Wine, the word, and the ancient world

Alcoholism is the United States\u27 number one drug problem. Increasingly in all circles, including the Christian community, social drinking is acceptable. Since Jesus drank and made water into wine, there is no reason why one should be against drinking as long as one does it in moderation. Such a situation forces us to look into Scripture and the ancient world, and re-examine carefully all aspects of this subject. Five questions loom like mountain peaks on the horizon demanding to be answered when considering wine, the Word and the ancient world. These five questions are as follows: 1. May the Hebrew words for wine indicate something non-alcoholic? 2. May the Greek word oinos be used to indicate something non-alcoholic? 3. Did the Ancients manufacture a non-alcoholic wine? 4. Was the alcoholic wine in the Old and New Testament time the same as our wine today? 5. Was the wine (oinos) Jesus created alcoholic or non-alcoholic? Because of the problem of time limitation, this last question will not be dealt with in this paper (although in some ways it is the most important), but will have to be considered separately at another time