Wine and the Bible

So goes the title of an undated and unattributed article I found online. There's not much of the Bible in it, though; it's mostly extracts of centuries-old anecdotes about wine being preserved without the benefit of fermentation. All this is well and good, but there's one problem: we live in the present, and if we are going to enjoy the biblical blessing of unfermented wine, somebody needs to show us how to make it; some of us, like the ancients, don't have refridgerators. There's not a shred of scientific rigour in this article: assertion after assertion is made without any attempts to repeat the experiment and see if it actually works. Here is the article:

Did Jesus turn water into intoxicating wine? Did He serve alcoholic wine at the last supper? What does the evidence tell us? The Bible speaks plainly on this subject. Historical records regarding the preparation, preservation and use of wine are also clear.

Consider this report (1820) by William Patton. The term “alcoholic” is not used. He uses the Bible term, “drunkard.” The Bible does not recognize drunkenness as a sickness, but as sin. The drunkard is listed in scripture with thieves, liars, extortioners, murderers, etc., as being in danger of God’s judgment in hell unless he repents. Gal. 5:19-21; 1 Cor. 6:9-10. God will never consign a person to hell for being sick. Therefore the matter of drunkenness, and that which leads to drunkenness, becomes a very serious matter. Here is his report:

I found that all Bible passages where wine or drinking is mentioned, fall under three headings: a) where wine is merely mentioned, b) where it is spoken of as a cause of misery and the emblem of eternal wrath, c) where it is a blessing along with grain.

I began to wonder if the Bible makes reference to two kinds of wine. Such is indeed the case. I shared my findings with Professor Seixas, an eminent Hebrew teacher. He took my manuscript, and a few days later returned it with the statement, “Your discriminations are just. They denote that there indeed are two kinds of wine.” I have since learned much from others who have come to the same conclusion. I ran into much opposition from those who believe that all mention of wine in the Bible is to intoxicating wine, but here are a few counter-statements:

Dr. Ure, in his Dictionary of Arts, says: “Juice when newly pressed from grapes, and before it has begun to ferment is called must, and in common language new wine.”

Rees’ Cyclopedia: “Sweet wine is that which has not yet worked or fermented.”

Noah Webster: “Wine, the fermented juice of grapes…Must, wine, pressed from the grape, but not fermented.”

Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible “The wine was sometimes preserved in its unfermented state and drunk as must…Very likely new wine was preserved in the state of must by placing it in jars or bottles, and then burying it in the earth.”

These authorities make it clear that there were, indeed, among the ancients, two kinds of wine, the fermented and the unfermented.

Fermentation

The laws of fermentation are fixed laws, always operating in the same way, and always and everywhere requiring the same conditions. Lardner’s Cyclopedia says:

“1. There must be saccharine (sugar) matter and gluten (yeast).

“2. The temperature should not be below 50 degrees nor above 70 or 75 degrees.

“3. The juice must be of a certain consistency. Thick syrup will not undergo vinous fermentation. Too much sugar is not favorable for the process, and on the other hand too little sugar, or, which is the same thing, too much water, will be deficient in the necessary quantity of saccharine matter to produce a liquor that will keep, and for want of more spirit the vinous fermentation will almost surely turn to vinegar.

“4. The quantity of yeast or ferment must also be well regulated. Too much or too little will impede and prevent fermentation.”

Others confirm these statements. The indispensable conditions for vinous fermentation are the right proportions of sugar, of yeast, and of water, with the temperature of the air ranging between 50 and 75 degrees.

We see therefore that the process of fermentation is not a natural one. Chaptal, the eminent French chemist, says, “Nature never forms spirituous liquors; she rots the grape upon the branch; but it is art which converts the juice into (alcoholic) wine.”

