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This time on The Bible Rules, the story
of strong substances in biblical times.

The only liquid safe to drink would have
been alcohol.

From gory vampiric rites, this worshiper
is going to be covered in blood. This

is going to be a filthy process.

To mystical wine drinking practices.

falling into wine jars and getting drunk
and misbehaving. The Bible shines a

light on how the ancients ate, drank,
and did drugs.

Human beings have sought altered states
of consciousness probably for longer

than we've existed as a species.

What was the ancient world really like?

The answer may be hidden in thousands of
rules and commandments in the Bible.

Some are shocking.

Some mysterious.

All reveal lost details about the world
that was.

The past is now.

The Bible is one of the most important
texts in history, and yet its pages are

shrouded in mystery.

We all know the Ten Commandments, but
inside the Holy Book are actually

thousands of rules, cryptic code, to a
time gone by.

It's 500 B .C. in the barren deserts of
ancient Israel, and a gory rule is

inscribed in the book of Leviticus.

If anyone of the house of Israel or of
the strangers who sojourn among them

any blood, I will set my face against
that person who eats blood and will cut

him off from among his people.

In other words, drinking blood is a dire
sin.

It's one of the Bible's most grisly
rules, forbidding a practice that is

inconceivable to a modern ear.

So what is it doing in the holy book?

Blood evokes both violence and vitality.
Blood is a powerful, magical

thing in the ancient world.

Blood drinking might be the stuff of
fantasy today, but 2 ,000 years ago,

believed blood to be supernatural, and
only a few ancient communities dared to

drink it.

In the first century AD, a Roman
historian named Pliny documented a

gruesome vampiric practice.

He saw people race out after a
gladiatorial combat and drinking the

still warm blood of the gladiator who
was defeated because they believed that

was a cure for epilepsy.

Another cure for epilepsy in ancient
Rome, the blood of a dove or turtle.

These practices might sound shocking,
but in the days before modern medicine,

people would often use blood to try to
cure disease.

In the ancient world where there was so
much that was unexplained, why disease

struck some people and not other people,
people were extremely superstitious.

Old wives' tales spread quickly, and
medical beliefs were a dime a dozen. A

common one was bloodletting.

A medicine man would make a small
incision in the skin and let the blood

out slowly.

If somebody was sick, you had an
imbalance of the different elements in

body. And if the blood was the thing to
exit, you wanted to let some of the

blood flow out.

Another form of bloodletting, leeches. A
blood -sucking creature that would be

applied to particularly sensitive
regions, such as the eyes, gums, or even

genitals. And in Europe, doctors were
still prescribing leeches for

through the 19th century and used so
many that they became an endangered

species.

The rampant use of blood for medical
purposes might explain why this rule was

written down at all.

But it doesn't explain why the early
biblical authors found drinking blood so

objectionable.

A clue to this mystery might lie in an
ancient Israelite belief about what

represents. We have to remember they
don't know about hemoglobin. There's

something more elemental and primal in
their interaction with blood.

And so there is reverence about blood
because we understand it as the life

that flows through the body.

That's one reason, I think, why...

the drinking of blood was forbidden
because it seems to desecrate something

is so sacred and holy.

For the Israelites, blood was the source
of life. It was sacred and could not be

ingested at all.

And even today, 2 ,000 years after this
rule was written down, religious Jews

ritually drain the blood from their meat
to ensure they don't consume even a

single drop.

If you're going to eat meat, draining
the blood is part of that procedure

because... God says over and over again,
the life is in the blood.

A kosher butcher kills the animal with a
sharp knife, then removes the veins and

arteries. And finally, the meat is
soaked in salt to remove any extra

It's a labor -intensive way to follow
this rule. But for religious Jews and

ancient Israelites, the liquid you
consume holds a great deal of meaning.

But there's an especially mysterious
substance mentioned in the Bible that

puzzles scholars today.

Strong drink.

Give strong drink to the one who is
perishing, and wine to those in bitter

distress.

Translation, give strong drink to
someone on his deathbed.

