Skunk: it was considered barbaric to drink undiluted wine. In those days, wine was mixed with water, so your bladder is more likely to get full before you get ever drunk. Mikey: in *some* cultures in *some* time periods it was considered barbaric to drink undiluted wine. There I fixed it for you, now you have to prove that this specifically applied to the wedding at Cana or any other pro alcohol passage in Scripture. Hint, it doesn't as the passage in question speaks of the wedding guests as already being "well drunk." Skunk:
Sure. I think the Jewish culture would have considered it barbaric. The MC at the wedding in Cana was just making a general statement about the state of affairs in any wedding celebration: people get drunk. But regardless of whatever personal experience of the MC was in other weddings, he really liked the wine that Jesus made. And I doubt that it was because the wine was undiluted 20% alcohol. Drinking alcohol isn't a sin; it was a necessity in NT times. But being drunk is a sin. Mikey: Most sources that claim such are from Greco-Roman culture not Jewish/Near Eastern. The average wine of ancient times, just as today, would be 8-14% as that's how much sugars grapes naturally have. Skunk: I doubt that the pagans were more conservative in their drinking custom than the Jews were. Wisdom is portrayed as mixing the wine in Proverbs 9. I think Jesus made wine, and it was really good but not because it had high alcohol content. Mikey: the passage in Proverbs is typically considered mixing the honey and/or spices, "Mixed wine" being equivalent to spiced wine. Again, do you have a source? Because "I doubt pagans..." doesn't really say anything. Every time I've looked up the "unmixed wine is barbaric/bad" subject I find Greco-Roman sources. Skunk: It could be spiced wine. But since the text doesn't state whether it was water or spice, I think it's a speculation either way. I will also say that they also made a boiled paste out of wine and stored it until they wanted to mix the paste with water and drink it that way. The Bible speaks against drinking strong drinks. I think that is evidence enough that Jesus did not create a full-strength wine that people could be intoxicated easily by. Mikey: God is not against strong drink as a standard practice, he's against drunkenness. In the context of spending your second tithe for the pilgrimage festivals, God encourages strong drink. Deuteronomy 14:26 You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. The "best wine" that Jesus made would have been fully fermented and aged wine. People could definitely get intoxicated from it. As to the paste thing, do you have a source? Because I've heard that line from teetotaling Baptists dozens of times without proof. Based on your line of reasoning I'd say that you've been heavily influenced by the Baptist scare tactics about alcohol, the majority of which are either overblown or straight lies not based on the actual linguistic, cultural, and historical context of Scripture. Skunk: Yes, people in the Bible drank alcoholic drinks. The context of Dt 14:26 shows that people are celebrating with wine and other "strong" drinks, which can mean alcoholic drinks of any relative strength. Yes, there is no command to abstain from alcohol in the Bible; fermentation was a prevalent reality and necessity for sanitation in ancient times. That much is clear. At the same time, the Bible talks about the dangers of drinking alcohol. And for some individuals in the course of their duties, they were flat out commanded to abstain from strong drinks. The priests were commanded to abstain from strong drinks in Lv 10. The one who takes the Nazirite vow was to abstain in Nu 6. Kings were advised to abstain from strong drinks in Pr 31. Pr 20,23 warns against the alcohol's effects on making someone utterly foolish. Isaiah 5:11,22 condemns people who seek after and purposely concoct strong drinks in order to intoxicate themselves. Timothy abstained from alcohol, following the Bible's wisdom, and Paul had to tell him that it's okay to drink a little wine for his health's sake. For all these reasons, I doubt Jesus purposely made a full-strength wine that people could easily be intoxicated by; I think there were other reasons that made Jesus' wine exceptional. I don't think there is any need to charge anyone of lying. I could easily say the same about you, seeing that you seemingly haven't done a fair research about ancient wine because you haven't even heard about the Jews' "yayin mevushal" wine. Mikey: I've done plenty of research, I'm asking you to prove claims that are often overblown. Yayin Meshuval just means pasturized wine, it has nothing to do with a paste product and is post biblical rabbinic in origin. Even if I didn't know this, it wouldn't be lying it would be uninformed. The Baptist teetotaling info does in fact base some of its logic on lies, sometimes unintentionally because they inherited the info and other times they knowingly spread falsehoods. And again "I doubt Jesus purposely made a full-strengrh wine..." isn't based on the text or the history or the culture but upon how one feels about the issue. The facts of the matter are that Jesus made the "best wine" and there's a distinct cultural understanding of what that would be. Skunk: Yayin mevushal seems to date as old as "kosher" was a word. Can you prove that the product dates post-biblical in origin? Well, I don't know what Baptists you talked with that believe that ancient people didn't drink alcoholic drinks. But like I said, fermentation was an inescapable reality in ancient times. But I think it is equally wrong to think all the people were carelessly drinking undiluted wine all time without regard to its intoxicating potential. And I see clear evidence of Israel's wary attitude in consuming alcohol, as shown in the Bible's passages I have listed. I don't think we can be dogmatic about what kind of wine Jesus served. Wine could mean any grape-derived product