Fruits Preserved

[Before there was refrigeration]

As grapes and other fruits were such an important part of the food of the ancients, they would, by necessity, invent methods for preserving them fresh. Josephus, the first century historian, in his Jewish Wars, book VII, ch. VIII, s. 4, makes mention of Herod’s fortress in Israel, called Masada, “For here was laid up grain in large quantities, enough to enable an army to survive for a long time: here was also wine and oil in abundance, with all kinds of herbs, vegetables and dates heaped up together. These products were also fresh and full ripe, and in no way inferior to such fruits newly laid in, although they had been there almost 100 years.”

In a footnote William Whiston, the translator, says: “Pliny (AD 27-79) and others confirm this strange paradox, that provisions laid up against sieges will continue good for 104 years, as Spanheim also notes upon this place.” Such facts regarding long preservation of fruit and other food are confirmed by many other historians.

Swinburn says, “In Spain they also have the secret for preserving grapes sound and juicy from one season to another.”

E. C. Delevon states that when he was in Florence, Italy, “Signor Pippine, one of the largest wine manufacturers, told me that he at that time had in his lofts, for the use of his own table, until the next harvest, a quantity of grapes sufficient to make 100 gallons of wine; that grapes could always be had, at any time of the year, to make any desirable quantity; and that there was nothing in the way of obtaining the fruit of the vine free from fermentation in wine countries at any period. A large basket of grapes was sent to my lodgings, which were as delicious, and looked as fresh, as if recently taken from the vines, though they had been picked for months.”

Fermentation Prevented

Professor Donovan, in his writing on domestic economy, mentions three methods by which all fermentation can be prevented:

“1. Grape juice will not ferment when the air is completely excluded from it.

“2. The juice may be boiled, thereby evaporating the water. The substance thus becomes a syrup, which if very thick will not ferment.

“3. If the juice is filtered and deprived of its gluten; or yeast, the production of alcohol will be impossible.” —Anti-Bacchus, p. 162.

Also, if the juice is kept below 45 degrees (in water or underground) it will not ferment.

Four methods were used by the ancients to keep their new wine from fermenting:

Boiling and Thickening

By this process the water is evaporated, thus leaving so large a portion of sugar that fermentation is prevented. “By boiling, the juice of the richest grape loses all of its aptitude for fermentation, and may afterwards be preserved for years without undergoing any further change.” —Elements of Chemistry, Herman Boerhave.

Liebig says, “The natural law causing organic substances to pass into a state of decay is annihilated in all cases by heating to the boiling point.” The grape juice boils at 212 degrees; but alcohol evaporates at 170 degrees, which is 42 degrees below the boiling point. So then, if any possible portion of alcohol was in the juice, this process would expel it. All yeast, which would cause fermentation, is also destroyed by boiling. The obvious object of boiling the juice was to preserve it sweet and fit for use during the year. The boiling continued for several hours until ¼ to ½ of the water had boiled away. Water was later added to the syrup when the host desired to serve new wine.

Some of the celebrated Opimian wine, mentioned by Pliny had, two centuries after its production, the consistency of honey. Professor Donovan says, “In order to preserve their wines to these ages, the Romans concentrated the must or grape juice, of which they were made, by evaporation, either spontaneous in the air or over a fire, and so much so as to render them thick and syrupy.”

Horace, born 65 BC, says, “There is no wine sweeter to drink than Lesopian. It is like nectar, and resembles ambrosia more than wine. It is perfectly harmless, and will not produce intoxication.” —Anti-Bacchus p. 220.

“The Mishna states that the Jews were in the habit of using boiled wine.” —Kitto, Volume II, p. 477.

W. C. Brown, who traveled extensively in Africa, Egypt, and Syria from AD 1792 to 1798, states, “Most of the wines of Syria are prepared by boiling immediately after they are pressed from the grape, until they are considerably reduced in quantity, when they are put into jars or large bottles and preserved for use.” He adds, “There is reason to believe that this mode of boiling was a general practice among the ancients.”

“It is observable that when sweet juices are boiled down to a thick consistency, they not only do not ferment in that state, but are not easily brought into fermentation even when diluted with as much water as they had lost in the evaporation.” —Caspar Neuman, MD, professor of chemistry.