No one knows when this strange rule was
penned, but some attribute it to King

Solomon, an Israelite king who lived in
the 9th century BC and was known for his

wisdom.

But what exact substance was Solomon
referring to when he wrote the word

drink? Nobody can be really sure what
that fermented beverage is. It's usually

used in the Bible in parallel to wine.
So presumably it's some kind of a wine

-derived product.

Nearly 3 ,000 years after this rule was
written, historians and archaeologists

are still stumped by exactly what
elements went into this strong drink

concoction. What they do know for sure
is that it was alcoholic.

But why the counterintuitive advice to
serve it to a sick person? Would we ever

offer beer to a person in a hospital bed
today?

The portal to the ancient world is
opening, and this time we have to go

farther than ever to the Paleolithic era
when man first discovered alcohol.

One of the theories is the so -called
drunken monkey hypothesis.

The drunken monkey hypothesis claims
that our caveman ancestor stumbled

brightly colored fruit.

Once we start gathering these fruits up
into a primitive container, the sheer

weight of all the fruit on top will
start pressing down on the ripe fruit at

bottom. You would have a fermentation
occurring in the first several days.

For Paleolithic man, the discovery of
alcohol might have been a happy

But in the last 10 ,000 years of human
development, it has become an essential

drink in nearly every culture on the
planet.

And the role of alcohol in human culture
and biology is that it's very

fundamental.

Alcohol is such an important drink that
it is mentioned hundreds of times in the

Bible. and makes an appearance in one of
the most famous stories about Jesus

Christ. My favorite story about wine in
the Bible is, of course, the wedding

from Cana.

There, Jesus performed his first miracle
because the bride and groom ran out of

alcohol. I mean, who does that?

So Jesus went to one of the servants and
said, fill these six large tanks that

are 30 gallons each with water. And he
turns the water into wine and the

continues because wine is a beverage in
ancient culture. There's not orange

juice. There's no Gatorade.

It's wine. It's wine and water. By
changing that water into wine, he is

something that's medically more potable.

In the ancient world, before there were
sewage systems, water was a deadly

substance.

Alcohol, a fermented beverage that kills
bacteria, was much safer.

There was a time when the only liquid
safe to drink would have been alcohol.

I mean, people had beer for breakfast.
Through most of human history, drinking

water was one of the most dangerous
things you could do.

The reason for this is anytime you have
a group of people who aren't moving

around, there's a very high chance that
their feces are going to get into their

water supply.

Once that happens...

people start to die.

Waterborne diseases were known to wipe
out entire populations.

From 430 to 426 BC, one -third of the
population of Athens was killed by a

devastating plague of typhoid fever, a
disease that was still wreaking havoc in

the 19th century.

And during the U .S. Civil War,
thousands of soldiers died in the

typhoid.

So for most of human history, the best
thing a person could do was drink

and lay off the water.

Which might explain our Bible rule.

But alcohol wasn't just considered safer
than water. It was a cure for many

diseases. We can think of alcoholic
beverages as the earliest medicine of

humankind. If people drank a permanent
beverage, they might live longer beyond

the 20...

25 years were expected.

And as we'll see, for some agents, the
power of alcohol to heal could only mean

one thing.

The drink itself was divine.

It is the God himself that you are
drinking.

At least 10 ,000 years ago, Paleolithic
man started drinking alcohol, a life

-saving drink in the days before potable
water.

Give strong drink to the one who is
perishing and wine to those in bitter

distress.

But alcohol wasn't just safer than
water. It was an ancient form of

too. The ancient Greeks and Romans mixed
wine with herbs to produce medicinal

concoctions and antibacterial ointments.

In the 2nd century B .C., the Roman
statesman Cato wrote various wine -based

recipes. Here's a choice one.

Wine, herbs, and manure.

An ancient laxative.

We know that people were selling so
-called patent medicines all over the

in the ancient world.

Anywhere you went, you could buy
something from somebody, and that person

claim that that something would have a
specific medical use.

