Beer, Bohemianism and True Christian Liberty

[Darrell Post]

My bad on the typo…YRR is what I meant. If I recall correctly, I have seen someone post that belief right here on Sharper Iron, that it is essentially a sin to avoid drinking the gift from God, booze.

As to your request for a link, it was linked in the MacArthur article linked above:

https://books.google.com/books?id=fy9x6J0p8EYC&pg=PT115&hl=en#v=onepage&…

“My Bible study convicted me of my sin of abstinence from alcohol. “

I didn’t know that there were some who believe this–but then I’m not sure I’d know much of anything about Mark Driscoll other than what I’ve heard about him on S/I. At the (large) church I belong to I’ve never heard anyone even mention his name.

Larry,

SI has mentioned Driscoll now and then, but other places have been exposing his errors, forcefully so, for quite some time now. Here is but one example:

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2011/08/pornographic-divination.html

Along the same lines, he’s incorrect when he implies that the best way to prevent problems with alcohol is to press church members to abstain completely

Are there really a lot of people who have problems with alcohol because they abstain from it?

[Larry]

Along the same lines, he’s incorrect when he implies that the best way to prevent problems with alcohol is to press church members to abstain completely

Are there really a lot of people who have problems with alcohol because they abstain from it?

It is of course true that those who abstain completely do not suffer problems from alcohol—unless they get hit by a drunk driver or something like that, of course. But that’s not what I said; I’m saying that pressing for abstention does not necessarily prevent problems with alcohol. In other words, pressing for abstention is not equal to abstention. This is especially the case when false arguments (e.g. Teachout) are used to justify it.

And when, as inevitably happens, people learn the arguments were false….pushback. Overreaction.

“Wine: The Biblical imperative, total abstinence” by Robert P. Teachout is a very good book. I recommend it.

Dr. Teachout wrote his doctoral dissertation at Dallas Theological Seminary on “The Use of Wine in the Old Testament.” He is a Hebrew professor and taught for years at fundamental, independent Baptist schools, including Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. Check out his book:

https://www.amazon.com/Wine-Biblical-imperative-total-abstinence/dp/B00…

David R. Brumbelow

[David R. Brumbelow]

“Wine: The Biblical imperative, total abstinence” by Robert P. Teachout is a very good book. I recommend it.

Dr. Teachout wrote his doctoral dissertation at Dallas Theological Seminary on “The Use of Wine in the Old Testament.” He is a Hebrew professor and taught for years at fundamental, independent Baptist schools, including Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. Check out his book:

https://www.amazon.com/Wine-Biblical-imperative-total-abstinence/dp/B000…

David R. Brumbelow

I’ve got about five pages of factual errors listed about his dissertation, which is a blot on the reputation of Dallas Seminary, to put it mildly. One of my favorites is how he assumes that in Acts 2:13, the Apostles are being accused of drinking too much Welch’s….ignoring the fact that in verse 15, Peter notes that they’re not drunk, as it’s only the third hour, or about nine AM. So apparently drinking grape juice before noon was a no-no in Hebrew society, according to the author. He also translates “oinos” as “grape juice” in a poem of praise to Bacchus.

Hopefully his analysis of other Hebrew words is not as atrocious as his analysis of “yayin”, “tirosh” and the like. If it is, his students deserve a full refund and an apology. There are cases to be made for abstention, but Teachout’s dissertation reads like a dance track Chick tract. It is that bad.

Bert,

Saying someone is guilty of factual errors when you are really just disagreeing with their viewpoint is untrue and unfair.

There is a big difference between factual errors and you just disagreeing with someone’s conclusion or interpretation.

But feel free to continue to mock.

David R. Brumbelow

David, it ain’t just opinion. No sane classicist would translate an ode to Bacchus that way. The whole point of Bacchus is that he was a drunk—it’s why we call a drunken orgy a “bacchanal.” Same thing about Acts 2:13-15. The context makes very clear that Peter understood full well he was being accused of being a morning drunk, and that in turn makes clear that “new wine” (which would be equivalent to the Hebrew “tirosh”) would be both drinkable and fermented—in direct contraction to Teachout’s assertion that it was (a) in storage and (b) not what was drunk. One would readily infer the same from Luke 5, Isaiah 62:8, Hosea 2:9, Hosea 4:11, Joel 1:5, and Zechariah 9:17. Teachout is flat out wrong about his arguments about Strong’s 8492, and is flat out wrong in his translation of the ode to Bacchus.

