HCSB on Isaiah 5:11 beer ?

My guess is from the halls of Nashville.

 

That's a good one. No time to dig into it but a quick look in Strong's says it means intoxicant or "intensely alcoholic liquor". I've just acquired the HCSB and if this turns out to be an example as bad as it looks on the surface, I'll be using it for comparison purposes only.

Even 'the message' interprets it as "booze".

 

Doing a short search on line indicates both beer and wine were prehistoric, in the normal sense. As I recall, Brother Noah figured out how to make wine at some indeterminate time prior to what is normally thought as 'recorded history'. Beer is mentioned in almost all the ancient tales of Egypt, the Middle East and Europe.

Hard liquor, or distilled alcohol, is also pretty old. The Chinese are credited with distilling as far back as 2500 B.C., but a commoner time frame is between the 9th and 14th Centuries. Distillation was well known in Europe by the 15th Century, with the Scots making whiskey from prior to the 11th Century. (God gave the secret of whiskey to the Celts so they didn't completely take over the world.)

Isaiah's time frame was 7th or 8th Century B. C.? Both wine and beer were known and common at that time in the Middle East. However, the beer of the time (OT) was generally accepted to be a fairly low alcohol content brew. I would think wine would be considered (relatively speaking) 'strong drink'.

The verse itself is warning of the abuse of alcohol. Getting up early to have a drink, and staying up late getting drunk. The form of alcohol really doesn't matter to the meaning of the passage. One gets as much a 'buzz' from 12 ounces of (modern) beer as 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of spirits. People have been getting knee-wobbling, stool-hugging, falling-down stupid drunk on beer since .... well, for a long time.

I'm not sure why HCSB translated the word as 'beer'; but I'm sure there is some reason. (Anyone have any contacts who could speak for HCSB?)

As a matter of technical accuracy, Strong's shows the original word for 'strong drink' earlier in the same verse being a different word than the word usually shown as 'wine'. The word 'wine', according to Strong's, seems to be 'wine', and related to grapes. Without hearing further, I suggest wine the closest translation.
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Having some practical experience in the field,
Archie

 

Beer did certainley exist then yet to prove it in scripture I really did not think it was mentioned at all.

 

The HCSB also uses "beer" In Is. 1:22. Other translations say "wine" or "strong drink". So at least it is consistant,unlike the thread I posted about HCSB and Gen 16.2

I think they use "beer" to prove it is not a Southern Baptist Bible.

Is. 1:22 (HCSB)
22 Your silver has become dross,
your beer is diluted with water

However it is footnoted as "or Wine"

 

There were several Hebrew words for alcoholic drink. Here the word is shekar, which most lexicons acknowledge as including "beer". It is usually translated in the AV as "strong drink". It is distinct from yayin which is usually common wine.

HCSB seems to reflect the differences in the words used for alcoholic beverage a little better here.

See my post on beverage alcohol at http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/48/731.html?

 

This question was also asked over at the Bible Versions Discussion Board, presumably by the same person, so I'll just repeat the answer I gave over there.

Given that this is before distilled spirits were invented, basically there was a choice between imbibing beverages fermented from grapes or other fruit (wine) or beverages fermented from grain (beer). Even if beer is not perfectly accurate, it's a reasonable assumption.

 

cool! I like the HCSB and I've emailed them several times about questions they usually come back quick but I've been waiting almost a week for one! see the HCSB Gen.16:12
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/4/2110.html

but it is answers like that, and the foot notes, that have made the the HCSB become my favorite translation.

 

There were two types of alcoholic beverages made then. The most common was fermented wine, which came from the fermentation process of fruit (most commonly grapes). The second one was distilled ales, which, came from the distillation process of grains. The word "beer" was generally referring to all grain-distilled ales.

Translating the word "beer" sounds odd, because the word "beer" is rather contemporary, but it is not an inappropriate translation. The better translation probably would be "ale" since the word sounds much less contemporary to our ears.

 

It occurred to me over the last day, since I read this thread last, that I wonder where mead (fermented honey) fits in this scheme of things.

 

I'm not surprised by Holman's response. That's what I thought their motivation was. They are anti-alcohol, so they take a low-alcohol drink that is popular (beer) and use it in place of strong drink. Now they can say "drinking beer is against the Bible."

 

Besides, if we are talking about a typical Southern Baptist Church with 80% pick-ups in the parking lot, beer would definitely be the best "modern" translation for 21st century understanding. (Hey, I can joke like this, I'm SBC....or was this a joke?)

 

You can tell a good church by the same way you tell a bar room. By counting the ratio of pick-ups to Cars in the parking lot. If there is more pick-ups than cars it is a good bar or a good church!

 

This is true; however, sometimes in this part of the country the ratio of pickups to cars (or especially motorcycles to cars) means that you should work extra hard not to make any of the local drunks mad.

At churches, it probably just means more lively business meetings.