And thousands of miles east, the Chinese
were developing their own alcohol

-based treatment.

We were able to get liquid samples of a
rice wine from a Shang

Dynasty bronze.

Some of these early beverages had a
wormwood component.

It has remarkable anti -cancer effects.

But even though the ancients had some
outstanding medical advances, death

struck fear in people's hearts.

And there are numerous Bible rules about
the dead and dying, like this one.

All the days that he separates himself
to the Lord, he shall not go near a dead

body.

Or a priest performing his official
duties needs to stay away from corpses.

Over 2 ,000 years ago, when this rule
was written in ancient Israel, deaths

disease and warfare were routine. It was
not uncommon to see bodies in the

street, decaying in public places.

And avoiding a carcass might just be
common sense.

There are some pretty good reasons to
avoid a dead body. For one thing,

killed that person could still be
around, whether it's a saber -toothed

some diphtheria.

It's also the case that bacteria cover
us inside and out.

But as soon as our cells stop fighting
them off, we become very bacterial very

quickly. Health might explain part of
the rule, but the rule is only directed

priests, the most important members of
society who worked in the Holy Temple of

Jerusalem.

Part of their job description was
maintaining strict purity.

Death is the ultimate impurifier in the
Israelite biblical code.

In fact, the highest form of impurity is
a dead corpse.

And the temple is meant to be a place of
pure life.

We want to mirror a culture which says
death can be banished from the world.

Basically, priests had to represent the
good things in life.

Death was the opposite of that.

But elsewhere in the ancient world,
people approached death very

The Babylonians believed strongly in an
afterlife, and it was tradition for the

children of the dead to make offerings
to the corpse. They had a special name

for this kind of offering. It was called
a kispo. They might pour wine into the

grave where the dead person's remains
were.

Other times they would just make food
offerings in front of a statue

representing the dead person and leave
them.

And it was thought that these really did
nourish the person.

Feeding the dead might sound bizarre,
but it's not the only strange ancient

practice related to the afterlife.

In 3rd century BC China, the founder of
the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, wanted

to bring all of his soldiers with him
into the next world.

He wanted an army with him in the
afterlife, but unlike an earlier king in

Mesopotamia who actually sacrificed his
servants.

Here, the emperor brought along
terracotta representation.

Qin was buried near tens of thousands of
figurines of soldiers, chariots, and

horses, now known to the world as the
terracotta warriors.

Some of them were officers, some of them
were lower ranks, they were horses, and

so on and so forth. An actual replica of
the actual army that he had.

It's a fascinating window into an
ancient civilization's relationship to

mortality.

But there's another Bible rule that has
a different take on death altogether.

And he took a cup, and when he had given
thanks, he gave it to them, saying,

Drink of it, all of you, for this is my
blood of the covenant, which is poured

out for many for the forgiveness of
sins.

Here Jesus tells his disciples to drink
wine because it is actually his blood.

It's the rule of the Eucharist.

For Christians around the world, this
passage written into the Gospel of

in the first century A .D. is still
considered one of the Bible's most

rules, a foundation of the religion.

And every Sunday, millions gather in
church to take communion and receive the

Eucharist. There is a very beautiful way
that allows Christians to connect with

Christ every week when the Eucharist is
given. It's not just connecting through

prayer or emotion or heart. It's
physically connecting back with him

wine and the bread.

But how are we to understand this
mysterious commandment from Jesus? Is he

literally telling people to ingest his
blood?

For the last 500 years, since the
Protestants split from the Catholics,

debates have been waged over the meaning
of this rule.

Different denominations within the
church see the Eucharist in different

Many Protestants see it as a
representation, that this is a way to

Christ, but it's representative of him.
Catholics believe with the Eucharist

there is a transubstantiation, meaning
the substance, the essence of what is

there is no longer bread, is no longer
wine, is now the body and blood of

Christ. It's not symbolic.

Essentially, it is no longer bread and
wine. It is now the body and blood of

Christ, which we share as communion.

