RE: Signs of Scientism

Yes, I know that there were no bottles at that time and that amphorae were
not intended for long-term storage (but they kept the contents cool). My
response, somewhat tongue in cheek) was to David who wrote, "Suppose for
example we ome to the house where the wedding at Cana was held and find some
of the wine that Jesus made from water. I presume it would look, smell and
taste like any other wine -- no discernable difference from ordinary wine."
To me, this whole issue is a moot point: if we were to find any wine in
2006, we would doubt its authenticity; if we had been around in ~30 AD we
would not have had the equipment to test the wine other than to taste it.
The Biblical record shows that the wine passed the taste test. Good enough
for me! Whether one believes that the molecular structure of the various
components in that wine passed muster (I believe they did) or whether one
believes that this was a case of wishful thinking and/or mass delusion (I
don't think so), the main point is that the result showed the power of Jesus
and that he is the Christ.

The Resurrection is a totally different miracle; not that it was more
difficult for God to raise Jesus than to turn water into wine, but because
it is intrinsic to our salvation [1 Cor. 15]. The evidence of the
Resurrection was good enough for the disciples.

Chuck Vandergraaf

  _____

From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. [mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 3:49 PM
To: ttveiv@mts.net
Cc: williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com; dopderbeck@gmail.com; gmurphy@raex.com;
pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Signs of Scientism

Seems to me this confuses what might be discovered now and what might have
been available to someone at the time. But there were no bottled wines two
millennia ago. Scripture talks of wineskins, and archeologists have
discovered amphorae used to ship wine. Both are too porous to preserve
liquid for a great length of time. Consequently all we can possibly have is
the record in John 2. So if anyone offers you a bottle of wine from that
made at Cana, have him arrested for fraud.

What about at the time? One could interview the MC, who would probably only
know that they were running short of wine and then had plenty of better
quality. But he'd likely be very confused that the wine was in the water
containers rather than in skins, with no skins around to account for the
~300 liters of wine--at least six skins' worth. One could interview the
servants who filled the containers with water and took out wine. One could
check around town to find out how many wineskins members of the family had
purchased, each perhaps holding 55 liters (that's litres for our British
friends like Michael), and how many had been consumed at various times
during the festivities.

As for the resurrection, when Paul wrote his noted chapter, there were those
who had been in Jerusalem at the time and could have refuted him. There was
the effect on the followers of Jesus, scared and hiding to fearlessly
proclaiming--even willing to die rather than recanting. They sure persuaded
a lot of people. This is not proof, but clearly evidence.

Dave

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 13:52:09 -0600 "Tjalle T Vandergraaf" <ttveiv@mts.net>
writes:

As to the wine at Cana, if wine were found this year, believers would claim
that this was evidence of the power of Christ. Non-believers and sceptics
would argue that somebody had fiddled with the evidence. (what protocols
were used to preserve the sample and what is the effect of aging on wine?)
If the wine had been sealed in bottles with an authorized signature, there
would be a line up of tasters and, if it still tasted like good wine, there
would be demands for C-14 and O isotope ratio testing. Remember the fuss
over the Shroud of Turin.
Received on Thu Jan 19 17:38:35 2006