Note 325 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

Again, the disproportionate quantity of wine with which Jesus supplies the guests, must excite astonishment. Six vessels, each containing from two to three μετρητὰς, supposing the Attic μετρητὴς, corresponding to the Hebrew bath, to be equivalent to 1½ Roman amphoræ, or twenty-one Wirtemberg measures,325 would yield 252–378 measures.326 What a quantity for a company who had already drunk freely! What enormous vessels! exclaims Dr. Paulus, and leaves no effort untried to reduce the statement of measures in the text. With a total disregard of the rules of the language, he gives to the preposition ἀνὰ a collective meaning, instead of its proper distributive one, so as to make the six water pots (ὑδρίαι) contain, not each, but altogether, from two to three μετρητὰς; and even Olshausen consoles himself, after Semler, with the fact, that it is nowhere remarked that the water in all the vessels was turned into wine. But these are subterfuges; they to whom the supply of so extravagant and dangerous a quantity of wine on the part of Jesus is incredible, must conclude that the narrative is unhistorical.