But in addition to being a religious
guideline, this rule is a portal into

deep path, harking back to a time long
before Christianity, when ancient man

believed that God could actually be
consumed.

It might sound fantastical, but in
ancient Greece, worshippers of Dionysus,

god of wine, believed they were drinking
the divine.

When you are engaging in Dionysiac
ritual and drinking wine, it is the god

himself that you are drinking. So
there's a sense that the divinity is

the liquid.

The Greeks weren't alone.

In fact, for thousands of years, ancient
people have ritually ingested mind

-altering substances, hallucinated, and
believed themselves possessed with the

spirit of God.

Human beings have sought altered states
of consciousness probably for longer

than we've existed as a species.

Hallucinogens are an ancient way of
attaining an ecstatic, transcendental,

spiritual experience.

Hallucinogens are some of the oldest
substances used by mankind.

And, like alcohol, they were probably
discovered by accident.

Certain plants, like mushroom and cacti,
have natural mind -altering properties,

and once discovered, became ingrained in
mystical religious traditions all over

the world.

In North and South America, we find
peyote, we find psilocybin mushrooms, we

find ayahuasca, we find a lot of
different concoctions that are strong

hallucinogens. resulting in three, four
-day experiences.

Hallucinogenic mushrooms can cause out
-of -body trances that last for days.

And for the ancients, what happens to
the mind on drugs could only be

to one thing,

God.

Logic mushrooms we think of as
psychedelic, meaning that it can change

perceptions and it can change your
thinking, including about your

You imagine conversations that aren't
happening and so forth.

And a lot of people who are on drugs
will say that they also feel very

to things. And in terms of a religious
experience, that's probably as important

as, for instance, seeing something
that's not there.

It might sound like an ancient acid
trip, but for the people of Mesoamerica,

magic mushrooms were a supernatural
substance.

Archaeologists have unearthed peculiar
mushroom art dating back to the Olmec

period in the 12th century B .C.,
suggesting that mushrooms were a central

of their belief system.

Aztec shaman would fast and then
ritually ingest psilocybin mushrooms,

that they were consuming God.

They called these mushrooms teonanacatl,
which can be translated as flesh of the

gods. You have to bear in mind that
substances, when they get introduced to

we call in medicine naive subjects,
people who haven't tried them before,

often seem very amazing.

This widespread ancient belief.

Mind -altering substances, our God,
makes our Bible rule seem less radical.

And the idea that a substance can be
infused with God can be found in a

used English term, spirits.

Just another way to refer to alcohol.

So this association of strong substances
with God still exists today. But as

we'll see, there's one ancient custom
that's gone out of style in most of the

world. Ritual sacrifice.

This worshiper is going to be covered in
blood. This is going to be a filthy

process.

The Bible rules are immortal to the
ancient world.

A window into the hearts and minds of
people long gone. And the rules about

strong substances reveal some of the
strangest practices.

The ancients drank to get closer to God
and offered up wine as a gift to God.

In the holy place, you shall pour out a
drink offering of strong drink to the

Lord.

Or, when you're in the temple, give God
a sip too.

This rule was written down in ancient
Israel around the 5th century B .C., a

time when all ritual revolved around one
stone building, the Holy Temple in

Jerusalem.

Sacrifices were offered at altars.

Once the temple is built in Jerusalem,
that becomes the central sanctuary.

Each morning, a priest would
ceremoniously pour wine on the altar as

daily sacrifice.

And what the sacrifice does is reconnect
you to God. But this rule isn't about

any old sacrifice.

What is the significance of giving God a
drink?

In the ancient world, one of the ways
that you would placate or appease or

the gods is by libation. And a libation
meant pouring out wine.

Libation was a part of many ancient
cultures.

And in ancient India, a 3 ,000 -year
-old text called the Rig Veda describes

worshippers pouring out a mysterious
drink to the gods.

They called that potion Soma. In ancient
India, when they talk about Soma in

this text, the Rig Veda, it clearly
leads to visions. It clearly leads to

inspiration. Some believe that Soma led
to immortality, which is why the gods

drank it.

