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Current Usage of "Wine." Most people assume today that the word "wine" can refer only to fermented, intoxicating grape juice, or to the fermented juice of any fruit used as beverage. The basis for this assumption is the current definition given to the word by most modern dictionaries. For example, the seventh edition of the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines "wine" as follows: "1: fermented grape juice containing varying percentages of alcohol together with ethers and esters that give it bouquet and flavor. 2: the usu. fermented juice of a plant product (as a fruit) used as a beverage. 3: something that invigorates or intoxicates." Note that no mention at all is made in this current definition of unfermented grape juice as one of the possible meanings of "wine." It is not surprising that people who read a definition such as this, common to most dictionaries, would naturally assume that "wine" can only mean a fermented juice.
Past Usage of "Wine." This restrictive meaning of "wine" represents, however, a departure from the more classical dual meaning of the word as a designation for both fermented or unfermented grape juice. To verify this fact one needs only to consult some older dictionaries. For example, the 1955 Funk & Wagnalls New "Standard" Dictionary of the English Language defines "wine" as follows: "1. The fermented juice of the grape: in loose language the juice of the grape whether fermented or not." This definition shows that forty years ago the loose usage of "wine" referred to "the juice of the grape whether fermented or not." It is noteworthy that even the more recent New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language (1971) defines "must" as "Wine or juice pressed from the grapes but not fermented." This definition clearly equates "wine" with grape juice.
The 1896 Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language which defines "wine" as "the expressed juice of grapes, especially when fermented . . . a beverage . . . prepared from grapes by squeezing out their juice, and (usually) allowing it to ferment." This definition is historically accurate, since it recognizes that the basic meaning of "wine" is "the expressed juice of grapes," which is usually, but not always, allowed to ferment.
"The problem," as Robert Teachout points out, "is that people have taken the very usual meaning of the word (whether in Hebrew, Greek, Latin or English)—as an intoxicating beverage—and have made it the only definition of the word. That is incorrect scholarship! It is inaccurate both biblically and secularly, and it is inaccurate in the English language historically."3
Older English Dictionaries. The inaccuracy in the English language becomes even more evident when we look at older English dictionaries. For example, the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary defines the word "must" as "new wine—wine pressed from the grape, but not fermented."4 Note that the unfermented grape juice is here explicitly called "new wine."
The 1759 Nathan Bailey’s New Universal English Dictionary of Words and of Arts and Sciences offers the following definition for "wine": "Natural wine is such as it comes from the grape, without any mixture or sophistication. Adulterated wine is that wherein some drug is added to give it strength, fineness, flavor, briskness, or some other qualification."5 Note that in this definition Bailey does not use the word "fermented," though it is implied in some of the wines he describes.
Other eighteenth-century lexicographers define the word "wine" very similarly. John Kersey’s Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum, or A General English Dictionary, published in London in 1708, says: "Wine, a liquor made of the juice of grapes or other fruits. Liquor or Liquour, anything that is liquid; Drink, Juice, etc. Must, sweet wine, newly pressed from the grape."6 In this definition "wine" explicitly includes "must, sweet wine, newly pressed from the grape."
Benjamin Marin’s Lingua Britannica Reformata or A New English Dictionary, published in 1748, defines "wine" as follows: "1. the juice of the grape. 2. a liquor extracted from other fruits besides the grape. 3. the vapours of wine, as wine disturbs his reason."7 It is noteworthy that here the first meaning of "wine" is "the juice of the grape," without any reference to fermentation.
A clear example of the use of the term "wine" to refer to unfermented grape juice is provided by William Whiston’s translation of Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, first published in 1737. Referring to Joseph’s interpretation of the cupbearer’s dream, Josephus writes: "He therefore said that in his sleep he saw three clusters of grapes hanging upon three branches of a vine, large already, and ripe for gathering; and that he squeezed them into a cup which the king held in his hand and when he had strained the wine, he gave it to the king to drink . . . Thou sayest that thou didst squeeze this wine from three clusters of grapes with thine hands and that the king received it: know, therefore, that the vision is for thy good."8
In this translation Whiston uses "wine" as a proper rendering for fresh, unfermented grape juice (gleukos), obviously because in this time "wine" meant either fermented or unfermented grape juice. Josephus’ statement offers another significant insight, namely, that it was customary long before Israel became a nation to squeeze the juice from grapes and drink it immediately in its fresh, unfermented state. This is what Josephus called gleukos, the term which our English translators render "wine" or "new wine" in Acts 2:13. Does not this translation support the conclusion that unfermented grape juice was called "wine" in older English usage?
Bible Translations. The above sampling of definitions of "wine" from older English dictionaries suggests that when the King James Version of the Bible was produced (1604-1611) its translators must have understood "wine" to refer to both fermented and unfermented wine. In view of this fact, the King James Version’s uniform translation of the Hebrew yayin and Greek onios as "wine" was an acceptable translation at that time, since in those days the term could mean either fermented or unfermented wine, just as the words it translates (yayin or oinos) can mean either. Today, however, when "wine" has assumed the sole meaning of fermented grape juice, modern translations of the Bible should indicate whether the text is dealing with fermented or unfermented grape juice. By failing to provide this clarification, uninformed Bible readers are misled into believing that all references to "wine" in the Bible refer to fermented grape juice.
