Lets get rid of the non-scientific myths.
(1)
alcohol itself is NOT a food. It is a poison, and an industrial solvent.
(2)
alcohol IS a drug. It is an addictive drug, which is directly linked to more unfortunate crimes and problems and injuries and deaths than any other single cause, except smoking.
(3) Water in the Middle East is far more healthy than water in North America. In Palestine and the desert, it comes from wells, and springs, as recorded in the bible. It is not at all like the polluted tropical rivers in Mexico.
People in Palestine were not 'required' to drink alcoholic wine because there was no water. This is just non-historical rubbish. Even today, most North African and Arabian countries have banned alcohol for many hundreds of years, and they certainly DON'T rely upon 'wine' to provide critical water needs in the desert.
(4)
Handling alcohol is NOT like handling money as an example to gamblers, or eating in a healthy fashion to assist gluttons by example. This is a ridiculous myth. By the same argument, you could 'handle' sexual immorality responsibly, by having sex with hookers moderately and wearing a condom, or by gambling on weekends, or by pigging out once a month and fasting.
The better analogy is abstinance, since the goal is sobriety. If I say to my son, don't fall off the dangerous cliff, I DON'T mean dance all around the edge as close as you think you can handle.
If I want to teach others about responsible handling of money, I DON'T spend it on recreational drugs, when children are starving even in my own
neighbourhood. If I want to be a good example to a gambler, I DON'T gamble moderately, any more than idol-worshipping moderately can in any way be construed as fulfilling the commandment not to commit Idolatry.
(5)
It is not impossible to prevent fermentation or preserve fruit, in the Middle East or anywhere else, there are multiple ways of doing so, which have been known since time immemorial. There are jars of jam, concentrated juices, and frozen cans on every shelf in every store in the world. And this was true (except for the frozen orange juice) since the times of the Greeks.
Very poor analogies people.
Now lets look at scripture:
(1) It is a linguistic FACT that the Greek word 'oinos' is used to refer to both unfermented and fermented juice. When necessary, or when the context is unclear, the distinction is made using the adjective 'new' or 'old'. This is demonstrable in the New Testament itself, in three obvious places:
Luke 5:38, Matt 9:17, Mark 2:22.
(2) It is also a linguistic FACT that the Greek word 'oinos' is used to refer to both unfermented and fermented juice outside the New Testament independantly.
For instance,
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
in Meteorologica clearly refers to grape juice or 'must' (squeezings, "gleukos" ), as one of the kinds of 'oinos' ('wine').
"For some kinds of wine (oinos) for example, 'must' (gleukos), solidify when boiled....the sweet grape beverage ("glukus") which though called 'oinos' has no effects of alcohol, for it does taste like wine, but does not intoxicate like regular (Greek) 'oinos'.
(Aristotle, Meteorologica 384. a. 4-5, 388. b.9-13, See also 388 a. 34 )
In this text Atristotle explicitly informs us that unfermented grape juice was called 'oinos', - 'wine', though it was non-alcoholic.
Likewise,
Athenaeus, the Grammarian (A.D. 200) explains in his Banquet that:
The Mityleneans have a 'sweet wine' ('glukon oinon') what they called prodromos, and others call it protropos.. " Later on he recommends this sweet, unfermented 'protropos' for the dyspeptic: "Let him take sweet wine, either mixed with water or warmed, especially that kind called 'protropos', the sweet virgin 'glukus', as being good for the stomach; for sweet sweet oinos does not make the head heavy."
(Athenaeus, Banquet 1,54, 2,24,)
Here unfermented sweet wine (
'glukos oinos') is called 'virgin' and 'lesbian' because its alcoholic potency is zero.
Christians too, refer to freshly squeezed
unfermented grape juice as '
oinos'.
For example, Papias, bishop of Hierapolis at the close of the apostolic age, describes the current extravagant view of the millenium as a time when...
"...vines will grow each with ...ten thousand clusters on each tweig, and ten thouseand grapes in each cluster, and each grape, when crushed, witll yield 25 jars of 'oinos' (juice).
(Cited in Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5, 33, 3-4)
Likewise, the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint/LXX) translates the Hebrew word for grape-juice "
tirosh" at least thirty-times using the Greek word '
oinos', without 'new'. (Ernest Gordon,
Christ, the Apostles and Wine.
Exegetical Studies Philidelphia 1947)
Now the four examples given above, when examined are ambiguous:
(1) The Wine at Cana is a SIGN, meant to represent the New Teaching (New Wine) poured into the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel (the Ten Pots).
(2) No scripture actually records Jesus drinking alcoholic wine, even at the Last Supper.
(3) Jesus answers accusations against Himself in His typical cagey way, as with the taxes to Caesar, and regarding His authority to do the things He does.
(4) Paul is probably referring to safe healthy grape-juice, not an alcoholic beverage.