The chief warrior god, Indra, was said
to have a belly as wide as a lake to

ingest limitless soma. And the ancients
hoped that by sharing soma with the

gods, the gods would then listen to the
people.

Let's call them to our ritual fire.

Let's have them sit at the fire and
let's all drink soma. We'll share with

gods. It's a way of communicating with
the gods very directly.

Communicating with the divine might be
one reason for this Israelite rule.

But this rule might shed light on
something more basic.

Ancient Israel was the land of
vineyards, and the wine business was a

of Israelite economy, essential to their
survival as a people. In ancient times,

the Israelites actually were exporters
of wine.

Grapes don't grow in Egypt, and we have
depictions and archaeological evidence

of jars of wine being shipped from
Israel to Egypt in biblical times.

Their wine economy was vast and storied.
According to lore, King David's

personal wine collection was so large,
he had a special guard to watch over it.

And recently, archaeologists have found
evidence of another huge collection that

dates back to 1700 BC.

One of the most recent discoveries that
I've made was an ancient wine cellar in

our Canaanite palace at a site called
Tel Kabri, which is up in the north of

Israel. We didn't expect it. We actually
thought we were digging outside the

palace. Turned out we were not outside,
but in the storerooms. And one of the

storerooms had 40 jars, each holding
about 50 liters.

2 ,000 liters of ancient wine would be
about 3 ,000 bottles in today's world.

For the Israelites, wine was a part of
their survival as a people. It was a

blessed substance.

which might explain why they served it
to God.

But to fully understand why wine was
served up at the Holy Temple, we have to

open up the Bible and dig into the gory
chapters on animal sacrifice.

He shall bring his offering of turtle
doves or pigeons, and the priest shall

bring it to the altar and wring off its
head and burn it on the altar.

Here the Bible commands an Israelite to
bring a bird to the priest who will take

it to the altar, rip off its head, and
set it on fire.

When this rule was written nearly 3 ,000
years ago, Israelites would travel for

miles to bring a sacrificial offering to
the temple with one goal in mind,

atoning for sins.

But how does the bloody death of an
animal lead to atonement?

The cow or the animal is a substitute
for the human.

But really what we're looking at is
we're looking to sacrifice a person.

Basically, the ancients believed that
God really wanted humans to sacrifice

themselves to appease him, a gruesome
practice that went out of fashion in

ancient Israel and was replaced with
animal sacrifice, which had to be done

absolute precision.

So you come up to the temple there in
Jerusalem and you bring your offering,

whatever it is, whether it's a bull from
the herd or a sheep from the flock or a

bird or whatever.

It's the worshiper himself who's
actually going to slay this beast and

dismember it.

So he's probably going to cut its throat
and then bleed it dry and then cut its

limbs. So this worshiper is going to be
covered in blood. This is going to be a

filthy process.

The sinner will be atoned for by the
death of the animal.

But why a turtle dove or pigeon in this
particular rule?

Doves are mentioned more than any other
bird in the Bible, probably because they

are native to the Near East and would
have been abundant in biblical times.

bringing a bird as a sacrifice might
come down to basic dollars and cents.

What we do know is that relative to the
animal offerings, these were certainly

the cheapest, which probably tells us
two things. First of all, at the level

impurity and concern for what has gone
wrong.

This is probably a lower level concern
and can be rectified with a lower level

sacrifice. In other words, the bigger
the sin, the bigger the animal you'd

bring. But why would God want physical
gifts in the first place?

In the ancient world, most people
worshipped gods with physical qualities

gave them gifts they'd want to receive
themselves.

That suggests that this is something
precious and valuable to me, something I

enjoy, and I'm willing to make it as an
offering to you rather than enjoy it

myself. Though the Israelites just had
one god, Yahweh, they had to find a way

to talk to him.

And that's where sacrifice came in.

But they weren't the only tribe using
sacrifice as a way to communicate with

divinity. In Vedic India, around 1000
BC, a very specific type of sacrifice

deployed to get a busy god's attention.

