Wine in the Bible **

** Wine in the Bible, Samuele Bacchiocchi, 2001

This is an exhaustive study of the subject from multiple viewpoints, delving down into the Hebrew, Greek and Latin with hundreds of footnotes, written by a Seventh-day Aventist theologian in his sixties. This book was a clear indication to me how just how superficial my analysis was. It is also a highly soporific approach and I am certain that the casual inquirer into the subject will never get past the 3 prefaces, the 8-page introduction (legal pages) and the 9-page second introduction. Chapter 1 shows up at page 28

Bacchiocchi proclaims at the outset to adopt a prohibitionist stance. I found a lot of the examination of the original language to be enlightening and worthy of reflection, but the ad hominem attribution of ulterior motives to scholars who translated things differently weakened his credibility, especially when he evinced the same propensities himself. In addition, in the problem passages and elsewhere there seemed to be a significant amount of begging the question.

All that notwithstanding, for a serious student of the issue it's worth a read for the analysis of the original language alone. Just keep your logical fallacy filters on high.

My take on the topic: WWJD