If Noah was a just and respectable old gentleman of some 600 years of age, how is it that we find him getting intoxicated – becoming drunk – as recorded in Genesis 9:20?

Noah’s intoxication was after the Flood was wholly unintentional. The Flood caused great changes in the atmospheric conditions of our earth. We understand it was produced by the precipitation to the earth of an immense quantity of water which previously had surrounded the earth at a distance as a cloudy canopy. The dissolution of this canopy or envelope of water not only produced the Flood, but altered the conditions of nature so that storms, rains, etc., resulted, things which had never been before (Genesis 2:5,6). 

Another result, we believe, was the development of an acid-like condition of the atmosphere tending to produce ferment, which directly affected human longevity, so that according to the Bible, the average of human life decreased from 800-900 years to 100. This ferment from the changed atmosphere, affecting the grape, generated mold and the alcoholic condition which produces drunkenness. According to the record, Noah’s drunkenness was the result of the first vintage of grapes after the Flood, and it evidently was contrary to all of his experiences preceding the Flood. Therefore, we understand this one instance of Noah’s having been intoxicated was the result of ignorance respecting the changed character of the fermented grapes.