First step, get the right animal. The
quintessential animal was a cow, a bull.

It's tied to a sacrificial post, and
then the animal initially was

So basically, the worshiper had to
manually choke the cow himself before

it with a knife. The path that the knife
goes through is a very, very important

part of the ritual.

It might sound gruesome, but this
sacrifice is essential to communication

the gods and is still practiced in parts
of modern India and Nepal.

In 2009, millions attended the Gautamai
Festival.

sacrificing over 250 ,000 animals.

But the Bible's rules about substances
aren't all about blood and gore.

Some are aimed at simple human pleasure.

Wine makes the human heart happy.

This one might sound obvious, but like
thousands of others in the Bible, it's

not just a rule. It's a portal to the
past.

Ancient people had a reverence for the
religious nature of strong drink, but

there was also a lot of partying
involved.

Wine makes the human heart happy.

Translation, drinking causes joy.

Historians can't say exactly when this
rule was written down, but it was

probably around 2 ,500 years ago.

Those were dark times for the
Israelites.

The Babylonian Empire had invaded, and
the kingdom of Judah was under

The Babylonian people have conquered
Israel, and they have stripped them of

everything that was familiar to them.

The Babylonians took away at least three
of the Judean kings.

We know the captivity lasted from about
586 until 538.

For the first time in Israelite history,
The community was splintered, living in

different parts of the land.

It was a soul -crushing event in the
life of God's people.

So maybe this verse is saying, in these
rough times, it's okay to use drink to

join together.

The alcohol causes the breakdown of some
inhibitions.

So people who are drinking a fermented
beverage open up to one another more,

there's more social cohesion as a
result. In other words, alcohol is the

unifier.

The Egyptians took this idea seriously
with drinking festivals that were

motivated by religion that devolved into
hierarchy.

The most famous was called the
Drunkenness of Hothar, dating back to

B .C.

We have the various festivals the
Egyptians would have that involved wine

beer. And one of those it's referred to
as the festival of the drunkenness.

There'd be a lot of drinking, a lot of
eating, a lot of joy.

It's really a countrywide event.

An estimated 700 ,000 attended these
Egyptian drinking festivals.

And graffiti on the temple's walls shows
people fornicating. But even a

nationwide orgy has nothing on the Greek
drinking fest.

The worship of the god of wine,
Dionysus, involved extreme drunkenness.

Dionysus seemed to represent for the
Greeks and for the Romans something

to do with the ecstasy and orgiastic
quality of a religion given...

to wine and to excess.

We have depictions of them engaging in
bestial sexual acts or having extremely

disproportionately large phalluses erect
and chasing after pretty much anything.

We also have depictions of them falling
into wine jars and getting drunk

and misbehaving.

Evidence that we have for the men
involves the consumption of wine and

drunkenness and processions, carrying
grape vines and dressed as women.

But the male followers weren't the only
ones with subversive practices.

The women would leave the cities and go
into a trance. They went into the

mountains. They danced and they engaged
in a kind of ecstatic form of ritualized

madness. Greek myth tells us that some
of these worshippers were so overcome

with ecstasy that they'd tear the flesh
of animals and eat it raw.

The people who worshipped Dionysus were
pretty dark -minded people.

The Greeks and Egyptians took the
principle in this Bible rule to an

Enjoying alcohol is one thing, but
excessive drunkenness is another.

And the Bible has something to say about
that.

Written in Rome in the 1st century AD,
this rule seems to contradict all other

rules that promote strong drink. The
Bible...

doesn't condemn the use of alcohol,
although it does condemn drunkenness.

It's around this time that the Roman
Empire began to object to the Dionysian

festivals of drunkenness and revelry.

And in 186 BC, the Roman government
imposed punishing limits on these

The Romans passed a decree against
Bacchanalian celebrations.

Because they were gathering large crowds
in rural places, mountains, areas where

they were not subject to control.

And the Romans decreed that no more than
five people could ever meet. And even

then it had to get state permission.

