A Question of Sots

Acts 2:12-14
(12) And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
(13) Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
(14) But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all [ye] that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:

 

Maybe the crowd was having the same discussion we are having today :laugh:

 

Yeah, I know, but you obviously haven't been following these threads enough. The grape juicers actually claim this is proof that new wine has no alcohol.

Edited to add: To be more specific, I think they claim that it's a joke, as if to say "These men are drunk on fresh milk." This makes no sense whatsoever, but it's one of the only ways to dismiss the obvious meaning and make it mean what they want it to mean.

 

If a person cannot determine when they are drunk they have no business drinking.

 

Exactly :thumbs:

 

Amen. Now THIS is common sense.

 

They saw people acting weird, talking in odd languages. Get off your bizarre uneducated euphoria kick.

 

I'm not the least bit upset. In fact, I'm downright euphoric.

 

What behaviour did they observe? Were you there? Other than what the Bible tells, of these men speaking in foreign languages we have nothing more than that to go on. The argument about wine (fermented or not) is moot. It is not even germane to the discussion. Why? Can you determine doctrine from a false accusation? That's a new one. The entire statement was a false accusation, a baseless statement made without foundation, a statement made to discredit the people who were said by a more accurate witness (Luke) to be giving glory to God in other languages. In the final analysis, it comes down to this: Which of the two witnesses in the account are you going to believe: Luke or "the mockers"?

 

Lest any one be confused, the mockers I was referring to were these:

Acts 2:13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.

The accusations of these "mockers" is biblical theology. That is the fact that they were mockers, and falsely accusing the apostles. This much we know from what the Scripture tells us.

 

Looked up some stuff on wine for you, Aaron, on Google (which actually you could have done if your reason for this thread was simple curiosity).

First, alcohol is the natural product of metabolism of yeast. Yeast, which causes fermentation, is a single cell organism that converts the sugar in the fruit to alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide escapes into the air and what is left is wine. In other words, alcohol is the natural product of one kind of metabolism.

There is some excellent information on this page:
http://www.cheresources.com/winezz.shtml


As far as now much alcohol new wine has:

a hair over 10% alcohol is all that's required to preserve grape wine. But some fruit wines actually require the 12% level for unrefrigerated preservation, so using 12% as a rule of thumb errs, if at all, on the side of safety.
fromhttp://winemaking.jackkeller.net/hydrom.asp

Wine IS a fermented drink. That is the definition of the stuff. Therefore, at the point that the must starts to ferment, wine is being made. But it tastes pretty awful at the very start and so no one would drink it that way. In addition, it would spoil very easily (molds) if the fermentation process were not allowed to be completed. This is why it was put in the skins, which would then expand to allow for the results of the yeast metabolism which produces carbon dioxide. That CO2 is what makes soft drinks fizzy and thus, unless the contain is made of strong plastic or glass, it must be ready to expand to accomodate the products of yeast metabolism.

So, to answer your question directly, "new" wine only needs to have an alcohol content which is very small. But it is entirely horrid to drink and this is NOT what would be served at any table in the world. It smells and tastes rotten. It is not until the yeast have finished their job, and before other bacteria come into play, that the wine is fit for drinking (which some, clearly, feel it never is, but that is not the subject here).

How long does it take new wine to become drinkable? Only a very short time -- white wines only take a couple of months. Reds take longer because they use the skins and stems for the tannin and color. Thus, early grapes, ready in our area as early as July, could be made white wine by the autumn harvest. Thus, the new wine spoken of by the Bible would be white wine as opposed to red wine.

Hope all that helps.

 

Wine today is a fermented drink.

In Bible times, it could be produced either fermented or non-fermented. Scripture and history prove thus.

Grape wine in the first century that was non alcoholic was recorded by historical figures. And some even wrote that the non fermented was preferred rather than the fermented.

 

But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. (Luke 5:38)

Why preserve new wine? If you think about it, if new wine, as it get's older, becomes fermented, then it was not preserved.

But Jesus clearly showed that men preserved (kept in same state) new wine in new bottles.