In a similar way, his argument for clean water in Israel (and not needing wine to kill pathogens) is laughable—he more or less argues that God’s gift of the land of Israel would keep the water clean despite camel dung and such from the trade routes making its way to the aquifers. Pretty much every pathogen from Egypt to Persia would have been in their water due to the trade routes.

Really, Teachout’s (and your) exegetical method is more or less to assume that there is nothing between stone cold sobriety and drunkenness, and then to assume that since a passage does not show clear evidence (to him) of drunkenness, that the drink being enjoyed must be non-alcoholic—and then contrary Biblical and historical evidence is pretty much ignored. That’s not a hermeneutic, that’s wishful thinking. See comments on Acts 2:13-15 for an example.

In the same way, the ancients, besides boiling grape juice in lead kettles, really had no way of killing or freezing the yeast. The cistern thing? That’s precisely what Rhein and Mosel vintners do to make sweet wines like Riesling and Gewürztraminers—and they are decidedly alcoholic. I’m guessing that’s what your sources are actually referring to—sealing the jar does not prevent fermentation, as anyone who has left unpasteurized apple cider in the fridge too long knows. In the same way, beer is fermented around 45F, and I ferment sourdough breads in my fridge. If you want to stop fermentation, you more or less have to freeze it—good luck with that one in the Holy Land 18 centuries before John Gorrie and Willis Carrier.

And really, nobody’s found these kettles in the Holy Land, thankfully for Israelites who did not need to burn their winter fuel to get lead poisoning, water-borne pathogens, and scurvy as a result. It’s interesting to me that both you and Mr. Teachout more or less admit this—that there really isn’t Biblical or local archeological evidence for any of the methods you posit. Maybe a hint in Cadiz, Spain, but nothing within, say, a thousand miles of Jerusalem. Odd position for a theology professor or pastor, to put it mildly.

In other words, it is not just an opinion that Mr. Teachout and yourself are saying false things about this matter. It is a Biblical, archeological, and scientific fact, and another fact of the matter is that saying this kind of falsehoods does nothing to help prevent or deal with problem drinking or alcoholism. Rather, it discredits the entirety of your argument and makes their plight worse.

And this isn’t mockery, David. This is a rebuke.

And those are Bert’s “opinions;” not necessarily facts.

Opinions that have been previously answered, and ignored by Bert.

They even knew a little about clean drinking water in Bible times; and they actually drank it.

I wonder why today no one recommends sterilizing water with alcoholic wine? Yet that’s what some believe happened in Bible times.

David R. Brumbelow

People in Bible times were masters on the subject of water. They either had water or they could not survive.

So water was a big part of their lives.

They knew about water wells, springs, cisterns, rain, and even the importance of dew.

While they did not know about micro organisms, they certainly understood the basics of clean water vs. dirty water.

Leviticus 11:36

Nevertheless a spring or a cistern, in which there is plenty of water, shall be clean, but whatever touches any such carcass becomes unclean.

Deuteronomy 8:7

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills;

Proverbs 25:26

A righteous man who falters before the wicked Is like a murky spring and a polluted well.

Nehemiah 9:25

And they took strong cities and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all goods, Cisterns already dug, vineyards, olive groves, And fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and grew fat, And delighted themselves in Your great goodness.

John 4:6-7

Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

Notice this well apparently dated all the way back to Jacob. They highly valued clean water.

Also notice Jesus did not even ask her to spike the water with wine.

And there are many, many more Bible passages about water. They drank water on a regular basis.

David R. Brumbelow

David, I’m sorry, but it’s not that I’ve refused to consider your arguments. It is simply because your arguments are nonsense. There is no nice way of putting it. Let’s try a simple challenge; tell us how we can say that “harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart” without admitting that (a) new wine was drunk from time to time and (b) it could contain alcohol.