at any stage in fermentation process. I personally lean toward the early stage of fermentation, when it wasn't intoxicatingly strong because I see evidence of the Bible's wisdom telling people to stay away from relatively stronger drinks. Mikey: there's Greek terms for "new wine" or "young wine" that would represent less fermented wine. In the wedding at Cana the standard term οίνος oinos is used. So any interpretation or opinion that leans away from the plain and standard meaning, regular everyday wine, is an insertion of one's own ideas and proclivities. As to yayin meshuval and the term kosher, both are Rabbinic terms that post date the Biblical era by at least 200 years. The whole concept was invented in a post temple context of allowing gentiles to touch kosher wine. It isn't even boiled to the point of killing the alcohol, only killing the yeast and probiotics. Considering it's a known Rabbinic term and product, the impetus would be on you to prove that it existed in Biblical times and was actually alcohol free as opposed to the standard definition. When did I state that people were "carelessly drinking... without regard..." I trust the text of the scripture that people drank, some responsibly and others not. It's weird to assume that undiluted = irresponsible, I'm not sure where that idea comes from. The Bible warning against drunkenness in no way implies that approved drinking was done in a special diluted manner. A reasonable amount of full strength wine =/= carelessness. Skunk: that's simply incorrect. The Septuagint translated Hebrew Tirosh "new wine" as oinos. In the parable of the wineskin, Jesus calls the fresh juice the new oinos, but oinos nonetheless. Oinos was generic enough that it could mean anything from freshly squeezed juice to fully fermented wine. It was a Jewish practice to use Yayin mevushal in order to separate themselves from idolatry. Boiling the wine would definitely remove the alcohol, as alcohol is the first to go when heated. But you might be right that it is only a post-biblical practice. Again, I don't think we can be dogmatic about what kind of wine Jesus served. But based on my reading of the biblical wisdom about alcohol, I believe it is reasonable to assume that Jesus' wine was on the earlier stage of fermentation. Jesus' wine being better does not equate to its being higher alcohol content. Mikey: I no longer live in a Jewish heavy region, but when I did I could go to the grocery store and get Jewish meshuval wine. It would be the standard alcoholic content for that type of wine. When heating, pasturizing, any liquid there is an optimal temperature that you do to preserve certain properties of said liquid. In the case of wine the alcohol will boil off around 175°. Pasteurization is actually a common technique of all natural homebrewers to kill yeast without introducing chemicals. TLDR; meshuval =/= alcohol free. Can you find a Koine or Attic source that uses oinos for unfermented, or underfermented, wine? Because the lexicons all record the word as simply meaning wine. You say, "we can't be dogmatic" while you yourself are being dogmatic in pushing a culturally odd interpretation. I am being unabashedly dogmatic, but I'm holding to the cultural, linguistic, theological, and historical interpretation. You're correct that the "better wine" doesn't equal "higher alcohol" but it does, in context, equal the common everyday meaning of what is better wine. Which would be the same as it is today, a good aged wine with fully developed flavors. Such a wine will typically be between 10-14%, occasionally higher depending on the grapes. Skunk: I have already conceded to the possibility that mevushal wine is post-biblical in date, so I'm no longer using this wine to argue for the existence of non-alcoholic wine in the Bible. So whatever point in which we disagree about this wine is irrelevant at this point. However, are you saying that the post-biblical Jews understood the know-how and had the apparatus to boil the wine to a very specific temperature to "pasteurize," which I understand to be a very modern method, and not boil off the volatile alcohol in the wine? I pointed to the Septuagint which clearly uses the word "oinos" to translate the Hebrew's "tirosh" which means grape juice or wine in its early stage of fermentation. That shows that the Greek "oinos" is generic enough that it can mean any wine in any stage of fermentation, from unfermented to fully fermented. I don't think you are at all holding to a proper hermeneutic as you claim. I don't think you are even fairly studying the historical context. In all your responses, you have not given proper regard to the fact that it was a well-established Jewish custom in Jesus' times, as supported by the Bible's wisdom passages that warns against fermented wine (as I already mentioned) and as overtly testified to by extrabiblical writings such as Talmud, to dilute the wine, with the water being the larger component. Even the Romans, who had their Bacchanalia and debauched drinking parties, generally recognized the cultural dangers of alcohol, and they also drank their wine diluted with a greater portion of water. For all these reasons, while not being able to be perfectly sure about what kind of wine Jesus served in Cana, all the evidence points to it being closer to fresh grape juice in its fermenting stage. But I certainly don't believe it could be anything that even the pagans considered barbaric and culturally destructive. Mikey: you have shown zero proof that first century Jews would have a practice of watering down wine for weddings (or passover, which is the following passage). Referencing Greco-Roman practices, which vary widely depending on place and time, isn't evidence of Jewish practice. The cultures despised one another. The Jews did many things that Rome would have considered barbaric, why should we think that their practices are the default? Referencing the Talmud is similarly unhelpful. It's earliest