Jesus Drank Grape Juice!

[T-Bone _]

[quote name='Dismas' post='1343180' date='Jul 28 2007, 04:34 PM']It most certainly was NOT grape juice.

Let's take a look at Matthew 9:17 (also found Mark 2:22 & Luke 5:37-39)

"Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

Now, let's say I have a one gallon wineskin and a gallon of Welch's grape juice. Why would it burst if it has already proven that it can hold a gallon of grape juice? Why would I hold it in a skin to begin with and not an amphora (a jug used in that time)? What properties are exclusively special about a skin filled with wine?

Jesus knew what wine is and was, and the nature of what fermentation is and was. Fermentation requires a container that does not permit fresh oxygen from entering the must. If this happens, you get vinegar, as the sugars are reduced to acetic acid. However, if there is no oxygen and a presence of yeast, which is naturally found on grape skins, the sugars are broken down into ethyl alcohol.

Now here's the kicker. If you used the ancient method of wine fermentation in a skin, you require new skins each time. You see, fermentation does not just produce alcohol, but also carbon dioxide, which would inflate the wineskin with enough pressure to stretch it out. Putting new wine (only partially fermented) into an old skin would essentially overfill it, and when the wine finished fermenting, would tear the skin, wasting both the skin and the wine.

Lastly, as someone else pointed out, you cannot prevent grape juice from fermenting, unless you were to freeze it or pasteurize it or drink it immediately. Considering that climate and technology prevented the former two, the latter would be just gross considering how grapes were pressed back then. I'd rather have it ferment than drinking someone's athlete's foot.[/quote]

You seem to forget that a lot of Protestants ignore science and history. This explanation has no meaning to them.

[kateri05]

[quote name='kamiller42' post='1342554' date='Jul 27 2007, 08:59 PM']I thought it was Jesus' blood. No? Ok, the artifacts remain. However, a sip of Jesus' blood is hardly ordinary consumption. When I say "not in my community," I mean buying and selling of it. If you want to bring it in from elsewhere, that's fine of course.[/quote]

the wine BECOMES Christ's blood. you can't have a valid mass without wine, because wine is the only consecratable (is that a world? ) material.

you can't have a valid mass with just bread, and the "liquid" used must be the alcoholic product of fermented grapes.

thus, i want wine in my community

[123]

Alright, even if there was beer I still see no Scripture verses condeming [u]controlled[/u] consumption of alcoholic beverages. I guess these men aren't going back to the original text that Scripture came from.

[MichaelF]

Has anyone here drunk [i]raw[/i] grape juice?

Not the pasteurized or clarified stuff you buy at Albertsons, but stuff squeezed from the grape and left to sit a few days.

There is no real incentive to drink it, much less at a wedding.

[kateri05]

that must be how wine got invented... it was too yucky to drink straight, so they let the grape juice just sit, forgotten, and someone later stumbled on it and realized, HEY, this tastes WAY better!

[thessalonian]

This passage makes no sense if Jesus did not consume alcohol.

Matt 11

[18] For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, `He has a demon';
[19] the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds."

We know that John was a Nazarite who was celibate and did not consume alcohol. Clearly in context the drinking spoken of here is alcohol. John swore off grape juice? Truly silly.

[jeffpugh]

[quote name='Dismas' post='1343181' date='Jul 28 2007, 06:39 PM']Here's something that usually riles up, perhaps even inflame the teetotaler Christian crowd.

"First they toss the Apocrypha out of the Bible, then they add the Koran!"

Thank you G.K. Chesterton.[/quote]
That's really awesome. Seriously. Anywho, this is a great thread. Now I know what to say to these kinds of people. As 1337 K47h011x0r has said in O/P, it's not easy at first to straight up refute this, until you get some historical and scientific stuff to back it up.

Edited July 30, 2007 by Sacred Music Man

[1337 k4th0l1x0r]

[quote name='Dismas' post='1343181' date='Jul 28 2007, 06:39 PM']Here's something that usually riles up, perhaps even inflame the teetotaler Christian crowd.

