It is a fact that in Biblical times,
people routinely drank fermented grape juice. However
this does not mean that the typical table beverage was
the same sort of thing one would be drinking if he drank
a glass of wine today.
Their typical table
beverage was heavily diluted. Consider the following quotations, the first
from the International Standard Bible Encyclopediea, and
the second from the book of 2 Maccabees:
In OT times
wine was drunk undiluted, and wine mixed with
water was thought to be ruined (Isa 1
22)....At a later period, however, the Gr use of
diluted wines had attained such sway that the
writer of 2 Macc speaks (15:39) of
undiluted wine as "distasteful" (pelemion).
This dilution is so normal in the following
centuries that the Mish can take it for granted
and, indeed, R. Eliezer even forbade saying the
table-blessing over undiluted wine (Berakhoth
7 5). The proportion of water was large, only
one-third or one-fourth of the total mixture
being wine (Niddah 2 7; Pesahim
108b) ISBE, 3087b
For just as it is harmful to drink
wine alone, or again to drink water alone, while
wine mixed with water is sweet and delicious and
enhances one's enjoyment, so also the style of
the story delights the ears of those who read the
work. 2
Maccabees 15:39
Is there any evidence in the Bible
that godly people needed to exercise caution even when
drinking such diluted "wine"? See 1 Tim. 3:8, Titus 2:3, Luke 21:34,
Rom 13:13, Gal 5:21, 1 Pt. 4:3, Eph 5:18, 1 Tim 3:3,
Titus 1:7.
Given those warnings about drinking
in an environment where "wine" usually referred
to a product heavily diluted with water, what should we
think about drinking a beverage that is 3 or 4 times more
intoxicating?