The History of the Pro/Against Wine/Drinking

Looking at your list, I'd think your first issue is realities:

- Palestine's geology and rainfall, especially the hill country, resulted in a major trade source of oil (olives), and 'wine' (however defined; see above book)

- Prior to refrigeration and control of various bacteria, any fruit juice had a very limited 'shelf-life' prior to fermentation

- Therefore, the question really works out to 'how much' wine, in mixing fermented wine with water. You'll find quite a bit on mixing.

- And that, religious-wise translated to behavior ... drunkenness, which is easily located in the text.

Skipping realities arrived much later with bottling and refrigeration, and so, your question.

I would highly recommend The Spirituality of Wine by Gisela H. Kreglinger, who happens to be a friend of mine from seminary days (Regent College). (Full disclosure: I hosted her here in Vancouver when she was on her book tour promoting that book, and received a free copy of it. I read it and loved it, and am glad to see it's now available in Logos.)

She begins by examining wine in the Bible, in the history of the church, and in the Lord’s Supper. The chapter on wine in the history of the church treats the whole range of the debate about whether Christians should or should not drink wine. Obviously this particular author (who was raised on a vineyard in Bavaria) comes down on a certain side of the controversy. But she has a PhD in historical theology from the University of St. Andrews and has the scholarly credentials to have given a thorough look at how the Church Fathers, the Monastics, the Reformers, and Evangelicals in the Americas have viewed drinking of wine, through all the tumultuous ups and downs of its reception.

Samuele Bacchiocchi was a Seventh Day Adventist professor at Andrews University who wrote a book called Wine in the Bible. I think you can find a PDF of it online. To sum up his perspective, he takes the "poison" view of wine, which is...if too much of it can kill you, that makes it bad, and any amount of bad is bad. My response to that is "what about iron?" If you get too much...yes, it will kill you; but, if you get none...sorry, it will kill you. Bacchiocchi's analogy fails. To emphasize this even more, a woman entered a radio show competition to win a game console for her kid. She won the competition, which was to see who could drink a whole gallon of water the fastest. She won...and promptly dropped dead. She effectively short-circuited her body's chemo-electrical processes by diluting them to the point that the signals got lost--drowned out. Moral is...YOU SHOULDN'T DRINK ANY WATER BECAUSE TOO MUCH CAN KILL YOU!!! Or maybe not...'cause that will kill you, too.

The word of the day is "Moderation".

I enjoy reading through Proverbs every month with the Horner plan and note that it doesn't speak well of it.

Shortly before God decided I had been living on my wisdom too long, I came face to face with the consequences of alcohol use by someone I loved. She died in her mid-thirties and not much alcohol use. The doctor told me something I will never forget. You can't possibly know how much is too much and what it will do to you.