Is it grape juice or wine?

Question

Sorry to get started on this again, but... it's really been bugging me that so many people thought that Jesus Christ used grape juice instead of wine. In today's gospel, the word wine was used over and over. So I got to thinking. Is this just another way that folks like to interpret the Bible and make it say what they want to believe.
My dad was a dyed in the wool Southern Baptist. He preached all the time against homsexuality. But when I would bring up the subject that he had divorced three times, then he changed the Bible to fit his thoughts.
What to you think?
It just seems so hypocritical.
By the way, I'm a Roman Catholic.

Carol M - could you please be so kind as to tell me where you got your information?
Thanks.

A hypocrite is a person who puts on false virtues.

Answer 1

Wine.

Does anyone here know how wine is made? (Aside from divine intervention...)

Grapes are the perfect fruit for making wine. Don't blame the grape, God made them with a certain predisposition to become wine. You can make wine from other fruits but none is as easy as making wine from the grape. This may sound silly but the grape wants to become wine.

Grapes naturally attract the yeast which aides in their fermentation. Other fruits just get moldy and rot with unsuitable bacterial infections. Grapes attract yeast which can safely be turned into a consumable product. What's really interesting is how quickly it happens. A Nouveu wine can be drank in as little as three months from pressing the grapes. Oh, and by the way, you can't stop it from happening unless you add salt to the point of making the juice undrinkable or freezing it. How many Hebrews had freezers in 33AD?

So, since grapes are not harvested year round in the hills of Judea one must assume that unless the citizens of Israel only drank juice from the grape within two days of harvest, they were drinking wine. It also stands to reason that if Passover was celebrated in spring, the harvest of grapes was already 5 months old. The cup at the Passover meal contained the fruit of the vine which was fermented.

Wine is of value symbolically, medicinally and nutritionally. It should not be abused. It is both a gift and a curse. If it is a curse to someone close to you, do not partake as it will cause them to sin. If someone drinks before your face, tolerate it to the point God has given you strength. Don't get drunk for the sake of getting drunk it is meaningless and folly. Be wise and alert for the days are evil and dark.

God bless your socks off...

Answer 2

I hate to contradict another answerer. But the wine in the bible is definatively alcoholic. Unfermented wine would have spoiled without refrigeration.

In addition, the following references make clear that the wine was alcoholic.

First, at the wedding in Canaan Christ turned the water into wine and was accused of saving the best wine until last when usually people served the good wine first and the bad wine later... why did they do this? Because when you are a little drunk you don't care how good the wine is.

Second, St. Paul clearly speaks of drinking wine in moderation, not like drunkards and famously recommends a glass of wine before bedtime. This makes no sense if the wine is non-alcoholic.

Third, the greek septuagint is the foundation on which ALL modern translations of the bible are based. The word TRUX is not found or ever used for wine in the septuagint. This is the word for unfermented wine used in the time the translation was written. The word that is almost always used is OINOS which is definately alcoholic wine. It is definately used in BOTH of the above examples.

Answer 3

If you go back to the original language of the bible you will find that the word wine has two meanings in English when it is translated. One is fermented kind that will make you drunk if you drink it. The other and the kind that was used by Jesus and that He spoke of as being good for you to use is the new wine, or unfermented grape juice. Here is an example.
Matthew 9 : 17 Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.
That was the new wine, grape juice if you will. Here is what it says about the fermented wine.
Ephesians 5 : 18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
Now why would God say not to use the wine if it was so good for you? This is the fermented kind. You can read in Is. 28:1 about a city that was destroyed because of drinking of wine, the fermented kind. Proverbs 20 : 1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

Proverbs 21 : 17 He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.

Proverbs 23 : 30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

Proverbs 23 : 31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.

Proverbs 31 : 4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink:
And here is the kind you should drink.