"First they toss the Apocrypha out of the Bible, then they add the Koran!"

Thank you G.K. Chesterton.[/quote]

If the radio host ever brings up the issue again and a caller says that Jesus drank grape juice, I'm so throwing this line in. Probably will infuriate the whole audience.

[Dismas]

[quote name='1337 k4th0l1x0r' post='1349304' date='Aug 4 2007, 01:29 AM']If the radio host ever brings up the issue again and a caller says that Jesus drank grape juice, I'm so throwing this line in. Probably will infuriate the whole audience.[/quote]

I just found the actual quote:

"[b]I carl it rubbish[/b]" cried Patrick Dalroy, "[b]when ye put the Koran into the Bible and not the Apocrypha[/b]; and I carl it rubbish when a mad parson's allowed to propose to put a crescent on St. Paul's Cathedral. I know the Turks are our allies now, but they often were before, and I never heard that Palmerston or Colin Campbell had any truck with such trash."

([u]The Flying Inn[/u], G. K. Chesterton, chapter IV, pg 45)

By the way, I highly recommend the book. It borders on the prophetic when it criticizes the follies of today, even though it was first published in 1914. Oh, and it's a riot of humor and wit no less.

[ironmonk]

[quote name='1337 k4th0l1x0r' post='1341841' date='Jul 26 2007, 11:12 PM']Okay, I'll start with a confession to frame this discussion: I'm a talk radio addict. I listen to it all the time even though I can't stand some of the people like Sean Hannity. Anywho, I was listening earlier this week to one of the local shows that plays in the morning on the way to work and they were discussing the possibility of a nearby town banning alcohol sales after they were voted for last year by a small margin. All sorts of people were calling in to support removing sales. Whether or not they get rid of them I'm really not concerned about. It's a community with high membership in Church of Christ and Southern Baptist churches.

As I'm listening, I hear all these guys talking about alcoholism and how the bible says drunkeness is bad. The host of the show challenges his audience to say where in the bible it condemns alcohol in totality. One guy calls in claiming that even though the bible says 'wine' that Jesus drank the unfermented wine, i.e. grape juice. At this point I want to call in and call the last guy a crackpot but I really lack the hard evidence to dispute this. So I want to know what y'all think about this and for a good comeback, or evidence that supports or refutes that Jesus drank alcoholic wine.

I'm leaning toward the fact that Jesus drank wine with alcohol in it. The Wedding at Cana implies that party hosts would save cheap wine for the end because the partygoers wouldn't be sober enough to discern good wine from bad wine. Also, the juice of grapes naturally ferments. Grape juice is made by stopping wine production through pasteurization, i.e. fresh grape juice left alone will ferment into wine. However, this does not mean that pasteurization of grape juice was never used before and was simply rediscovered in the 19th century.[/quote]


The bible also says to give strong drink to the poor and dying. The bible says that wine gladdens the heart.

Most baptist teachers that I have met ignore the verses that they disagree with.

Non-alcoholic grape juice didn't exist until 1869 AD. Also, remember in the scriptures where it talks about putting new wine into old bags, that's because of the chemical reaction in fermentation, new wine in old skins will burst... grape juice wouldn't cause that.

This is one of the easiest points that some non-Catholics make that with a little study you will be able to blow out of the water.

It is bothersome how many ignorant have radio stations.

God Bless,
ironmonk

[Honour]

Here is my thing with the whole Alcohol issue... It is a sin to get drunk....you can't get drunk if you don't drink. So why would not drinking be a bad thing? The problem is when people try to push a personal practice on others....or judge them for not making the same choice.
blah blah "stumbling block" blah blah. I think it is part of the whole judgemental attitude that is running rampant in churches today. I am so fed up with the "church talk". I realized that Bible studies are not where you go to learn about the Bible, or God, but how to sound like a good Christian, learn the church vocabulary.
Oops I'm ranting....sorry.

