Wine or Grape Juice

[Saint Thomas]

I posted this over here to try and keep from further dirting up the
discussion. I was a little blunt and it ended up getting him riled. I
really would not prefer to do that. My question about our Lord at His
last supper could probably be boiled down to this. If they used grape
juice, where did they get it? Did they know someone who was crushing
grapes for wine? There is one scripture that gives a good idea of the
Jewish practice when it comes to wine. John 2:6 says, "And there were
set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying
of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece." Jesus made wine
at this point by simply turning clean water into wine. The ruler of
the feast declared that it was good wine. Now there is no way to know
for sure, but if this was a Jewish wedding they probably drank real
wine. I see no reason to read into scripture that they really drank
grape juice, for one think it makes no sense. When grapes are crushed
they immediately start to ferment, because the bacteria necessary for
the process is on the grapes themselves.
If you were to want grape juice you would have had to been there
immediately to obtain it. The al content of wine back then could not
be regulated, because they had no way to determine how much sugar was
present in the grape juice. The sugar in the juice, called fructose is
necessary in the presents of bacteria to ferment the juice. Fermenting
the juice was the only way to preserve the juice in the ancient world,
they did not can or Pasturize so this limited them greatly as to its
use. Typically wine without controlling the amount of sugar is
somewhere between 4 and 6 % alcohol it could be much higher if the
sugar content is much higher, but that is a lot weaker then our 12%
today. I think we read a little to much into the word oinos then is
really there. All of my study on this word concludes that it is used
for grapes, raisins, grape juice and wine. I am not sure that there is
a definitive answer to this question, but it does behoove us to be
careful of making statements that are not defensible, such as they
used Pasturized grape juice (Welch's as I recall).

[Thomas Heringer]

Walter, good afternoon you can use anything from my post if you need to, but I am just going to sit back and see what happens.

--
By His Grace
Thomas F. Heringer
"Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Rev.22:20b