admin said:
Ha! Just give us the lexical information that proves your opinion, then you can say I was wrong for quoting Louw-Nida.
Until then, I will hide my overly zealous hubris behind their work.
8)
The Complete Biblical Library Greek-English Dictionary
"It is important to note that the Hebrew word tirosh, "grape juice, unfermented wine," appearing 38 times in the Old Testament (Harris, "tirosh," Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 2:969), is almost exclusively translated by oinos (36 times). In other words, oinos can and does refer to either unfermented or fermented wine in the Septuagint."
"In the New Testament oinos is used 33 times. Concerning the Parable of the Wineskins, the juice would be acted on by yeast from the old wineskins and would begin to foam. Such gases could split any wineskin, but especially an older one that was already stretched out (Matthew 9:17; Luke 5:37,38). New wine would be grape juice (or a grapeade) mode from grape syrup while old wine would be 2 to 3 years old."
"Grapes were generally harvested in mid to late summer (Hopkins, "The Subsistence Struggles of Early Israel," p.186) and, to prevent spoilage in the intense heat, had to be processed immediately. Stored wine naturally fermented unless it was boiled down or kept cool, ..."
"There have been endless tirades and debates on the nature of the wine made by our Lord at the wedding in Cana (John 2:9,10). Sides are drawn not on the basis of the word oinos, but on the view of abstinence held. The issue seems to be whether or not Jesus would create fermented wine and contribute to the further inebriation of the wedding guests. (Had the wine been unfermented, it would not have had time to ferment since it was consumed immediately.) From the Septuagint usage noted above, the oinos could be fermented or unfermented. Suffice it to say, the "better" wine of course does not in any way imply or demand a more alcoholic, or even an alcoholic, wine at all (one would presume that any wine that God had made would be better than man-made wine)."
Sources: Strong 3631, Bauer 562, Moulton-Milligan 444, Kittel 5:162-66, Liddell-Scott 1207, Colin Brown 3:918,922