[ironmonk]

[quote name='Honour' post='1350658' date='Aug 5 2007, 10:00 PM']Here is my thing with the whole Alcohol issue... It is a sin to get drunk....you can't get drunk if you don't drink. So why would not drinking be a bad thing? The problem is when people try to push a personal practice on others....or judge them for not making the same choice.
blah blah "stumbling block" blah blah. I think it is part of the whole judgemental attitude that is running rampant in churches today. I am so fed up with the "church talk". I realized that Bible studies are not where you go to learn about the Bible, or God, but how to sound like a good Christian, learn the church vocabulary.
Oops I'm ranting....sorry.[/quote]

I don't think anyone is saying that not drinking is a bad thing... what we are saying is that nothing is wrong with drinking. It is wrong to drink until we can no longer keep our wits.

God Bless,
ironmonk

[kamiller42]

WARNING: This might be a long post, but I think it has an interesting story.

In a previous post, I mentioned little thought is given about the impact on the common good of alcohol in a community. I live in a city that is partially wet, meaning alcohol is served only in restaurants. The city next to us went wet a couple of years ago. I live close to its border and have begun to notice the impact their decision. Beer bottles and boxes and other debris strewn about the streets. And Saturday morning, its impact hit really close to home, right outside my door actually.

I was listening to a recording of a national talk show late Friday, early Saturday morning, 8/4/07. It was the end of the week show, and the talk took on the lighter side. They were discussing an article comparing people's personalities with the drinks they drink. The end of the show came, and I was ready to go to bed. It was 1:30am.

I was about to shutdown my computer when I heard a loud BOOM outside my window. I knew the sound was the sound of two cars colliding. I park my cars in the front of the house and thought one of them had been hit for sure. I sprang up from desk chair and ran for the door. When I opened the door, I saw a Pontiac sports car driving up the side of my neighbor's work van, which now was shoved off the street and onto the grass.

The driver continued on. He was attempting to leave the scene. His front right tire had peeled off the car already. The back right was coming off. The front of his car was sitting under the van. In spite of all this, he was driving away, on a rim no less. I ran back into the house, grabbed some keys, headed for my truck, and took off after him.

I knew it wouldn't be too difficult to catch him. I knew he was without one wheel. He was leaving a scratch in the road. As I went down the road, I found his other wheel. When I came to the end of the scratch, I saw he pulled into his driveway as if nothing happened. He was standing outside his car looking it over. He did not run as if a criminal fleeing a scene.

I did not feel he had criminal intent, so I approached him. I noticed he had a cut on his forehead. I asked him if he knew. He seemed dazed. He told me he did not now. I told him he should get back to the scene of the accident. He agreed, and I headed back for my truck.

As I sat in the driver's seat, I noticed him walking toward my truck with his hand extended for the door handle. He wanted a ride back to the scene! Well, I knew he couldn't drive his car and walking back to the scene was too far to walk, so I told him to get his license and insurance. I would give him a ride. He looked and looked and didn't find them. He came back to the truck and sat inside.

Inside the truck, I could clearly smell the alcohol on his breath. He was dazed and confused because his mind was numb, floating on a body of alcohol. He said he drove on because he didn't think he hit anything. Imagine if he had hit someone walking on the street instead of a van! Needless to say, but I did not light a match in my truck lest the entire inside flame up. The amusing talk on the national radio show seemed to have left out this part of the world of alcohol.

I drove him back to the scene where the cops were waiting for him. He told the cops too that he didn't realize he hit anything. The cops, of course, were not buying it. I talked with neighbors and then went back inside.

For a bit of irony, the neighbor who owned the van came over and to thank me for chasing the guy down. As a sign of gratitude, they gave me a bottle of wine. I don't drink (Nazirite vow or something like that ), but I accepted the bottle anyway. We talked a little more and that was the end of an eventful night.

