It’s a neat line of succession: Osiris to El to Dionysus to Jesus. The critical thing that unites them all is extraordinary wine that blurs the boundary between life and death. Immortality potions. But there’s a major difference between Dionysus and Jesus on the one hand, and their divine predecessors on the other: a political disagreement. Did this wine belong to the 1 percent or the 99 percent? Was it meant for the pharaohs, royalty, and elite? Or was it meant for everybody? Who should have access to the nectar of the gods?