Filtration

By filtration, the gluten or yeast is separated from the juice of the grape. While the juice will pass through the filtering implements, the gluten will not, and, being thus separated, the necessary conditions of fermentation are destroyed. The ancient writers, when speaking of the removal of the vim, vi, vires, that is, the potency or fermentable power of the wine, use the following strong words: eunuchrum, castratum, effaeminatum–thus expressing the thoroughness of the process by which all fermentation was destroyed. Plutarch, born AD 60, in his Symposium, says: “Wine is rendered old or feeble in strength when it is frequently filtered. The strength or spirit being thus excluded, the wine neither inflames the brain nor infests the mind and the passions, and is much more pleasant to drink.”

Again, Pliny said, “Wines were rendered old and castrated or deprived of all their vigor by filtering.”

Captain Treat, in 1845, wrote, “When on the south coast of Italy, I inquired particularly about the wines in common use, and found that those esteemed the best were sweet and unintoxicating. The boiled juice of the grape is in common use in Sicily. The Calabrians keep their intoxicating and unintoxicating wines in separate compartments. From inquiries, I found that unfermented wines were esteemed the most. These wines were drunk mixed with water. Great pains were taken in the vintage season to have a good stock of them laid by. The grape juice was filtered two or three times, and then bottled, and some put in casks and buried in the earth–some kept in water (to prevent fermentation).” Dr. Lees’ Works, Vol. II, p. 144.

Subsidence

[Meaning, to sink or fall to the bottom; settle]

The gluten may be so effectually separated from the juice by subsidence as to prevent fermentation. The gluten, being heavier than the juice, will settle to the bottom by its own weight if the must can be kept from fermentation for a limited period. If the juice is kept at a temperature below 45 degrees, it will not ferment. The juice being kept cool, the gluten will settle to the bottom, and the juice when siphoned off, and thus deprived of the gluten, cannot ferment.

“They plunge the casks, immediately after they are filled from the vat, into water, until winter has passed away and the wine has acquired the habit of being cold.” Kitto, II, 955; A.-B. 217; Smith’s Antiquities. Being kept below 45 degrees, the gluten settled to the bottom, and thus fermentation was prevented.

Columella gives a recipe: “That your must may always be as sweet as when it is new, proceed in this way: Before you apply the press to the fruit, take the must that has already flowed from the grapes, put into a new amphora [jar], bung it up, and cover it very carefully with pitch, lest any water should enter; then immerse it in a cistern or pond of pure cold water, and allow no part of the amphora to remain above the surface. After 40 days, take it out, and it will remain sweet for a year.” He no doubt inferred that the pure wine was to be poured off from the gluten that had settled to the bottom. This wine would again be sealed airtight and kept cool in the ground or water until used. These ancients had underground cellars where their wines and other foods were preserved.

Fumigation

Dr. Ure states that fermentation may be stopped by the application or admixture of substances containing sulphur. Adams, in his Roman Antiquities, on the authority of Pliny and others, says, “The Romans fumigated their wines with the fumes of sulphur; they also mixed with the mustum (the newly pressed juice) yokes of eggs and other articles containing sulphur.”

In all these extracts, the writers call the grape juice wine, whether boiled, filtered, subsided or fumigated.

Wine With Water

There is abundance of evidence that the ancients mixed their wines with water. Not because they were so strong with alcohol as to require dilution, but because, being rich syrups, they needed water to prepare them for drinking.

According to Lightfoot, the Passover was celebrated with nonalcoholic wine mixed with water. Each person, man, woman and child drank four cups. After celebrating the Passover with His disciples, Christ took the bread and wine that remained and instituted the Lord’s supper. The wine was, we believe, the rich syrup diluted with water. This kind of wine met all the requirements of the law concerning leaven. The true rendering of matsah, according to Dr. F.R. Lees, means unfermented things. It therefore refers not only to bread.