But in order to oppose them, they sent
the army out.

And it is said that they killed 7 ,000
people.

In the ancient world, some religious
celebrations got out of hand and became

orgiastic feasts, and there's a backlash
in the Bible.

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is
debauchery, but be filled with the

Spirit. In other words, don't drink in
excess.

These weren't just words of wisdom 2
,000 years ago. In 2013, an estimated 15

million Americans abused alcohol, and
over 10 ,000 people were killed in drunk

driving accidents.

In the ancient world, people didn't fear
a car crash, but they loathed immoral

behavior. And they saw that alcohol led
to one thing, sex.

Alcohol might make you much more likely
to have sex because the parts of your

brain that are more in charge of
restraining you get impaired when you

Not only might sex be a natural outcome
of drink, but surprisingly, in most

ancient cultures, the production of
alcohol was associated with women.

Whether we're in Africa or in the Middle
East or China, it's usually the women

that are making the beverages.

In the ancient Incan Empire, the women
were employed to make chicha, corn beer.

They would choose the most beautiful
women to do the chewing of the corn to

chicha. They put them in a separate
palace building where they would do

and other crafts.

But one of the main responsibilities was
to chew and spit out the corn.

These complicated connections between
alcohol and sex can even be found in the

first book of the Bible, where we find
the first story of drunkenness. There's

the famous story of Noah and his three
sons.

Noah gets off the boat and plants a
vineyard. Noah gets sauced, he gets

drunk, and he lays exposed in his tent.

His youngest son, Ham.

He sees his father passed out and naked
in his tent and goes out and tells his

other brothers that his father's passed
out naked in the tent.

And didn't cover his nakedness. There's
probably a sexual connotation here.

It's unclear what exactly transpired
between father and son.

Some suggest it's a case of incest.

Others claim Ham just embarrassed Noah.

Whichever it was, Ham's punishment is
dire.

According to the story, Noah curses him
and dooms all his future descendants.

A cautionary tale indeed about the
danger of wine. Wine becomes the

something unintended and naughty and
destructive to happen. If wine was a

powerful substance, it had to be handled
carefully. And the Bible suggests that

certain people should just never drink
it.

No priest shall drink wine when he
enters the inner court.

Essentially, priests need to abstain
from drinking when performing their

The place, ancient Israel. The time, 5th
century BC.

In this period, wine was an essential
part of Israelite religious ritual at

holy temple. So it seems strange that
priests had to avoid it. A clue to

unpacking this rule might lie in the
ancient idea of purity.

Let's be clear, when we use the phrase
purity, we're not talking about dirt.

Purity and dirtiness are not the same
thing.

The basic concept of purity is about
those things which distance you from

God and from God as understood in the
ideal sense.

No Israelite had to be more pure than a
priest.

They were specially endued with both a
kind of purity and a kind of association

with the divine that ordinary people
didn't have.

Foregoing drink was one way for priests
to stay pure.

Ritual bathing was another.

So they need to wash, they need to
change their clothes, and then they're

pure again.

Priests were meant to bathe in a mikvah,
a ritual bath in the holy temple, and

they did it before any sort of prayer or
sacrifice.

But priests weren't the only ones
ritually bathing.

Israelite men were supposed to bathe
after ejaculation.

The seminal discharge, which is still an
issue of impurity.

is seminal in nature you wait until
evening and you bathe in israelite women

bathed after menstruation a woman is
menstruating she's impure until they

ritual cleansing because the blood is
valued and valuable and therefore a

bit magic around it in 2011
archaeologists unearthed ritual bath in

foothills outside of jerusalem that
dates back to the first century bc It

built with an advanced water supply
system to collect and drain rainwater.

Bathing for spiritual purity might sound
like a relic of the deep past, but a

form of ritual bathing still exists
today.

Catholics still have holy water, which
is almost certainly derived from

ritualistic bathing.

Upon entering a church, Catholics dip
their fingers in the holy water basin

then make the sign of the cross.

