20. Greek, Latin, and English Generic Words

Greek, Latin, and English Generic Words

Oinos—Biblical scholars are agreed that in the Septuagint or Greek translation of the Old Testament and in the New Testament, the word oinos corresponds to the Hebrew word yayin. Stuart says: “In the New Testament we have oinos, which corresponds exactly to the Hebrew yayin.” As both yayin and oinos are generic words, they designate the juice of the grape in all its stages. In the Latin we have the word vinum, which the lexicon gives as equivalent to oinos of the Greek, and is rendered by the English word wine, both being generic. Here, then, are four generic words, yayin, oinos, vinum, and wine, all expressing the same generic idea, as including all sorts and kinds of the juice of the grape. Wine is generic, just as are the words groceries, hardware, merchandise, fruit, grain, and other words.

Dr. Frederick R. Lees, of England, the author of several learned articles in Kitto’s Cyclopaedia, in which he shows an intimate acquaintance with the ancient languages, says: “In Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Latin, and English, the words for wine in all these languages are originally, and always, and inclusively, applied to the blood of the grape in its primitive and natural condition, as well, subsequently, as to that juice both boiled and fermented.”

Dr. Laurie, on the contrary, says: “This word denotes intoxicating wine in some places of Scripture; therefore, it denotes the same in all places of Scripture.” This not only begs the whole question, but is strange, very strange logic. We find the word which denotes the spirit often rendered wind or breath; shall we, therefore, conclude it always means wind or breath, and, with the Sadducees, infer that there is neither angel nor spirit, and that there can be no resurrection? So, also, because the word translated heaven often means the atmosphere, shall we conclude that it always means atmosphere, and that there is no such place as a heaven where the redeemed will be gathered and where is the throne of God? But the misery and delusion are that most readers of the Bible, knowing of no other than the present wines of commerce, which are intoxicating, leap to the conclusion, wine is wine all the world over—as the wine of our day is inebriating, therefore the wine mentioned in the Bible was intoxicating, and there was none other.

There is a perverse tendency in the human mind to limit a generic word to a particular species.

John Stuart Mill, in his System of Logic, says: “A generic term is always liable to become limited to a single species if people have occasion to think and speak of that species oftener than of anything else contained in the genus. The tide of custom first drifts the word on the shore of a particular meaning, then retires and leaves it there.” The truth of this is seen every day in the way in which the readers of the Bible limit the generic word wine to one of the species under it, and that an intoxicating wine.