I am not saying these kinds of things would never happen in a dry region. I am saying wet/dry laws and accessibility to alcohol, something some of our brothers and sisters are venerable to ("Am I my brother's keeper?"), does affect the common good. It can be incidents like what I experienced, domestic violence, health issues, and more. I think these issues are taken way too lightly, especially dry communities going wet to pursue tax revenue.

Edited August 6, 2007 by kamiller42

[Sojourner]

So ... kamiller, what are you actually getting at here? You sound almost like you'd like to see an outright ban on alcohol but aren't quite gutsy enough to say that. Am I right?

I also think your assessment of community leaders is a little too simplistic when you say that communities take alcohol-related issues lightly. Maybe all the community leaders in Texas are just money-grubbing politicians, but the people I've talked to in governmental positions on this topic are well aware of the effects of alcohol and take that into consideration when passing laws. And let's just acknowledge for the record that this isn't a new issue we're wrestling with here. We did try Prohibition, after all, and that didn't work out all that well.

As with any public policy, we balance many competing interests. Here, we weigh public safety concerns against a legitimate right to imbibe, tax concerns, and the cost of enforcement. We pass some laws that err on the side of public safety (drunk driving, public intox, etc.) and other laws that allow alcoholic beverages to be legally sold/purchased (21st Amendment). While imperfect, our laws encourage a sort of moderation. "You can drink, but be careful about it." That's the message we send. We send it all the more strongly when we enforce the laws we already have in the books.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Terra Firma

[kamiller42]

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1350966' date='Aug 6 2007, 03:34 AM']So ... kamiller, what are you actually getting at here? You sound almost like you'd like to see an outright ban on alcohol but aren't quite gutsy enough to say that. Am I right?

I also think your assessment of community leaders is a little too simplistic when you say that communities take alcohol-related issues lightly. Maybe all the community leaders in Texas are just money-grubbing politicians, but the people I've talked to in governmental positions on this topic are well aware of the effects of alcohol and take that into consideration when passing laws. And let's just acknowledge for the record that this isn't a new issue we're wrestling with here. We did try Prohibition, after all, and that didn't work out all that well.

As with any public policy, we balance many competing interests. Here, we weigh public safety concerns against a legitimate right to imbibe, tax concerns, and the cost of enforcement. We pass some laws that err on the side of public safety (drunk driving, public intox, etc.) and other laws that allow alcoholic beverages to be legally sold/purchased (21st Amendment). While imperfect, our laws encourage a sort of moderation. "You can drink, but be careful about it." That's the message we send. We send it all the more strongly when we enforce the laws we already have in the books.[/quote]
Where do I stand? I thought [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=70925&view=findpost&p=1342053"]my first thread post[/url] was pretty clear. There are two sides: totally wet & totally dry (prohibition). Where I stand is in between. You can bring it in from outside my community and consume it, but you can't sell it. In regards to selling in restaurants, I waffle on that one. People usually control themselves given the price restaurants charge. The amount of alcohol a restaurant is also monitored and cannot exceed a maximum. That is good.

Prohibition actually worked out well if it's measured by its objective, to dry a drunken nation up. (I can provide actual numbers of how well it worked when I get home.) America was a nation of drunkards. It is no surprise the largest proponent of prohibition was women. They are the ones who had to deal with husbands who came home drunk and in many cases were abusive. Think of what would motivate a group of people to not just outlaw alcohol but to amend the Constitution. That's no small feat. There must have some serious motivating factors. (This could start a new thread.)

I didn't say all government officials don't think about the costs. I know our city's leaders are resisting mounting pressure and those claiming our community "needs" to license the selling of alcohol. I know for a fact the city bordering ours went wet for primarily tax purposes.

Careful with the last paragraph. Someone with the drug legalization crowd might take you up on your reasoning. "Let's do what we want as long as it's in moderation." The tricky part is how do you control moderation. What costs are the community willing to tolerate when the line of moderation is crossed? And is moderation only important when it comes to public safety issues? I don't think so.