[Luke]

If New Wine is unfermented grape juice, then what does Acts 2:13 mean?

Other mocking said "these men are full of new wine"

And then Peter says that the men are not drunken, as they suppose....

If new wine is not alcoholic, what does acts 2:13 mean?

[pbiwolski]

Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.

Maybe a modern-day paraphrase could be, "These guys are drunk on sprite."

[Cody1611]

I agree with pbiwolski. Seems they were being sarcastic.

I think there's an assumption here that everyone who believes the KJV is the word of God is cut from the same cloth, so to speak. I don't believe everyone here represents the same kind of church background, theology, etc.

Myself, when the Bible says "wine" I think it means "wine." There's a lot of convoluted reasoning that goes on to explain it as meaning something else, and I think that's an American cultural phenomenon.

Cooling and preservation as we know them did not exist at the time of Christ. You could have fresh grape juice when it was fresh, and you could have wine or vinegar later, but there was no way to keep fruit juice as juice.

You can't believe God preserved the words of Scripture in the AV, then decide you want to explain them away because the idea of drinking wine makes you uncomfortable . . .

Lee

[Debau]

Cooling and preservation as we know them did not exist at the time of Christ. You could have fresh grape juice when it was fresh, and you could have wine or vinegar later, but there was no way to keep fruit juice as juice.

You can't believe God preserved the words of Scripture in the AV, then decide you want to explain them away because the idea of drinking wine makes you uncomfortable . . .

I don't have to explain anything away Lee. Yes they did have cooling methods then. They are called caves. Yes they did have preservatives, natural sulfites.

The only folks who want to believe Jesus made alcoholic wine are those who want to conform the Bible to their naturalistic thinking, and perhaps have their alcohol too. Wine is a generic term in the Bible, and is explained in context whether alcoholic or not, not by "convoluted reasoning". It is easily understood by those who have no problem with being under authority of God's preserved words.

[Luke]

I wasn't trying to explain it away.

The Bible is clear that new wine is in the cluster (grapes)

Isa 65:8 Thus says the LORD: "As the new wine is found in the cluster, and they say, 'Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,' so I will do for my servants' sake, and not destroy them all.

And the Bible is clear that alcohol is wicked and against the good things of God. So I was wondering what this verse is meaning, that seems to imply that new wine makes men drunk (when it is the old wine that is alcoholic). The sarcasm approach, based on the word "mocking" makes sense to me. Thankyou

If you say "the Bible says 'wine' but it doesn't mean 'wine', it means 'fruit juice'", I don't see how that's any different from someone saying "the Bible says 'blood' but it doesn't mean 'blood', it means 'XYZ'". The basic principle of approaching the Bible text is to take it at its clear meaning. The Bible says what it says.

This, to me, is an example of how we hold to cultural ideas and values (in this case, ideas stemming from the 19th and 20th century abstinence movements in the U.S.) even when the Bible's teaching is something else.

I think you can make a case against drunkenness from the Bible, but you can't make a case for abstinence.

Lee

[LindaR]

Originally Posted by Debau

I don't have to explain anything away Lee. Yes they did have cooling methods then. They are called caves. Yes they did have preservatives, natural sulfites.

The only folks who want to believe Jesus made alcoholic wine are those who want to conform the Bible to their naturalistic thinking, and perhaps have their alcohol too. Wine is a generic term in the Bible, and is explained in context whether alcoholic or not, not by "convoluted reasoning". It is easily understood by those who have no problem with being under authority of God's preserved words.

AMEN!

Originally Posted by LeeM1023

I think there's an assumption here that everyone who believes the KJV is the word of God is cut from the same cloth, so to speak. I don't believe everyone here represents the same kind of church background, theology, etc.

But we are all supposed to represent Christ.

Myself, when the Bible says "wine" I think it means "wine." There's a lot of convoluted reasoning that goes on to explain it as meaning something else, and I think that's an American cultural phenomenon.

When the Bible says wine, it does indeed wine. But reading Scripture in context will show one whether the wine was alcoholic or not. For instance, the word 'cider' can mean a non fermented apple juice, or it can mean a fermented beverage; yet it is the same word.

In both the Hebrew and Greek language, many words had more than one definition.

When we consider wine in the Bible times, we must ask ourselves, 'How can the Son of God approve of that which His Father referred to as poison in the last book of the Law, Deuteronomy 32:33? Why would the Son of God put a poison to another man's lips to manifest His glory at the first of His miracles as recorded in John 2:1-11?

The answer is obvious, He would not.

Cooling and preservation as we know them did not exist at the time of Christ. You could have fresh grape juice when it was fresh, and you could have wine or vinegar later, but there was no way to keep fruit juice as juice.

As we know them today, i.e., refridgerators, freezers, etc., cooling and preservation did not exist, true, but... indeed they did have methods of cooling and preservation.

Pliny, Plutarch, Aristotle, Columella, Josephus, and other Historians of Bible time have written extensively on preservation methods that were used to prevent fermentation of wine. One of those methods was to boil the juice of the grape down to a consistency like syrup. The bacteria that causes grape juice to ferment is killed of when the temperature of the juice reaches 176° Farhenheit. Grape juice does not boil until it reaches 212° Farhenheit. According to historical records then, by boiling the juice, they were assured of stopping the fermentation process.

I encourage you to go to a local library or a University library and look for a book called "On Agriculture". This book was written more than 1700 years ago and records methods for preserving wine in its unfermented state. Research all the historians I mentioned above as well.

You can't believe God preserved the words of Scripture in the AV, then decide you want to explain them away because the idea of drinking wine makes you uncomfortable . . .

Lee

Actually, since the Word of God commands 'Look thou not upon the wine when IT...,' not 'when you,' we have to stand on the Word of God and the command to abstinence.

Notice in Proverbs 23:31, the subject is the wine, not the person... Look not upon the wine when IT...

Many like to use that passage to say one can drink in moderation, but that passage teaches just the opposite.

Originally Posted by Luke

If New Wine is unfermented grape juice, then what does Acts 2:13 mean?

Other mocking said "these men are full of new wine"

And then Peter says that the men are not drunken, as they suppose....

If new wine is not alcoholic, what does acts 2:13 mean?

The key word in that phrase is the word 'mocking'. The ones mocking knew the wine that the Apostle's drank was not alcoholic in content.

Peter even affirmed this when he answered, These men are not drunk as ye suppose seeing it is but the third hour of the day...'

Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5 that '...they that be drunken are drunken in the night.' Paul went on to say that we are 'of the day' and that we are to remain 'sober'.

Peter's statement affirms that they did not drink an alcoholic wine at all. They drank a non-alcoholic wine. This was the same wine that Isaiah recorded was found in the cluster. It was the same wine that Isaiah spoke of when he wrote 'shall tread out no wine in their presses'.

Talk to any vintner today and they will tell you their wines are not made in the presses at all, but rather after the fresh juice is removed from the presses.

Alcohol is made by a process after the juice has left the press. The wine spoken of by Isaiah the prophet in chapter 16 was a non fermented wine. It was this same wine that the Apostle's drank.

How can I be sure that they were drinking a non alcoholic wine?

By Jesus' words when He answered the Pharisees who accused Him of being a winebibber.... "But wisdom is justified of her children".

Just as Jesus was accused falsely of drinking alcohol, His Apostle's were later accused falsely of drinking alcohol