Stan,
That's not the evidence I've uncovered.
Many Christians today assume that the NT wine is identical with wine in contemporary society. That’s an error. Today’s wine, beer and spirits are, by biblical definition, “strong drink.” And use of that is
forbidden by the Bible. Wine in the Bible was essentially purified water
(The following details are taken from Norman Geisler 1982:50-51). See the 'Works consulted' for a link to Geisler's article.
Homer was a Greek poet who lived in the 8th century before Christ. He said that in his day, wine was 20 parts water and one part wine
(Odyssey 9: pp. 208-9).
A writer after the time of the NT, Pliny the Younger (lived in the 2nd century after Christ), spoke of wine being eight parts water and one part wine.
Aristophanes said wine was three parts water and two parts wine. Other Greek writers said it was three to one.
The average was about three or four parts of water to one part of wine.
In the ancient world, sometimes it was one part water and one part wine — that was considered
strong wine. “Anyone who drank wine unmixed [with water] was looked on as a Scythian, a barbarian. That means the Greeks would say today, `You [Australians] are barbarians — drinking straight wine.'”
They said, “Mix it half and half and you get madness: unmixed — bodily collapse.” Here is a pagan saying: “Half and half is madness, and unmixed wine brings death.”
There are several instances in the O.T. where a distinction is made between wine and strong drink (Lev. 10:8-9; Deut. 14:26; 29:6; Judges 13:4).
The Jewish Talmud (writings at the time of the early church) states that the `wine’ of the Passover meal was three parts water and one part wine (cf. 2 Maccabees 15:39).
“In ancient times not many beverages were safe to drink… Water could be made safe in one of several ways. It could be boiled, but this was tedious and costly. Or it could be filtered, but this was not a safe method. Or some wine could be put in the water to kill the germs — one part wine with three or four parts water.”
It seems that wine, beer and spirits in Australia today have a much higher alcoholic content than wine in the N.T.
One researcher calculated that “in New Testament times one would need to drink twenty-two glasses of wine in order to consume the large amount of alcohol in two martinis today.”
He put it this way: “In other words, it is possible to become intoxicated from wine mixed with three parts water, but one’s drinking would probably affect the bladder long before the mind”
(Robert H. Stein, in Geisler, p. 51).
Works consulted
Geisler, N L 1982. A Christian Perspective on Wine-Drinking. Bibliotheca Sacra (online), January-March, 6-56.
Oz