Isaiah 65 : 8 Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all.
Nowhere do you ever find it condoned in the bible to drink or serve any fermented wine but that it is no good for you and should never be taken into your body. Now why would the Creator of the Universe make something that would be against what He said and that would make you stupid and out of control? Just does not make any sense, does it? What Jesus made was the pure grape juice, not a fermented jar of garbage that would be against everything He ever told anyone before that was right.
If you can show me one place that condones the use of the fermented kind of wine, I will give you $10,000 cash on the spot. If you go to the site I will list here as a source and check on the search the bible link, you can put in the word wine and then see what you come up with on it. You will find it never says that the fermented wine is anything but bad and to be left alone. The one that is said to be good for you is the pure unfermented grape juice, the fruit of the vine that is found in the cluster, the fresh pure grape juice.

Answer 4

Wine... but:

There was a book published around the 19 century titled "Bible Wines" which is fiction. One of my theology professors did a study of the book and found that over half of its references either disagreed with the author's statement or had nothing to do with the subject. In essence, the book was a complete fabrication.

Communion or "Lord's Supper" has as its basis the Passover feast. The wine used for the several cups during the traditional Passover meal was a full-bodied red wine.

I see someone posted an answer claiming it was "grape juice." This denies not only the Jewish traditional Passover observance, but much of the Bible's statements about wine. The church in Corinth was mis-treating the communion and getting drunk off it. No one gets drunk on grape juice. But Paul didn't say they were using the wrong "wine" but that it should be drank in moderation.

Drinking wine is not prohibited in scripture. Quite the contrary, Paul ordered Timothy to "Stop drinking only water. If your stomach is upset, drink a little wine. It can also help the other sicknesses you often have." (1Ti 5:23) Many modern Christians would condemn Jesus because he made wine. But clearly it is not a sin to drink in moderation.

Modern styled "grape juice" was not sanitary at the time and was almost never drank. The fermentation process kills many harmful bacteria growing in the juice and preserves it. The fermentation process is so quick in grape juice that an opened bottle of juice left at room temperature for a week will usually be significantly fermented. (A friend left an opened 1.5 liter bottle on the counter after filling communion cups and the next Sunday the expanding gasses had blown the jug up like a balloon and the contents was obviously wine.) With this in mind, the ancients had no way of preserving unfermented juice even for a day and certainly not until the next harvest season.

I see Jimee77 misspoke. The Septuagint, denoted LXX in scholarly literature, is the Greek translation of the Old Testament and Deuterocanonical books. It was the "Bible" that was commonly used in the early church, but it is not a New Testament document.

ramall1to is so full of errors as to be completely unusable. As stated above, the ancients had no way to store unfermented juice. It was only available for a few days a year and needed the fermentation process to make it drinkable. They reference Matt 9:17 with new wine and old wineskins. The askos or "wineskin" mentioned was one that had already been used so it was stretched like a balloon by the fermentation gasses. "New wine" put into it would immediately begin to ferment and expand destroying the bag and spilling its contents. Using a new wineskin allows it to stretch as the wine ferments... that is the "story" of this parable and makes no sense if you believe the wine was to remain unfermented..

Oh, and ramall1to: pay up...

Numbers 6:20 “‘Then he must lift up the shoulder and bread and wave them in front of the LORD. They are a wave offering. They are holy. They belong to the priest. The breast that was waved belongs to him. The thigh that was offered belongs to him too. After the offering is waved, the Nazirites can drink wine.

The restrictions on the Nazirite stopped them from eating or drinking any grape product, Num 6:3 “‘Then they must not drink any kind of wine. They must not drink vinegar that is made out of wine of any kind. They must not drink grape juice. They must not eat grapes or raisins. 4 As long as they are Nazirites, they must not eat anything grapevines produce. They must not even eat the seeds or skins of grapes.
...but after the time for the vow ended, they were free to drink wine. Of course the Hebrew word YAYIN is the same word used in Gen 9:21 which tells of Noah getting drunk on it, so there is no VALID way to claim it is non-alcoholic.