And in India today, Hindus bathe in the
Ganges.

a river thought to be sacred and
purifying.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of
religious pilgrims flock to the holy

Varanasi to submerge themselves in the
water and cremate their dead on the

river's banks.

Holy water might purify one spiritually
throughout the ages, and for the

Israelite priests, purity meant no
alcohol.

But as we'll see, even today in some
societies, taking a sip can have

consequences.

The Bible's rules open up a portal on
the ancient world, especially when it

comes to rules about strong drink.

3 ,000 years ago, as well as today,
alcohol was an essential beverage.

But Israelite priests shunned it in an
effort to stay spiritually pure.

No priest shall drink wine when he
enters the inner court.

They weren't the only ones. For
thousands of years, an Israelite sect

Nazarites abstained from drinking
altogether.

That was actually applauded in that they
were more religious, in a sense,

because they weren't indulging
themselves in a worldly pastime, but

dedicated to God.

Both men and women could become
Nazarites by taking a simple vow not to

wine or wine vinegar or eat grapes or
raisins.

And there were teetotalers in other
societies too, like China.

The Shang Dynasty kings...

were excessive drinkers and they were
poisoning themselves and they went crazy

and they committed suicide and all sorts
of other bad things. So the next

dynasty that came along, the Zhou
dynasty, said, oh, we're not going to be

the Shang dynasty. They were tending
then toward the prohibitionist attitude.

A few hundred centuries later, in the
7th century AD, alcohol was still being

debated in the Middle East.

The Muslim Quran prohibits it
completely.

Islam takes a much stronger stance
regarding alcohol.

The term for that is haram, which is the
opposite of halal. Halal is something

that is permissible, whereas haram is
something that is completely forbidden.

If you consume alcohol, it is an
abomination.

It is the handiwork of Satan. This is
one of those places, incidentally, where

there is significant difference between
Jewish observance, Jewish history, and

Muslim. observance in Muslim history,
because one of the ways we dealt with

alcohol was to make it almost like a
sacrament.

You know, it's like this is something
which can support spirituality and

and community.

So there is no banning of alcohol in
Jewish tradition the way there is in

While alcohol remains a part of Jewish
tradition, some Christians still avoid

on biblical principle.

There's an older generation of Baptists
who are more firmly committed to the

position of teetotalism. So no alcohol
whatsoever under any circumstances.

The teetotalers, they might actually
argue that the Bible under no

anywhere ever condones any use of
alcohol whatsoever.

And then you have others who will say
we're free in Christ. So you can partake

with moderation as long as you don't.

lose control of your faculties, and then
these people would feel the freedom to

go ahead and partake.

There's one era in American history
where the teetotalers won out.

Prohibition.

In the early 20th century, Christian
groups in the United States petitioned

alcohol to be banned completely, and in
1920, the 18th Amendment was instated,

outlawing the sale, production,
transportation, and importation of all

beverages.

This era of prohibition lasted until
1933.

In the case of prohibition, I think we
just have like the swing of the pendulum

over toward this negative side, not
recognizing the positive elements that

embedded in the scriptures.

Sometimes people drink too much. But in
that arc of civilization, there's a

tremendous amount of moderation in the
way in which wine is used.

Today, most religions and cultures
believe the strong drink is acceptable,

moderation. But there are some countries
that still ban it completely.

In Iran, liquor is officially off
limits. Caught with it three times, and

punishment is death.

But moonshiners are abundant, mixing
homemade brews in bathtubs and

And in every corner of the world, people
continue to drink strong substances.

just as our Paleolithic ancestors did 10
,000 years ago.

By outlawing something that's so
embedded in the human biology and

are frustrating just natural tendencies
of humans.

You can either use wine to enhance life
and enhance your relationships, or you

can use it to degrade the body, and it's
the choice.

So I think the Bible was obviously
saying, use it in a way that brings you

together and uplifts life.

Humankind's magnetic attraction to
strong substances is undeniable and can

seen in the pages of the Holy Bible and
in its thousands of cryptic rules, a

portal to years gone by.