Classification Of Wines

The careful reader of the Bible will notice that in a number of cases wine is simply mentioned without anything in the context to determine its character. He will notice another class, which unmistakably denotes the bad character of the beverage. There is also a third class, whose character is clearly designated as good.

Bad Wine

This class of texts refers to wine:

1. As the cause of intoxication. This is not disputed.

2. As the cause of violence and woe. Prov. 4:17; 23:29-30.

3. As the cause of self-security and irreligion. Isa. 28:7; 56:12; Hab. 2:5.

4. As poisonous and destructive. Prov. 23:31.

5. As condemning those who are devoted to drink. Isa. 5:22; 1 Cor. 6:10.

6. As the emblem of punishment and of eternal ruin. Psa. 60:3; 75:8; Is 51:17; Jer. 25:15; Rev. 14:10; 16:19.

Good Wine

I turn now to another class of texts which speak with approval of a wine whose character is good, and which is commended as a blessing.

1. To be presented at the altar as an offering to God. Num. 18:12; Neh. 10:37, 39; 13:5, 12.

2. Is classed among the blessings, the comforts, the necessities of life. Gen. 27:28; Deut. 7:13; 11:14; Isa. 65:8; Joel 3:18.

3. Is the emblem of spiritual blessings. Isa. 55:1; Psa. 104:15.

4. Is the emblem of the blood of the atonement, by which we receive forgiveness of sins and eternal blessedness. Matt. 26:26-28; 1 Cor. 10:16.

In all the passages where good wine is named, there is no indication of warning, nor intimation of danger, no hint of disapproval, but always of decided approval.

How bold and strong is the contrast: The one the cause of intoxication, of violence, and of woes. The other the occasion of comfort and peace. The one the cause of irreligion and of self-destruction. The other the devout offering of piety on the altar of God. The one the symbol of the divine wrath. The other the symbol of spiritual blessings. The one the emblem of eternal damnation. The other the emblem of eternal salvation.

“The distinction in quality between the good and the bad wine is as clear as between good and bad men, or good and bad spirits; for one is the constant subject of warning, designated poison, both literally and figuratively, while the other is commended as refreshing and innocent, which no alcoholic wine is.” Lees’ Appendix, p. 232.

Can it be that these blessings and curses refer to the same beverage, and that an intoxicating liquor? Dr. Nott says: “Can the same thing, in the same state, be both good and bad; a symbol of wrath, and a symbol of mercy; a thing to be sought after, and a thing to be avoided? Certainly not. And is the Bible, then, inconsistent with itself? Again, certainly not!”

Professor M. Stuart says: “My final conclusion is this: Whenever the scriptures speak of wine as a comfort, a blessing, or a libation to God, and rank it with such articles as grain and oil, they mean, and they can only mean the wines that contained no alcohol that could have a harmful effect; that wherever they denounce it, and connect it with drunkenness and revelling, they can mean only alcoholic or intoxicating wine.”

Does χιλια ετη mean a thousand years?

As promised in my last post, here is a critique of Peter Hoover's view of the Millennium. In an email broadcast on August 12, he wrote briefly of his fling with premillenialism, and subsequent revocation:

