Give us this day, our daily mead. – The Lord’s Prayer, 4th Petition irreg.
And [Noah] was drunken and uncovered within his tent. Genesis 9:21
Every few years, Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) publishes a study on beer-drinking in the Bible. The one I am relying upon here is over a decade old (BAR, Sept./Oct., 2010). But an Internet search reveals there have been others over the years.
It usually takes people by surprise to think that the ancient Israelites knew anything about beer. Everybody knows about wine, of course, and the Bible has a lot to say about drunkenness. We are not sure what God meant when He invited the Israelites to imbibe in “strong drink” during the festal celebrations in Deuteronomy 14:26 and spiritual libations of Numbers 28:7. As far as we know, the ancients did not know about the distillation of alcohol as we do today in the making of various liquors. But at the very least, “strong drink” would have included beer.
Now, the making of beer involves the fermentation of yeast. Yeast is used in the making of bread. There was one week a year in which the Israelites were commanded to abstain from yeast: the week-long “Feast of Unleavened Bread” which followed Passover. It was a time of purging the past to make way for the future:
Therefore, purge out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For also Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.
1 Corinthians 5:7,8
One BAR study has suggested that the biblical text – “Cast your bread upon the waters” (Ecclesiastes 11:1) – is a specific reference to beer-making. The use of yeast in baking bread should have yielded the discovery of beer. Beer – or rather mead – is made from old bread: a fact which is suggestive of a different interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.”
I am confident that pious theologians will be offended by my “intemperate” – pun intended – translation above. Jesus is obviously talking about our daily sustenance, since bread is considered the staple of life. But is that all He was talking about?
The Greek rendering is interesting here:
Give us this day (semeron-#4594) the daily (epiousios-#1967) bread (Matthew 5:11, et al).
Read carefully the following elucidation by Vine’s Expository Dictionary:
epiousios (#1967) . . . Some would derive the word from epi, “upon” and eimi, “to be,” as if to signify “(bread) present,” i.e. sufficient bread, but this formation is questionable. The same objection applies to the conjecture, that it is derived from epi, and ousia, and signifies “(bread) for sustenance.” The more probable derivation is from epi, and eimi, “to go,” (bread) for going on, i.e., for the morrow and after, or (bread) coming (for us). . . i.e., the prayer is to be for bread that suffices for this day and next . . .
p. 143
Strong’s Lexicon gives us an even more straightforward elucidation:
epiousios “from the same as #1966; tomorrow’s [bread].”
Strong’s word key #1966 is epieimi meaning “the ensuing day or night: – following, next.”
Epieimi would be the participle form of epiousios which leads to the following:
Christ would be saying, give us “today” our bread for “tomorrow.” Or actually, a better rendering as the participle form would require, the petition would read “give us this day, our day-old bread.”
Why should He say that?
In the ancient world without the benefits of refrigeration, plastic wrapping, and preservatives, bread had to be baked everyday. “Day-old” bread had to be fed to livestock or otherwise discarded as unfit to eat – or recycled as in put in a vat of honey water for an extended process of fermentation. The result of the slurry was mead. If made from barley bread, it would be malt beer.
“Day-old” bread is stating a different proposition than merely a petition for daily sustenance. Day-old bread suggests that there is plenty of food, more than what is needed for daily sustenance. Day-old bread suggests “left-overs” and the opportunity for the making of mead. It suggests the opportunity for celebration. The petition is asking God for our “celebratory” bread, which suggests the cheer induced from feasting and imbibing.
A Wikipedia entry for “malt beer” tells us that malt beer is a low alcoholic beverage depending on the length of the fermenting process.
“[It] is considered to be nutritious and is sometimes given to nursing mothers. Among the ancient Egyptians, their form of malt beer (zythum) was considered to work as both a laxative and antidiarrheal . . . “
Wikipedia, “Malt Beer”*
Conversely, the Scriptures are quite clear in their condemnation of public drunkenness (Deuteronomy 21:20; 1 Corinthians 5:11), especially during times when men must exercise discernment and judgment (Ecclesiastes 1:17; Luke 21:34). Drunkenness interferes with logical thinking and should be avoided during those times when one must be decisive (Proverbs 31:4-7).
However, as suggested by the text in Genesis above, the Bible does not condemn private drunkenness – as in the case of Noah – when it is permitted for a man to “lie naked” within his tent. His personal space allows him the opportunity to be free of his vigilance and to rest.
Imagine the scene when Noah left the Ark. He is grateful that he and his family are alive. No doubt he took great satisfaction in his successful ecological venture: he saved not only the human race, but also many of the creatures of the earth.
But the world was now empty, a howling and cold wilderness. No other human beings, no cities, no technology, perhaps not even any usually forested areas any longer existed. He was alone.
He plants a vineyard. The ship master becomes a husbandman. He treats himself to the first fruits.
Some teetotaler theologians believe that Noah was unaware of the atmospheric changes that now allowed for fermentation. Nice try, but yeast is a biological agent used in the making of bread. Do these theologians believe that the Antediluvian Age was one without leavening agents in making bread? I don’t think so.
His family was all there was to human society. I do not necessarily want to get into the episode involving his son, Ham, and the negative results of his intrusion into his father’s tent. There is a wide range of interpretation. The awkwardness of the text suggests more than merely a case of indecent exposure.
It can be argued that Noah had concubines on the Ark (from among the homo erectus – for context, see The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes, Norton Publishing, 2002) and that Ham’s sin was that he engaged in sexual relations with one of them while his father slept in a stupor. That possibility seems to make sense, but regardless of your interpretation, the reference to “nakedness,” as used elsewhere by Moses (Leviticus 18, et al), has a connotation of illicit sexual activity. Obviously, Noah was resting in his tent in the comforts of sexual bliss and Ham disgracefully “uncovered his father’s skirt” (Deuteronomy 27:20 cf. 22:30).
No matter how bad natural calamities get, we will still have yeast for fermentation to make wine and beer. And we will still have sex. Perhaps for a society accustomed to the shaved and anointed body, the visual effects will not be so appealing. But with a little help from our adult beverages, it will be just as good then as it is now.
–JWS, June 12, 2022
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- * ADDENDUM: My description of ancient beer-making should not be interpreted as culinary or medicinal advice. While the Wikipedia source cited above identifies ancient beers as something given to nursing mothers, the same source warns against its dangers to pregnant women. The reader should exercise discretion.
