Did Jesus turn water into non-alcoholic grape juice?

#maklelan1933 Responding to @CowboyJeffSmith

[stevenbatke]

Jesus turned water into wine, and evangelicals have been trying to turn it back, ever since.

[stevenbatke]

This episode is brought to you by Welch’s.

[MrsBilla-nuqb]

As a child (I’m in my 60s now), I asked my pastor about Jesus turning water into wine since in our church, people were forbidden to drink. That was the first time I was told that it wasn’t fermented. Even then, I thought that was a ridiculous statement and that’s when I started questioning what I was being taught.

[theoutspokenhumanist]

I love this guy. Confronted with gospel text he thinks is wrong, he thinks it's fine to simply invent his own story and then assert it as a fact. Spectacular!
I am using his excellent example and I'm changing my bible too. I'm going to preface every book with, "Once upon a time ..."

[firstpersonwinner]

I've seen people bend over backwards to make up different non-alcoholic beverages that barely or never existed in antiquity and try to claim when the NT spoke of wine it actually meant that.

One thing people also forget is that juice is incredibly hard to preserve and was only commonly available after the invention of pasteurization and slightly later refrigeration. To have grape juice youd basically need to produce and drink it within a day or two as it will immediately begin to ferment on its own, either naturally from the yeast in grape skins or from bacteria in the air. If from non-skin bacteria, tho, you are more likely to get vinegar than any sort of wine.

[chables]

There’s also just that the Biblical texts relating to alcohol are mainly criticizing habitual drunkenness and alcohol abuse, not necessarily getting drunk from time to time.

[jamesduncan]

When I first became a Christian, me and my newly-purchased NASB and NASB concordance sat down and had a long talk about whether or not a Christian could drink. Looking at every occurrence of the word wine, in context, led me to the conclusion that the Bible is not actually opposed to drinking. Rather, it is against drunkenness. And even then, the issue appears to be drunkenness on a regular basis, not getting drunk occasionally at a special event like a wedding.

As a result, I've never really understood the antipathy so many Christians have towards drinking alcohol.

[welcometonebalia]

Na, that was actually Vodka Red Bull. And Jesus was a sick DJ as well. What a party.

[SuprousOxide]

I've heard them try to say ALL wine back then was non-alcoholic. Which makes no sense as pointed at here, the guests at the wedding were plastered. But then it's said that Jesus had made the GOOD wine, and I find it incredibly hard to believe anyone at the party would mistake mere grape juice for good wine.

[lisaboban]

Ah, the old "Agrument from incredulity"! Sorry, Dan, no amount of dara can unseat, "I just don't believe that..."

[BobbyHill]

I grew up in a tradition where drinking wasn’t explicitly condemned, but as heavily discouraged as you could get and just a week or so decided to look into it a bit. After looking at the Greek and Hebrew, it seems that my traditions didn’t particularly care about the actual words used and decided if it were used in a positive or neutral sense then it was grape juice and if it was negative then it was referring to wine. This didn’t really surprise me, but it was pretty interesting. I imagine the stance of most evangelical traditions followed the same reasoning

[coachwalk]

the stuff people come up with so jesus can fit their religious box always amazes me.

[orsino]

A careful look at the Greek NT reveals that Jesus turned the water into Boone’s Farm Blue Hawaiian.

[dwightdhansen]

My late Southern Baptist mother thought it was a horrible sin to drink alcohol so believed it was grape juice as well.

[tchristianphoto]

A further point: No passage in the Bible prohibits the drinking of alcohol (although there are examples of people being stupid under the influence, like Noah). The author of 1 Timothy recommends wine for health reasons (5:23).

[kevinfisher]

And let’s not forget that for huge swaths of human history people drank wine not (only) to get drunk (though I’m sure it was high on the list) but because it was safer than drinking water. John Snow (the UK John Snow) traced a cholera epidemic back to a water pump in London by noting that many men who worked at a brewery nearby remained unharmed because …wait for it….they drank beer instead of water.

[ruthbaker]

Pretty hard, in the Middle East before pastuerization and refrigeration, to make grape juice and keep it non-fermented. You have to drink it right away.

But for a while it was fashionable among some fundies to claim that the wine was actually more of a “raisin paste.” So a friend of mine responded by reading the passage of the Last Supper, but substituting “raisin paste” for wine. It was hilarious.

[onesoldierserving]

Silly Rabbi, Tryx is for kids! This pun adds nothing; but it pleases me. 😂

[maistoru]

Vin and must are the words used in romanian. As a former ortodox I do belive that it is about fermented wine.

[byrondickens]

You want to know why reading comprehension and critical thinking are so important? This is why reading comprehension and critical thinking are so important.
If anything gets condemned over and over, it's drunkenness. Getting drunk and drunkenness are not the same thing. The sin part is not the consumption of the alcoholic beverage but the losing control and acting in ways that harm people.