In my youth, I was baptised as a Seventh Day Adventist. That particular brand of religious fruitcakery prohibits all alcohol consumption. Even as a young teen, I found this very odd due to the Jesus changing water into wine thing. Of course, like many whackadoodles on the outer fringes of Protestant nuttery, the SDA teaching is that the "wine" was actually just grape juice. Anybody with a basic understanding of food science will know that's complete BS. You can't leave fresh grape juice sitting around for long - particularly in the climate of the Middle East - without it naturally fermenting due to the yeast spores in the air and on the grapes themselves. But science, logic and common sense don't play much role in religion, so whatever...
As far as I know, Jesus is never quoted as saying anything against drinking any form of alcohol in the Gospels. Whack-job Paul might. That dude was pretty much the first-century equivalent of today's televangelists, and he was prone to ranting about lots of things that triggered him.
The Bible does say negative stuff about getting drunk, but anyone who believes that drinking distilled spirits invariably results in the drinker getting wasted clearly has serious issues with alcohol.
And, yeah, I'm not at all surprised by the hypocrisy you describe. That's just Standard Operating Procedure for Southern Baptists and their ilk.
The ancients drank wine or beer because the fermentation process killed harmful bacteria. In the middle east wine was the predominant drink. So making water safe to drink by converting it to wine was quite commonly done.
The biblical reference seems to imply that Jesus instantaneous changed water into wine - without a fermentation process; but, that is only an implication. Perhaps Jesus was a winemaker... who routinely made wine from water and a few other ingredients.
I've actually heard from some Southern Baptists that Jesus made grape juice out of water - as someone who knows some Jews, I'm pretty sure that they're not quit as abstemious as some of us Christians. Lot of Christians forget that Jesus was a Jew.
It's almost like they believe that people in First Century Palestine had fridges in their kitchens where they kept their jugs of Welch's.
I mean, think about it, people: Grape juice can only be made from ripe grapes recently picked from the vine; grapes ripen in late summer; late summer in the Middle East is fricking hot; any high-sugar solution sitting in a jug in a warm environment is going to rapidly ferment.
As for Jesus producing grape juice at the wedding feast, logic tells you that the host was not going to be overly impressed if he was expecting wine (as per custom), but what he was presented with was some wishy-washy juice. In fact, John says that the host said it was particularly fine wine. That's not what anyone who's used to drinking wine would say when they took a sip of juice.
IIN to be Christian, but love whiskey?
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In my youth, I was baptised as a Seventh Day Adventist. That particular brand of religious fruitcakery prohibits all alcohol consumption. Even as a young teen, I found this very odd due to the Jesus changing water into wine thing. Of course, like many whackadoodles on the outer fringes of Protestant nuttery, the SDA teaching is that the "wine" was actually just grape juice. Anybody with a basic understanding of food science will know that's complete BS. You can't leave fresh grape juice sitting around for long - particularly in the climate of the Middle East - without it naturally fermenting due to the yeast spores in the air and on the grapes themselves. But science, logic and common sense don't play much role in religion, so whatever...
As far as I know, Jesus is never quoted as saying anything against drinking any form of alcohol in the Gospels. Whack-job Paul might. That dude was pretty much the first-century equivalent of today's televangelists, and he was prone to ranting about lots of things that triggered him.
The Bible does say negative stuff about getting drunk, but anyone who believes that drinking distilled spirits invariably results in the drinker getting wasted clearly has serious issues with alcohol.
And, yeah, I'm not at all surprised by the hypocrisy you describe. That's just Standard Operating Procedure for Southern Baptists and their ilk.
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The ancients drank wine or beer because the fermentation process killed harmful bacteria. In the middle east wine was the predominant drink. So making water safe to drink by converting it to wine was quite commonly done.
The biblical reference seems to imply that Jesus instantaneous changed water into wine - without a fermentation process; but, that is only an implication. Perhaps Jesus was a winemaker... who routinely made wine from water and a few other ingredients.
I've actually heard from some Southern Baptists that Jesus made grape juice out of water - as someone who knows some Jews, I'm pretty sure that they're not quit as abstemious as some of us Christians. Lot of Christians forget that Jesus was a Jew.
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It's almost like they believe that people in First Century Palestine had fridges in their kitchens where they kept their jugs of Welch's.
I mean, think about it, people: Grape juice can only be made from ripe grapes recently picked from the vine; grapes ripen in late summer; late summer in the Middle East is fricking hot; any high-sugar solution sitting in a jug in a warm environment is going to rapidly ferment.
As for Jesus producing grape juice at the wedding feast, logic tells you that the host was not going to be overly impressed if he was expecting wine (as per custom), but what he was presented with was some wishy-washy juice. In fact, John says that the host said it was particularly fine wine. That's not what anyone who's used to drinking wine would say when they took a sip of juice.