Originally Posted by SemperFideles

One wonders why God was not so wise as to prohibit its consumption. You speak of alchohol as some sort of force that compels men to sin in over-indulgence. Touch not, taste not is, in fact, the solution contra Paul.

Do you really think that the Pharisees thought they were doing a bad thing by adding to God's Law? In fact, if you read why they did it, they thought they were helping the people of God. You may not like the comparison but what you're describing above is called "fencing the Law". The Law lacks specificity to protect people as I think they ought, thus here is the new command so you don't even have to get close to that which might have made you stumble. Worried about Sabbath-breaking? Prescribe a distance that a man can travel legally because it's not spelled out in the Law and, don't you know, people will sin and go way past a Sabbath's day journey if we don't tell them.

Of course, it's not in the journey that God's Law has been broken to begin with. It starts in the heart and no amount of mollycoddling and fencing of the Law is going to solve that problem.