I dropped all popular theories, all names that would identify me to this school of thought or another, and I chose to cling to Jesus' Gospel and the Scriptures themselves. Nothing more. Nothing less. With only this in mind, these became my conclusions. My passion. My goal:
 1. Building on the right foundation, Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11). "No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." Whatever we build on, whatever we use, whatever we teach must come from Jesus. Everything else is unsafe and will not stand in the end. If Jesus and his apostles did not teach it, if Jesus' example does not match with what we are promoting, we are in the wrong. Plain and simple.
 2. Choosing the Narrow Way (Matthew 7:13-14). The broad way, the way of the crowd, the popular way is dangerous. The narrow way, the way of Jesus, is the only right and safe one. How shall we find it? From Jesus and his apostles alone. Not from any modern organisation or religious group. Not, particularly, from any church. The real Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that truly follows him on the narrow way, is the fellowship of all who listen carefully, who follow, and obey. Why is it narrow? Because few choose it. It is the Way of the Cross.
 3. Following the Context and Flow of Scripture (2 Timothy 2:15). Using the Scriptures responsibly includes its context and how they were presented to us, one after the next. That is how we need to use all information anywhere. To use the Scriptures in a game of "fast and loose," pulling out bits and pieces here and there, while cobbling them together again through all kinds of ingenious ways, is not only dangerous. It is dishonest. It takes serious study (like they did in Beraoea) and the help of the Holy Spirit. It is not safe for us to use the Scriptures unless the Lord Jesus has already freed us from human prejudice and a pre-established agenda.
 4. Not Adding, not subtracting from prophetic Scriptures (Revelation 22:18-19). "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll."
How seriously have we taken these sobering words at the end of John's Revelation? I am amazed. Of all Scriptures used by Christians, anywhere, none of them have been tampered, twisted and added onto more than this one itself. An absolutely massive world-wide movement, involving millions upon millions of people, entire political parties and shocking wars have revolved around what is read "between the lines" of Revelation 20:1-10.
 But, seriously, have you ever carefully read this chapter yourself? Stunning in its simplicity!
 There is not one word, not even the minutest suggestion of any "restoration of Israel," or of any flesh and blood Jews, or of any earthly nation governed by Christ, in this passage.
Neither is there any suggestion in the entire Scriptures of any "pre-tribulation rapture," or of any restoration of animal sacrifices that glorify God, or of a return to the laws of Moses.
 In fact, the "thousand years" is one of the most poorly translated pieces of the entire New Testament in our North European languages. The Greek word (check it out in Strongs, or wherever you wish) is the word "chilioi," not singular, but plural. In other words, it already includes "thousands of years," instead of just one clearly defined millennium. But even the word "thousands" is not totally accurate.
 "Chilioi" is not the word that Greek speakers would use to describe "thousands." Instead they use the word, "chiliades." Chilioi, as used by the Apostle John is a vague term, used basically for a "long long time." An age.
And this brings us right back into the rest of all the teachings of Christ, the simple Gospel that tells us nothing more than to be ready at all times for the day of judgement. Not adding. Not subtracting, is a key to understanding Bible prophecy. If the Lord wanted us to know more, he would have told us more. And in the meantime, while we are still waiting, I rest every night in total peace. The Lord is in control. Not me. And this is why I refuse to latch onto any "ism" or humanly constructed line of thought: premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism, etc. Who needs it if we have the Gospel of Jesus in our hearts and hands? 

 I wanted to give the full context of his claim regarding the meaning of  χιλια ετη, the term Revelation 20:2 uses, because he is so totally wrong about this that I can't address it without making him look really stupid. And he's not stupid, he's just way out of his league here, casting judgment on basically every Bible ever translated in English. Yes, Strongs uses the transliteration 'chilioi' for G-5507, which is its nominative singular lemma form. But not even Strong translates it as 'thousands', but 'a thousand'. This shows how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing; being able to look up a word in Strongs does not qualify one to evaluate Bible translations.

It gets worse, when he assays to read the mind of the modern Greek. I actually don't know modern Greek, but I do know that when Google or Bing attempt to translate Biblical Greek as if it were Modern Greek, the result in English is usually hilarious, but never accurate. Google, however, perfectly rendered either χίλια χρόνια (its Modern Greek translation of 'thousand years') or χίλια ἔτη (the Koine equivalent). So all the talk about how a Greek speaker would say it is nothing but ignorance strutting as erudition; at least at first blush, it's 'chilia' either way.

If Peter Hoover wants to accuse a Bible translator of mistranslating 'thousand', he need look no further than Acts 21:20, where many Bibles have the elders telling Paul that "thousands" of Jews had come to faith, when even Strongs could tell him that the number is actually that of the next order of magnitude, 'myriads'.

