Did Jesus Drink Alcoholic Beverages?

Gekko give me a bit. A lot of the sights I need are blocked. I am at work.

Well, as much as I know I am going to get flamed for saying. I have enjoyed making my own fermented drink for years. Mostly beer but geting into wine. Beer is much harder to make. I dont drink alot, it is mostly the process of making that I enjoy. Kind of like a chef that is on a diet.

 

Depending on the strain of yeast, wines top out at about 14% to 16% (28 to 32 proof), because that is the point in the fermentation process where the alcohol concentration denatures the yeast.

Very few microorganisms can live in alcoholic solutions. The main three are yeast, Brettanomyces, and Acetobacter. In what is essentially disinfection, yeast keeps multiplying as long as there is sugar to "eat", gradually increasing the alcoholic content of the solution and killing off all other microorganisms, and eventually themselves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_proof

If you think about it, it makes sence. Alcohol is a disinfectent right. Yeast is a bacteria right. Well even though yeast is strong when the disinfectent is strong enough it does what disinfectent does best.

 

I agree, we have to be careful. Also realising that no matter what we do some will say it is bad some will say it is good. I have talked to people who dont want anything to do with Christianity because they dont see anything wrong with having a beer. I explain that I also do not with one beer but I do with geting drunk. Alot of people think this is very reasonable and it opens some doors. Some like SFiC just think beer is devil in a can. I just watch where I am at and who I am with and do my best.

Oh I strongly disagre. I enjoy the taste of wine and beer. Wine is more a hobby then a beverage no drink has more complexety then wine. You can taste small hints of this ingedient or that flavor. It tastes different with different foods. It is much more then just a way to wet your mouth. And getting drunk would ruin all of it because you could not taste anymore. I enjoy a glass with no intention of getting drunk or even close to it.

Correct. Especaly at 250 pounds with a full stomach. Not even close to drunk.

 

de·na·ture (d-nchr)
v. de·na·tured, de·na·tur·ing, de·na·tures

To change the nature or natural qualities of.
To render unfit to eat or drink without destroying usefulness in other applications, especially adding methyl alcohol to ethyl alcohol.
To alter the chemical structure of a protein, as with heat, alkali, or acid, so that some of its original properties, especially its biological activity, are diminished or eliminated.

Alcohol is a disinfectent. Yeast is a bacteria. When disinfectent acts on bacteria..............?

 

This is why grape juice could not even be in the same house as Jesus during the passover.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel
Exodus 12:15

For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land.
Exodus 12:19

 

Gekko

You forgot this quote from the same artical just below where it says denature.

The reason it uses the word denature, meaning change, is because it changes the yeast by killing it. It does not elimenate it. Yeast is a live organism and its body is left in the wine after the alcohol kills it. So it is denatured (killed) not eliminated.

Leaven is bad because a small bit spreads thruout the whole, as in a little leaven, leavens the whole lump.

Dead leaven does not spread.

ps. When I die I dont want anybody to call me dead. I want to be referred to as denatured

 

ME, and millions of people who enjoy wine.

A lot of foods are fermented.

Cottage cheese
Cheese
yogert
pickeled eggs
pickeled pigs feet
kim chi
breads
sour krout

Gekko, I just wanted you to consider the other side of the argument. Like I said it is not my intention to talk you into drinking. But if what I say makes any sence then people who have choosen to drink a small amount of alcohol have reason to believe it is ok to do so. We are not all heathen hell bound sinners out to live life drunk.

I hope I have given you something to consider. Another point of view at least.

 

Technically incorrect.

Yeast are single-celled organisms in the taxonomic fungus family which are eukaryotes (complex cells with nuclear membranes).

Bacteria are in a compeltely different taxonomic family and of its own and are single-celled prokaryotes which are simpler organisms without many of the sub-cellular structures found in eukaryotes, particularly a nuclear membrane.

Of course the Jewish definition for leaven does not make this distinction since it was designed well before this information was known. And alcohol is effective at killing both eukaryotes and prokaryotes by changing their environment. So your main points are valid.

 

Denaturation is usually how microbiologists describe what happens to proteins and nucleic aces in presence of environmental changes that result in a change in the shape that destroys their normal activity. Environmental changes that do this include heat, pH, alcohol, ions, salts and others.

