OLD WINE VERSUS NEW WINE

By HERB EVANS, Ltt.D.

157 PATTIES PLACE

PORTERSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA 16051

E-Mail: herbevans@juno.com

No man also having drunk OLD WINE straightway desireth NEW: for he saith, The OLD IS BETTER. --Luke 5:39

A position that is gaining among professing Christian “old wine onlies” is that only one kind of wine is in the Bible (after the wino’s suffering a set back for more than a few decades). Still, Jesus believed in TWO kinds of wine, OLD WINE (alcoholic) and NEW WINE (unfermented juice).

Oddly enough, the same folks contend that the above passage proves that alcoholic or OLD WINE is BETTER than non fermented NEW WINE. Yet, on this account, "alcoholic wine onlies" are wrong again.

The teaching, here, is not that the "old wine" is better than the "new wine" but that some misguided folks REGARD it better and ONLY SAY that it is better and do not want the new wine AFTER they have been ADDICTED to the "old wine."

In this particular passage, Jesus FIGURATIVELY describes the Pharisees and their OLD apostate traditions, practices, and interpretations (which were sanc- tioned by their own scholars and lawyers).

The OLD WINE, to which they were addicted, would not allow them to desire the NEW wine of the GOSPEL and Jesus’ nontraditional teaching, values, and revelations (which were really rooted and grounded in the Old Testament scriptures).

An amazing parallel exists today, in that certain scholars have drank the OLD CORRUPTED Alexandrian wine, ADDICTING themselves to it and saying that it is better than the unleavened, PRESERVED, NEW WINE of God, if you please - the infallible, inerrant, preserved word of God in English.

In a vain attempt to conceal the truth of this matter, they, in league with Lucifer, the MERRY WINE MAKER, stamp "NEW, NEW, NEW," on the bottles of their OLD corrupt, bibles. Such bibles are really NOT NEW AT ALL but are the same "OLD," corrupt, leavened, stale, poisoned, Alexandrian ferment.

They are NOT the ALWAYS FRESH, PURE BLOOD OF THE GRAPE (Deut. 32:14! Their wine is not our wine! And we wonder if their ROCK is our ROCK? Eat, drink, and be merry . . . poor, misguided Alexandrians!

Notable Quotes on Wines

Stephen M. Reynolds, Ph.D., Princeton University says in his “Alcohol and the Bible”:

A brief statement concerning the ancient Jewish community of Cochin in India may be significant concerning the use of wine in the time of Christ. This is to be found in Apostle of Sight by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, a biography of the distinguished medical missionary Dr. Victor Rambo. On page 196 we are told that the official of a synagogue at Cochin gave Dr. Rambo two bottles of sacramental wine, saying that they were 'absolutely without alcohol.'" Dr. Rambo tasted the wine and was convinced. The community is known to date from no later than A.D. 1020 (see Encyclopedia Judaica, article Cochin). [Ibid., p. 46]

William Patton in his “Bible Wines or the Laws of Fermentation” quotes:

“Count Chaptal, the eminent French Chemist, says, ‘Nature never forms spiritous liquors; she rots the grape upon the branch; BUT IT IS AN ART which concerts juice into (alcoholic) wine.’" - Bible commentary, p. 370

“Professor Turner, in his Chemistry, says of alcohol, ‘It does not exist already formed in plants, but is a product of vinous fermentation.’" -- Bible Commentary, p. 370

“Adam Fabroni, an Italian writer, born 1732, says, ‘Grape-juice does not ferment in the grape itself.’" -- Bible Commentary, p. 39

“Professor Leibig, the eminent chemist, remarks . . . In all fungi, analysis has detected the presence of sugar, which during their vital process is NOT resolved into alcohol and carbonic acid; but, after their death from the moment A CHANGE IN COLOR and consistency is perceived, the vinous fermentation sets in. It is the very reverse of the vital process to which this effect must be ascribed.’ ‘Fermentation, putrefaction, and decay are the processes of decomposition.’" Bible Commentary, p. 39

“Adam Fabroni . . . informs us that the palm tree, which particularly abounded in the vicinity of Jericho and Engedi, also served to make a very SWEET WINE, which is made all over the East, being called palm wine by the Latins, and syra in India, from the Persian shir, which means luscious liquor or drink. — Kitto Vol. I.p. 588.”

“A Mohammedan traveler, A.D. 850, states that ‘Palm wine, if drunk FRESH, is sweet like honey; but if kept it turns to vinegar.’ -- Kitto, vol. i., p. 686"

“Parkinson, in his Theatrum Batanicum, says: ‘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 being boiled down to the half, the former of the third part.’ (syrup) - Bible Commentary, p. 36. This testimony was written before A.D. 1640, centuries before there was any temperance agitation.”

“Archbishop Potter, born A.D. 1674, his Grecian Antiquities, Edinburgh edition, 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.’" [condensed Grape-juice]

“Aristotle, born 384 B.C., says, ‘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.’ – Bible com- mentary, p. 295, and Nott, London edition, p. 80.”

“Columella and other writers who were contemporary with the apostles inform us that ‘in Italy and Greece it was common to boil their wines.’ -- Dr. Nott”

“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.’ Anti-Bacchus, p. 220.”

“Virgil, born 70 B.C., in his Georgic, lib. i. line 295, says: ‘Aut dulcis musti Vulcano decoquit humorem Et foliis undam tepidi despumat aheni.’” “Thus rendered by Dr. Joseph Trapp, of Oxford University”: ‘Or of sweet must boils down the luscious juice, and skims with leaves the trembling caldron's flood. More literally translated by Alexander: ‘Or with the fire boil away the moisture of the sweet wine, and with leaves scums the surge of the tepid caldron.’”

"The Mishna states that the Jews were in the habit of using boiled (unfermented) wine. -- Kitto, vol. ii. p. 477"

Bible commentary, p. 280 -- "The prohibition against the PRESENCE and USE OF ALL fermented articles was under penalty of being 'cut off from Israel.' ‘The law forbade SEOR - yeast, ferment, whatever would excite fermentation - and khahmatz, WHATEVER HAD UNDERGONE FERMENTATION, or been subject to the action of SEOR.’"

“Professor Moses Stuart, p. 16, says: ‘The Hebrew word KHAHMATZ means anything fermented,’ P. 20: ‘All leaven, i.e., fermentation, was excluded from offerings to God.’ — Lev 2:3-14 [the exception being the drink offerings in the burnt offerings, where Strong Drink and Strong wine were employed—Herb Evans]. ‘The great mass of the Jews have EVER understood this prohibition as extending to fermented wine, or strong drink, as well as to bread. The word is essentially the same which designates fermentation of bread and that of liquors.’”

“Dr. S. M. Isaacs, an eminent Jewish rabbi of the city, says: ‘In the holy land they do not commonly use fermented wines. THE BEST WINES are preserved sweet and unfermented.’ In re- ference to their customs at their religious festivals he repeatedly and emphatically said: ‘The Jews do not, in their feasts for sacred purposes, INCLUDING THE MARRIAGE feast, ever use ANY KIND of fermented drinks. In their oblations and libations, both private and public, they employ the FRUIT OF THE VINE that is, fresh grapes - unfermented grape-juice, and raisins, as the symbol of benediction. Fermentation is to them always a SYMBOL OF CORRUPTION, as in nature and science it is itself decay, rottenness.’"

“Gesenius, the eminent Hebraist, says that ‘leaven applied to the wine as really as to the bread. Thayer, p. 71" [Patton, Ibid., p. 15-17, 23-25, 70]

Now you know the rest of the story. Herb Evans, Good day! 