And how is χίλια ἔτη used elsewhere in the Bible? Well, it is only used twice elsewhere, and both times it is used proverbially to refer to a long time, like me saying in English, "Never in a thousand years would I expect such a scholar and historian as Peter Hoover to make such a blunder." But this is not proverbial language here--it's narrative, with terms like, "And when the thousand years are ended," which is pretty specific.

It's not as if John didn't know how to express large numbers: in the majority text of Revelation 9:6 he speaks of a number of horseman so large as to be inconceivable in his day, a thousand myriads (the two largest Greek numbers put together). Then in 5:11, he gives up counting the heavenly host after running clean out of big numbers: myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands. But he is able to divide 144,000 by twelve and come up with the right number; and when it comes to telling time, he is twice able to count up to one thousand, two hundred, and sixty days. It sure seems to me like John considers χίλιοι to mean 'a thousand'.

Could χιλια ετη refer to a long time, rather than exactly 12,000 months? Well, it does every other time it's used in the Bible, so I would have to answer "possibly," given that Revelation is a highly symbolic book anyway. But let's at least be honest about the evidence, and stick with what we have rather than making it up. And we are certainly not on firm ground to assume that it does, and build our theory on that.

P.S. In the interests of fair use, I should note that you can receive your own free subscription to Peter Hoover's emails by so requesting in an email to detention.river@gmail.com.

I shared quite a few years ago that this blog was listed as a Black Blog, which I thought both ironic and amusing--although 'humbling' was the adjective I used at the time.

Today, idly hitting the 'next blog' arrow at the top of the screen, I noticed that my blog has come to rest in a more aptly described place in the blogosphere--in the 'religious blog' category.

I'm in some pretty good company.

The New Math: The NIV and Sarah's Three Measures of Flour

"And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth."                   --Genesis 18:6 KJV

Okay, so the inquiring reader may want to know just how much is "three measures." How about turning to that bastion of contemporary scholarship, the 1978 NIV?

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. "Quick," he said, "get three seahs[a] of fine flour and knead it and bake some bread."
 [a] That is, probably about 20 quarts (about 22 litres)           --NIV78

Dear me. Like the ill-fated Mars Mission of 1999, which overshot its goal, the CBT suffered from an inability to correctly convert to metric. Twenty quarts is in fact less than 19 litres. Kind of embarrassing for something billed as "The First Truly International English Version." Ah well, this one certainly didn't get past the revision of 1984, surely.

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. "Quick," he said, "get three seahs[a] of fine flour and knead it and bake some bread."
[a] That is, probably about 20 quarts (about 22 litres)              --NIV84

Dear, dear me. The CBT's scholarship isn't looking so scholarly here, is it.  Well, the TNIV was the epitome of scholarly scholarship, correcting all the gross outdated language of that childish project, the NIV. It reads:

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. "Quick," he said, "get three seahs[a] of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread."
[a] That is, probably about 36 pounds or about 16 kilograms  --TNIV04

Oh. A measure, then, is now twelve pounds, rather than thirteen and a third cups (the way modern people actually measure flour). So we have now moved from ill-fated scholarship to pedantry. Are we really expected to believe that Sarah used up most of a 50-pound bag of flour just to slap together a meal for her husband and his three visitors? Come on! If they aren't even sure of the amount, why guess such a large number?

Well, the TNIV was a source of embarrassment alright, but its faults, thank heaven, have now been rectified once and for all in the NNIV of 2011. Right?

