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b-hebrew - RE: Alcoholic Beverages in BH

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  • From: Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Alcoholic Beverages in BH
  • Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:43:46 -0400


>===== Original Message From Yigal Levin <Yigal-Levin AT utc.edu> =====
>I somehow doubt that "casting bread on water" means beer.

If I remember right, wasn't the method rather to cast water on bread? I
thought they somehow strained water through pieces of bread dough. I suppose
the effect is that you'd end up with pieces of bread floating on the water,
but it seems like a stretch to me.

>As far as I know,
>"shekhar", which often appears together with "yyn", is usually understood
>to mean beer, mead and other fermented beverages.

The cognate word in Akkadian means beer. The trend seems to have been that a
wine culture like Israel would lump together other alcoholic beverages
(anything but wine) under the alternate term, but the basic sense probably
was
still beer.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics





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