Wine For Medicinal Purposes ?

[Aquila]

Half of my wife's family is Jewish. Most don't realize this but the Last Supper was a meal in preparation for the passover, and Seder wine was used. Seder wine is required by Jewish law to be alcoholic. If Jesus kept the Jewish customs of his day...he drank alcoholic wine.

Those that try to draw a strong distinction between fermented and unfermented based on mere word studies are oversimplifying a more complex hermeneutic. The "new wine" and words they associate with "grape juice" are often used for both unfermented and fermented wines up to weeks of ages. I believe it was that a wine could be considered oinos for up to a year, if my memory serves me correctly. Also it's important to note that while some went through an extensive process to keep wine from fermenting, the purpose wasn't to provide unfermented wine...but to preserve the wine for use. The majority of wine in the ancient world wasn't subjected to these processes. In fact they didn't have pasturization as we know it today (like with Welch's). In fact wine began the fermentation process rather quickly and was considered fermented often within six hours of the wine press.

There's so much that goes into this there's an entire CULTURE of detail about this, and once one is familiar with it the simple little word studies and claims that Jesus drank grape juice and that the Bible condemns all alcoholic beverages seems a bit silly.

However, the Bible always condemns drunkenness.

Drunkenness is to wine what gluttony is to food. Neither wine or food are sinful in and of themselves...it's drunkenness and gluttony that we have to guard against.