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Bible Dictionaries
Honey
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or HONEY.—Honey is mentioned very frequently in the OT: twenty times in the proverbial expression ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ (Exodus 3:8; Exodus 3:17; Exodus 13:5; Exodus 33:3, Leviticus 20:24, Numbers 13:27; Numbers 14:8; Numbers 16:13 f., Deuteronomy 6:3; Deuteronomy 11:9; Deuteronomy 26:9; Deuteronomy 26:15; Deuteronomy 27:3; Deuteronomy 31:20, Joshua 5:6, Jeremiah 11:5; Jeremiah 32:22, Ezekiel 20:6; Ezekiel 20:15); or in other connexions, either literally, as a product of the soil and as food (Genesis 43:11, Deuteronomy 8:8; Deuteronomy 32:13, Judges 14:8 f., 18, 1 Samuel 14:25 f., 29, 43, 2 Samuel 17:29, 1 Kings 14:3, 2 Kings 18:32, 2 Chronicles 31:5, Job 20:17, Psalms 81:16, Isaiah 7:15; Isaiah 7:22, Jeremiah 41:8, Ezekiel 16:13; Ezekiel 16:19, Sirach 11:3; Sirach 39:26); or figuratively, as a term of comparison for sweetness (Exodus 16:31, Psalms 19:10; Psalms 119:103, Proverbs 5:3; Proverbs 16:24; Proverbs 24:13 f., Proverbs 25:16; Proverbs 25:27, Song of Solomon 4:11; Song of Solomon 5:1, Ezekiel 3:3, Sirach 24:20; Sirach 49:1). On the other hand, it is very rarely named in the NT, and especially in the Gospels. There is no direct evidence that the Jews were acquainted with any other honey than that of wild bees. Yet the fact that in 2 Chronicles 31:5 honey is included among the products of which the first-fruits were to be offered, would appear to represent it as an object of culture, and the mention of ‘wild honey’ as part of the food of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:4, Mark 1:6 [Syriac Sin. [Note: Sinaitic.] , perhaps under the influence of Deuteronomy 32:13 and Psalms 81:16, has ‘honey of the mountains’]) appears to point by way of contrast to the existence of honey derived from domesticated bees. As to artificial honey, made from boiled fruits (dates, raisins, figs), and to which the Arabs give the name of dibs (the phonetic equivalent of Heb. דְּבָשׁ ‘honey’ [of bees]), it is not impossible that it was known to the Israelites and the Jews; but we have no decisive Biblical proof of this (cf. Josephus BJ iv. viii. 3; Urquhart, The Lebanon, 1860, i. p. 393; Berggren, Guide Français-Arabe, col. 266, Nr. 94 and 95).
The two parallel passages cited above, relating to the food of John the Baptist, are the only ones in the Gospels in which the word μέλι, ‘honey,’ is found. Wild honey (μέλι ἅγριον) is named along with locusts as forming the very simple and frugal sustenance of an ascetic, a Nazirite, such as John was.* [Note: One might be tempted, however, following a hint of Diodorus Siculus (xix. 94), to see in the ‘wild honey’ the designation of a vegetable and nutritive substance, such as the resin of the tamarisks or some other sweet and savoury exudation from a tree. To collect nourishment of this kind in the thickets along the Jordan would have been an easier task for the Baptist, and would have required less time, than to hunt for the honey of bees (cf. Berggren, op. cit. col. 564).] Further, in another Gospel passage (Luke 24:42) there is mention, at least in the TR [Note: R Textus Receptus.] and Authorized Version, of a piece ‘of a honeycomb’ (ἀπὸ μελισσίου κηρίου) as having been offered along with ‘a piece of broiled fish’ to Jesus after His resurrection. But a number of the most ancient MSS [Note: SS Manuscripts.] of the NT (אABDLΠ) do not contain the former phrase, and the disposition of modern commentators, almost without exception, is to consider it as an addition. ‘A singular interpolation, evidently from an extraneous source, written or oral,’ say Westcott and Hort. The Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 omits it. But this method of solving the problem cannot be regarded as satisfactory and final. In fact, if it is very hard to imagine, to use the language of Dean Burgon, ‘that such a clause as that established itself universally in the sacred text, if it be spurious,’ it is much less difficult to explain ‘how such a clause became omitted from any manuscript, if it be genuine.’ One can discover no possible motive for the surreptitious introduction of these words into the text. On the other hand, if they are regarded as an integral part of the primitive and authentic text, it is not impossible to disentangle the reason of their suppression in some MSS [Note: SS Manuscripts.] . With a view to this we must place the narrative of Luke 24:41-43 alongside of John 21:9-13, compare these two descriptions of a meal, and note that in many of the writings of the Fathers, and probably in various attempts to establish ‘harmonies of the Four Gospels’ (but not in the Diatessaron of Tatian), these two scenes are in fact identified (although they differ in all their essential features). Now, perhaps, we may be able to explain how the mention of the honeycomb came to disappear. The influence of Leviticus 2:11 f., which forbids the use of honey (probably because easily subject to fermentation) in any kind of sacrifice; that of the allegorical interpretation of Song of Solomon 5:1 (especially in the LXX Septuagint version) applied to Christ; an ascetic tendency to proscribe sweet foods; the possible intervention of the Valentinians with their Veritatis Evangelium; and, finally, the proneness to polemize against the Gnostics, who made large use of honey in their solemn ‘mysteries’ (cf. Carl Schmidt, Gnostische Schriften in koptischer Sprache, Leipzig, 1892, pp. 203, 508), and who may have appealed for support to this text;—such are the motives which, either singly or all combined, may have brought about the removal of the disputed words. The present writer is strongly inclined, in common with the three authors cited below in the Literature, to retain them as authentic.
Literature.—Burgon-Miller, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, London, 1896, Appendix I. ‘Honeycomb,’ pp. 240–252; Merx, Evang. des Markus und Lukas, Berlin, 1905, pp. 540–543; Nestle, ThLZ [Note: hLZ Theol. Literaturzeitung.] , 1906, col. 40. See also, for bees, Bochart, Hicroz. ii. 502 ff.; J. G. Wood, Bible Animals, 1869, pp. 605–612; Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible8 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , 1889, pp. 322–326.
Lucien Gautier.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Honey'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/h/honey.html. 1906-1918.