The proteins and nucleic acids inside the yeast would be denatured by high alcohol levels. The proper function of those proteins and nucleic acids are essential for keeping the yeast alive and their denaturation results in the death of the yeast. It is not scientifically accurate to say that the yeast organism was denatured.

 

There are many disinfectants that we ingest on a regular basis.

One of the most common is salt. Salt water gargling is a commonly prescribed disinfectant for throat infections. The high ionic concentration of salt water kills bacteria.

Another common disinfectant we eat is vinegar which is often used as a cleaning agent in homes because it has both disinfectant and detergent properties. Vinegar contains acetic acid which is a weak acid that can kill bacteria, molds, etc by changing the pH of the organism's environment. It is also a product of a common fermentation pathway.

 

1 Timothy 5:23 Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.

Hmmmmmmmm...

I don't drink alcohol.

But, I don't believe that Paul is talking about Grape Juice here...

And, there has been a wealth of research showing the beneficial effect of a small glass of wine...

SMM

 

And there are a lot more times where the bible says that wine/strong drink is good. Of course there are also many times where drunkeness and abuse of alcohol is bad.
References to Alcohol in the Bible

Good hermeneutics does not ignore but instead incorporates what the bible says about a topic that disagrees with our personal view.

 

I take phrases like "its just amazing how much people justify themselves in this subject." as a personal attack, as if you were saying that we make the Bible fit our "sinfulness". I did not attack you. If you claim "wading in ignorance" is a personal attack, forgive me.

 

Charles, it’s not true that wine was the only beverage that would not spoil. I’ve read where ancient peoples had several methods of preserving fruits and juices. Some of the classic Roman writers lay out those methods in their agricultural writings. They new how to preserve grape juice to keep it from fermenting through filtering and pasteurization. Welches does the same thing today.

Charles, when we use the word “cider” today, it can refer to fermented or unfermented juice. It’s a fact that the Bible uses the word “oinos” , or it’s Hebrew equivalent “yayin” to refer to both the juice while it’s still in the cluster and to the wine after it’s fermented. It’s like many other words in the Bible, whose true meaning has to be determined by how it’s used in context. Years ago in some of the older English dictionaries, wine was used in the same way that cider is today, refering to both fermented and unfermented.

I think that boiling and filtering removes the abuminous subsatnces from the grape juice, preventing fermentation. I’m not sure the forbiden leaven applied to the juice anyway, didn’t it fefer to the “unleavened bread”? It was only a sympol, meaning to remove sin from our lives, wasn’t it?

The term “well aged wine” is not in the original languages at all. No word is in the Hebrew for “well aged” and the Hebrew word for wine “yayin” is not there either. Instead, the word in the Hebrew translated “well aged wine” in modern translations, and “wine on the lees” KJV, is the word “shemer”. This means” something preserved”, or “the settlings. This is the definition given in Strongs dictionary. The settlings can refer to the fresh grape produce after the juice has been trodded and pressed out of the grape, or it can refer to the “dregs” settled to the bottom when making wine. Raisins, syrups, and jellies were made from the fresh produce, and the juice was filtered and preserved. Dregs were of course spoiled and discarded from the bottom of the wine container, being unfit for consumption. The question is, Is that feast given by the Lord going to consist of fresh juice, grapes, syrups, and jellies, or alcoholic wine with it’s “dregs”. Alcoholic wine was often mentioned by the Old Testament prophets as something the Lord would give as punishment to disobedient Israel, straight down to the dregs.

I know people see and interpret the Bible differently, but the reason I take the position I do is that I can’t see Jesus being any less discreet than any worldly steward or bridegroom, who presumably witholds the more intoxicating wine towards the end of the wedding in order to prevent drunkenness. Didn’t our Lord teach us that we are in fact “our brother’s keeper”, and that we should be careful not to be the cause of our fellow man stumbling into sin? How can we believe that He would provide the temptation for someone to sin, as would be the case for some interpretations of the wedding at Cana?

 

For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land.
Exodus 12:19

As you can see by the scripture no leaven is allowed in the house during the passover. Even in today times Jews spend a day cleaning every crumb of leaven from their house before the passover. There are even buisness that will buy all of a persons food containing leaven and then sell it back to you after the passover for a fee.