Sunday, December 18, 2016

OINOS Anyone? (John 2:6-10)

The observations of Baptist exegete Gerald Borchert on John 2:6-10 are interesting. You can read his comments in the New American Commentary about the Gospel of John. See pp. 156-157, but I now quote him ad verbum:

"Jesus' making wine in this case has caused some readers another
major problem. One of my sons once returned home from a class and
informed me that Jesus made nonalcoholic wine in this story. His
teacher also had informed him that the Greek word for the drink here
meant nonalcoholic grape juice. It serves no purpose for evangelicals
to twist the Greek language for the sake of their ethical opinions
because such an argument cannot be sustained from Greek."

In the footnote to this paragraph, Borchert further writes:

"For the meaning of OINOS see BAGD [now BDAG], 562. Christian styles of morality should not be based on false premises. If one abstains from alcohol, as I do, it should not be based on twisting biblical texts. Other texts (such as Matt 11:18-19; Luke 7:33-34) may come back to haunt a person."

Compare Psalm 104:15 in the LXX.

See https://billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/oinos

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