writings are from the 250s AD from a group that had deviated from God's ways further than their fathers the Pharisees. Tirosh doesn't inherently mean unfermented wine. It means "not aged" wine. This technically *could* include fresh juice but is never used in that context in the OT. Passages in the OT warning about drunkenness include not longing for young wine/tirosh. When the LXX translators read those passages, they made a translation decision to use the normal word for wine. Oinos distinctly means alcoholic wine, Greek has other words for juice and young wine. Have you found any lexicons that claim oinos could mean non-alcoholic wine? Or some other potential source? My hermeneutic is the natural, linguistic, and historic reading of the text. To imply anything else is to bring in preconceived notions that full strength wine is somehow bad. Trying so hard to force the text to say something other than it naturally says isn't good. Yes the OT warns against drunkenness, but it also encourages drinking. The wisdom passages you refer to don't warn against "fermented wine" as some special category over against "non-alcoholic wine" they are passages against drunkenness generally. To elevate the warning passages to become the filter through which you read the wedding at Cana is to ignore the ample contrary passages that establish the blessings of wine and strong drink. Skunk: I think it is irresponsible to entirely disregard the Talmud; it was an ongoing compilation of oral traditions and teachings of the ruling teachers that date far back from the time when they were compiled in writing, and they informed the contemporary trends of Jewish customs in their time period. For instance, Berakhot 51b shows that the two schools of Hillel and Shammai disagreed on the order of washing hands and mixing the wine with water before a meal, but both nevertheless mixed the wine with water before the meal. Pesachim 108b talks about the practice of diluting the Passover wine with three parts of water and 1 part of wine, as long as the undiluted wine component's total volume for all four Passover cups is a one quarter of a log (quarter of a pint). Also, 2 Maccabees 15:39, written in the inter-testamental period, talks about the custom of diluting wine with water. Jesus called unfermented juice as "oinos" in the parable of the wineskins. The Septuagint translated Hebrew "Tirosh" (which is the fresh, new wine that is harvested as a part of the tithe in Dt 14:23) as "oinos." Plutarch in his 'Advice to Bride and Groom,' he alludes to the custom of calling diluted wine as wine. But I think the strongest argument is the Bible's wisdom in being wary of drinking undiluted wine. For all these reasons, I cannot imagine Jesus making fully undiluted, potent wine, especially given an environment as uncontrolled as a wedding is where people are expected to celebrate and indulge themselves liberally. There is even some wisdom in today's bartenders who cut drinks for people who are showing signs of intoxication; I don't think anyone was going on around cutting people's drinks in Jesus' times, but Jesus can control what they are drinking to begin with. Mikey: it is not "irresponsible" to disregard the Talmud, I'd say that accepting the Jewish claims of the Talmud representing a longstanding "oral law" as the irresponsible take. As I said before the EARLIEST portion, the Mishnah, is from the mid to late 200s with the latter part, the Gemara, from the 500s. It writes about the arguments that Hillel and Shammai allegedly had 100s of years after these men, if they existed, had already died. The Talmud also represents a distinctly anti-christian descendant of Second Temple Judaisms. I'm not going to be taking the lense with which I view Christ's miracles from the same Jews who say that Jesus (Yeshu) is boiling in excrement. (Note I'm Jewish myself. Me calling out the religion of Talmudic Judaism is not antisemitic, I can see some mistaking my harsh stance the wrong way). The parable of the wineskins literally uses the term "new wine" in all the Synoptic Gospels. So "oinos" with the adjective "neon" (meaning new) attached to it. There is NO passage in Scripture that says to be wary of "undiluted wine." Not a single passage. Every passage is a warning of wine/strong drink in general. Which contextually is a warning against drunkenness, not any specific type of drink. And again, you're using a fear of drunkenness mentality to skew how you see the miracle. Your statement "I can't imagine..." is telling. It's your emotional and intellectual investment in a certain view that is guiding you. Skunk: Yes, the Talmud is very anti-Christian, but I don't think that is relevant to the topic. We are talking about using it as a reliable aid to understand the Jewish custom around drinking wine in Jesus' times. The fact that Hillel and Shammai lived prior to the writing of Talmud doesn't bother me; that's why it's called oral traditions and I have no reason to doubt its authenticity. But also, I have shown you from an intertestamental writing as well. You have yet to show regard for these evidences that point to the Jewish custom of diluting their wine in Jesus' times. I suggest to you that the Bible CANNOT warn people not to get drunk, and NOT warn against undiluted wine at the same time. I would say I am on guard against drunkenness and drinking fermented wine because the Bible warns against drunkenness and the danger of such drink. Despite my colloquial "I can't imagine..." I am very much convinced that Jesus did not make undiluted fermented wine, because of all the reasons I have put forth. Upon examining your arguments for Jesus' making fermented wine, the only strong arguments that I have found is Dt 14:26, and Hos 4:11. Comments are closed.
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CategoriesAll Discourse Doctrines Gospel Humour NT Commentaries OT Commentaries Tactical Life Date
August 2023
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