The Conservative Bible Project (CBP) is done with the Gospel of Mark. And I think they've done a fabulous job!
Take that pesky verse about wine and wineskins, for example. Here's how it reads in the CBP:
"And no man puts fresh grape juice into old bottles. The fresh juice will burst the bottles, spilling the juice and damaging the bottles. Fresh juice must be put into new bottles." Mark 2:22
Jesus was talking about grape juice here, not wine, as the note for this verse explains.
The Greek word οινος, translated "wine," actually meant "fruit of the vine" and was not fermented, as it commonly is today. Repeated references in the Book of Proverbs tell their readers specifically to avoid fermented grape juice. Furthermore, at least five methods of preservation were known to the ancients, methods that avoided fermentation, long before Louis Pasteur would invent his pressure-cooking method.
So drinking wine is wrong and Jesus sure as hell never drank any.
But if that's true, why does the CBP say that Jesus changed water into wine at the wedding at Cana? Shouldn't that be grape juice, instead?
Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the pots with water." And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, "Carry them out now to the host of this feast." And so they did. When the host of the wedding feast tasted the water, it had been made into wine, and he did not know where the wine had come from (though the servants knew), and so the host of the wedding feast called the groom, And said to him, "Usually, a man, at the beginning of a feast, sets out his good wine, and when all have drank their fill, then the poorer quality wine. But you have kept your good wine for last!" John 2:7-10
So I guess Jesus messed up here. Oh well, nobody's perfect.