Answer 5

The constant practice of the Catholic church from the original Last Supper until today is to use real wine with a normal alchohol content, mixed with a small amount of water, just as it was done back then.

Catholics had people on the ground in those days, who experienced all this first hand, remembered it and passed it along. Scripture also records as much.

There's also plenty of Jewsih history and tradition to back up the practice, especially for a Passover celebration.

The Jews still use authentic alchoholic wine in their present day Passover observances.

You guys who speak of new wine and old wine and grape juice have been led astray by false teachers.

Wake up before it's too late.

Answer 6

There are several Greek and Hebrew words that are translated as "wine" in most English versions.

Some of these words only mean fermented wine, some mean only fresh grape juice, and some can mean either, in which case you would have to look at the context to determine which is being discussed.

In the account where Jesus changed the water to wine, I believe the "wine" created was unferminted. This is why I believe this. The people at the party had drank a lot. The bible is clear that drunkenness is a sin. If Jesus had created alcoholic wine, he would have been contributing to their drunkenness, therefore, contributing to their sin. This would have been a sin on his part, and we know that Jesus did no sin.

Also, you are right that truth is truth. Truth does not become any less true if it teaches against your own way of life. We should conform our lives to the truth of God's word, and not try to conform God's word to our lives.

Answer 7

I'm Roman Catholic and I firmly believe that every time the word wine is used in the bible, it was wine. Reference, turn to the story of Noah. He planted grapes after he got off the arc and he got drunk and naked.

I agree that many people twist the Bible into supporting their cause. If you want something interesting to watch. Find a copy of "The West Wing - Season 2 - Episode 3 - "The Midterms". There is an awesome scene at the end where the president (Bartlett) is ripping into a conservative talk show host (Jenna Jacobs).

If you can't find a video copy of it...here's a link to the transcript:
http://www.twiztv.com/cgi-bin/thewestwing.cgi?episode=http://dmca.free.fr/scripts/thewestwing/season2/thewestwing-203.txt

Search the page for this text...its the begining of it:
"I'm sorry, um... you're Dr. Jenna Jacobs, right?"

Answer 8

There are lots of proof in the bible that the wine in the bible was the wine we drink today, but for space sake i will only use these verse's for it cannot be no more clear than this, and why the Mormons and others keep saying it is grapejuice i may never know.
Ac 2:12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
Ac 2:13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
Ac 2:14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:
Ac 2:15 For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.
As you can see these verse's not only use the word wine and getting drunk on it but it use's new wine and getting drunk on it. Really there should not be any doubt to what wine is. Wine is Wine and always will be.

Answer 9

Wine...

and yes, people can interpret the Bible to fit their thoughts. I've been known to ignoratnly (or blatanly, God forbid) do the same at times. Some things are truly black and white: homosexuality is a perversion of God's design and it's sin. Divorce is against God's design and it's sin. Drunkeness is abuse of God's design and it's sin. But here's the catcher-- forgiveness is offered for any of those sins. God forgave the harlot and told her to go and sin no more-- basically, don't abuse His grace. So your dad can preach against homosexuality while standing upon God's Word, as a forgiven divorced man, but he cannot himself condemn homosexuals... that is God's role alone. However, if he's trying to "change the Bible to fit his thoughts" in saying that he is totally fine in his divorces, he's wrong there and he's abusing God's Word.

It's not really a matter of grape juice or wine, I'm guessing, but rather people's hypocracy in picking and choosing their battles to squabble over in Scripture. Keep asking this kind of stuff and pushing the real issues...

Answer 10

It's wine all the way.
By the way, I like it.
I drink a glass a day.
Red of course.

What is a hypocrite?
It is a play actor.
Not real, only make believe.

Here is some quote from the Bible, that I consider the whole truth.
Luke 7:34 "The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard,
Why would they call Him a drunkard if it wasn't wine He was drinking?