How Alcohol Can Cause A-Fib and Other Heart Issues – The New York Times

Have you seen anyone actually arguing that, Larry? You’ve got the Rechabites, Timothy, the Pharisees (who confused Jesus drinking wine with being a drunk), and quite a few more. I’d guess a certain number of slaves whose owners were “cheap” didn’t taste the grape very often, either.

The question here is not whether Timothy abstained for at least a time; the relevant question is why he did so. Since we don’t know why, and there are a bunch of plausible explanations, it falls into the category of “interesting but not something we want to build theology from.” No?

Have you seen anyone actually arguing that, Larry?

They are all over. There are a number of people who believe that drinking alcohol is always sin and there are a number of people who think that drinking alcohol was virtually universal in ancient times.

Again the only point was that Timothy was a tee-totaler apparently. Nothing else.

[Larry]

All of that may be correct. The point is the same: Timothy wasn’t already drinking.

It may be that he thought it unwise to drink. It may be that the recreational use of wine was wrong and he extended that to the medicinal use as well. It may be any number of things.

But the point is that the idea that drinking wine was universal in ancient times is false. Timothy was apparently a tee-totaler.

I don’t see a reason to claim Timothy was a tee-totaler just because of Paul’s instruction.

I think that would be a stretch at best given that the alternative was drinking water. “No longer” indicates a practice that was most likely exclusive and the contrast was to start doing something else. It is not “stop doing one thing and keep doing something you are already doing.” If he was already doing it, he would be getting the medicinal benefits already and not need to be told to do it. It is rather “stop doing one thing and start doing something else or do something in addition” depending on if you understand “only” or “exclusively” to go with “water.”

In some ways I would go a little farther.

I think Paul’s language implies that Paul was confident that Timothy, when he received the letter, would not be drinking wine. That implies that Paul knew Timothy had previously been not drinking and that Paul expected that Timothy’s not drinking wine would have persisted.

Together, these imply a deliberate position Timothy had taken.

However, we are not told Timothy’s reason. To me, a nazarite vow is the most likely.

And I would not use the term “tee-totaler” because that implies a belief that it is wrong to drink.

I was, as hopefully is obvious above, not under any impression that drinking wine was universal at the time. That noted, it was probably fairly close, because the ancients didn’t have “out of season” fruit and vegetables to get their vitamin C. Hence a bit of wine was very, very helpful in avoiding deficiency diseases like scurvy. Vitamin C is pretty temperamental (my mom was a dietician) because it breaks down at about 170F.