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs[a] of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.”
[a] That is, probably about 36 pounds or about 16 kilograms --NIV2011

EDITED ON MARCH 27-28, 2012
Okay, so the CBT don't turn out to be quite so stupid after all, but scholarly. VERY scholarly. What they were using here were DRY quarts. A 'dry quart' is one thirty-second of a bushel, or 67.2 cubic inches. In other words, more than a litre, rather than less. Cripe! Someone reading the NIV because the KJV was too hard to understand is not going to know that flour is OF COURSE always measured in 'dry' rather than 'liquid' quarts. Especially since anyone who ever measures out four cups of flour for a recipe uses a 'liquid' cup measure to do so. Furthermore, anyone turning to the more detailed notes under the "Table of Weights and Measures" in the back of the 1985 NIV Study Bible will be told that a dry quart and a liquid quart are, respectively, LESS and MORE than a litre.

If late 20th-century recipe books that actually called for a quart of flour didn't use dry quarts, and if the NIV editors couldn't even keep straight which was which, why ever would the New International Version use them?

END EDITS.

On a related note, there is one other place in the Scriptures where "three measures" is mentioned:

Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.                          --Matthew 13:33 KJV

Well, we already know what "3 measures" were in 1978 over in Genesis. What were they in 1973 in Matthew?

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough.” [a] Greek three satas (about a bushel)

Okay, I guess this is another measurement entirely; a bushel is 37 quarts [32 DRY quarts--ed.] or 35 litres. But where's the metric? Oh, it must not have come along until 1978:

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough.” [a] Greek three satas (probably about 1/2 bushel or 22 litres)                                              ---NIV78,84

Good Grief! We've cut our bushel in half! Not quite in half, though, as 22 litres is  62 per cent of 35. More like two-thirds of a bushel, but who's keeping track?  Sigh. Let's see what improvements came along in 2001:

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough.” [a]Or about 27 kilograms --TNIV, NNIV

Okay, so now everything is in weight rather than volume (did the CBT really commission somebody to go weigh a litre of hand-ground flour for this project?), with a litre of flour weighing 1227 grams.

Back to Genesis:
16 kilograms = 22 litres. That's 1375 grams per litre, pretty close when you're rounding off. But since when did half a bushel, or even 62% of a bushel of flour, weigh sixty pounds? By my calculations a whole bushel of flour (as if anyone ever measures it in bushels) should come up to only about 25 kg or 55 pounds.  Oh, I know. It all depends on whether Sarah measured it before sifting, or after! Maybe she measured it all in heaping teaspoons, and added some "for good measure."

Actually, all this misses the point of converting significant figures. Trying to specify, down to the litre or pound, how much flour was involved is taking literal translation to its extreme--something proponents of the NIV said we should never, ever try at home. The point is that Sarah prepared a huge amount of bread for Abraham's guests, and that it's possible to leaven a huge amount of flour just by putting a little active yeast in it to grow. But by trying to prove how scholarly they were, the CBT ended up with dunce caps on their heads.

More information on this subject is available in a subsequent post.

UPDATE JULY 2014
In this post I pointed out that the NIV's translation of kikkaroth (KJV cakes) conveys the wrong image to today's young person. Going back over this post, I see the same thing--except here the Hebrew word is 'ugowt. That's a plural word, so it should convey more the image of a huge stack of pancakes than a few loaves of bread.
When an English speaker makes pancakes or tortillas, he would never say that he is "baking bread," yet that is how the NIV has conveyed Sarah's action to the English reader.

Three Levels of Numerical Precision in Published Report

Headline: "Libyan forces pound Misrata, 1,000 evacuated by sea"

Dateline: "BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – A chartered ship evacuated nearly 1,000 foreign workers and wounded Libyans from Misrata on Monday"

Copy: "The Ionian Spirit steamed out of Misrata carrying 971 people, most of them weak and dehydrated migrants mainly from Ghana, the Philippines and Ukraine, heading for the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in eastern Libya."

Thus we see three accepted levels of precision, all in the space of a single article. We could go even further and count the exact number of souls on board, which would include all those in utero. Interestingly enough, this would probably be within the range already outlined; a different number from the third listed, equally precise, yet both perfectly accurate.

This is something to keep in mind when dissecting the Four Gospels.