on yayin, Gentry has a variety of numbered headings on “lexical consensus,” “translation agreement,” “first mention,” “contextual usage,” “wine production,” “limited restrictions,” etc. What I quoted above is the entirety of the “first mention” section, which is by far the shortest of the sections. My conclusion: does Gentry have more to say than first mention? Yes. Does he appear to rely on “first mention” as an in-and-of-itself valid principle? Yes, to that, too.

I can understand looking at Genesis and seeing certain events as programmatic / watershed events for the “plot” of Scripture, for biblical theology. But to give weight to the “first mention” of incidental words for merely lexical purposes is pretty silly.

Note that first of all, Gentry does not suggest that first mention cements the meaning forever—that eliminates, really, about half the objection to the principle. Gentry also does not assume that the first mention obviates the need for context—it is wrapped up in the reality that the books of Moses are in a rough chronological order. We can further develop the themes around wine as time goes on.

As such, at least as Gentry presents it, the principle of first mention does not appear to be the strawman that one might assume from the AIG text—and really, even Ham admits that when he notes that there is no fixed definition of the principle. Not as easily dispensed with, really, as we might have thought.

Rather, it’s along the lines of the first lines of any work of literature, such as “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day” giving the reader a pretty good summation of the character of Jane Eyre, and “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” giving voice to A Tale of Two Cities. Further development? Sure, otherwise the rest of the book is a waste, but I would think that if we outright deny any significance of “first mention”, we reduce God from the Author to the Stenographer—making Him merely the one who wrote down things for us as they happened, and denying the “story behind the story.”

Especially interesting and ironic is, of course, that AIG is indeed founded on the notion, ahem, that there is extensive significance to the “first mentions” of any number of things in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Ham uses this principle to a degree, even if he doesn’t name it.

In my Biblical Hermeneutics class we used “Principles of Biblical Hermeneutics” by Hartill. Chapter Ten was “The First Mention Principle.” I still have the book and it can be found on Amazon. I’m not saying I agree with the idea, but it certainly isn’t novel.

Sorry this is late. Pink on Genesis is a good example