This is a central claim of Teachout’s, a lot of his dissertation hinging on it, and it is just plain false. A couple more things. First, you ask why alcohol is not used to purify water anymore. Might have something to do with the discovery of chlorine by Davy in 1810, and the discovery that you could purify water with it. Or are you going to argue that, just as you argue the ancients discovered how to preserve grape juice two millenia before Thomas Welch, they also discovered how to prepare chlorine two millenia before Davy? And if we’re going to use “it’s not done anymore” to say something is wrong, did you notice that most people don’t get around by horse and buggy, or on a bicycle, these days? Is that sin, too?

Second, none of the Bible verses you mention have anything to do with whether the water in Israel was generally drinkable. One is about ritual cleanliness (unless you’re ready to give up pork and shellfish per Leviticus 11), others are about obvious signs of contamination, and a couple have nothing whatsoever to do with any property of water other than that it was there. This is how bad your handling of evidence is, David.

You did not understand. My point was that no one today recommends sterilizing bad water with alcoholic wine, because it doesn’t work. No authority today, that I know of, recommends taking a bottle of wine on your next camping trip so you can use it to sterilize the water; because it will not work.

One of the weakest arguments of social drinkers is that in Israel they had to drink wine because they could not drink the water.

Many things can enslave the heart, they don’t have to be drug related. A rolex watch, bass boat, money, power, fine clothes, popularity… This too is a weak argument.

And yes, ancients could easily preserve unfermented wine. That is a fact. One you continue to ignore.

http://gulfcoastpastor.blogspot.com/2013/03/ancient-wine-production-and…

David R. Brumbelow

Bert, How many Bible verses do you need? Yes, they drank water in Bible times!

Genesis 21:19

And she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink.

Genesis 24:17

And the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please let me drink a little water from your pitcher.”

1 Samuel 30:11

Then they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David; and they gave him bread and he ate, and they let him drink water.

2 Samuel 23:15

And David said with longing, “Oh, that someone would give me a drink of the water from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!”

1 Kings 17:10

And he called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.”

2 Kings 6:22

Set food and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.”

Job 22:7

You have not given the weary water to drink, And you have withheld bread from the hungry.

Proverbs 5:15

Drink water from your own cistern, And running water from your own well.

Proverbs 25:21

If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink;

Lamentations 5:4

We pay for the water we drink, And our wood comes at a price.

Ezekiel 12:18

“Son of man, eat your bread with quaking, and drink your water with trembling and anxiety.

Daniel 1:12

“Please test your servants for ten days, and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink.

Mark 9:41

For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.

John 4:7

A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

David R. Brumbelow

Here is an insightful blog post article about Christian Liberty and Alcohol written by my brother-in-law who happens to be the senior pastor at Kent City Baptist Church (GARBC). By the way, he used to be a bar tender. http://shapkancoffee.weebly.com/blog/can-a-christian-be-a-bartender

David, I’m not ignoring your claims about grape juice in Bible times; I am finding them preposterous in light of what science knows about yeast and what would have needed to be done to preserve juices without fermentation. Really, try it for yourself if you like. Take grapes right off the vine, squeeze the juice out in a wine-press, or in your hand if you really want to make a mess, put it in a bottle, seal it, and put it in a cool place for a while. Do not pasteurize the juice or sanitize the bottle; that would not be known for another 2000 years.

Have plenty of paper towels on hand to clean up the mess as it ferments. Again, it will ferment even in the fridge—that’s how my dad used to make hard cider. Buy unpasteurized cider, put in the back of the fridge for a few weeks, opening cap periodically to let out carbon dioxide, open and enjoy. Brother, you really, really, really need to take a tour or two of a brewery or winery to understand how this stuff works, and why your claims of unfermented wine are just nonsense.

There are great reasons to be careful around alcoholic beverages, or even to abstain completely, as Joel notes. They just don’t have anything to do with how the ancients prepared their grapes.