What’s up with the whole rigamarole of Jesus on the cross refusing and then later accepting the vinegar? What was the purpose of the vinegar (as opposed to fresh wine, or water, or milk, etc.), anyway?
Issac Asimov, Asimov’s Guide to the Bible:
Asimov goes on to say that Matthew’s account, with the gall, may have been intended to show the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy:
Psalms 69:21. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
It is mentioned that the vinegar is mixed with gall, which, in the bible, often meant something very bitter – and also toxic. Hemlock is a likely candidate.
Under this interpretation, the desciples are trying to euthenize Jesus and end his misery. He rejects it, but later accepts it.
I just finished watching *Jesus: The Complete Story * on the Discovery Channel. One theory they mentioned was that a known anesthetic at the time was a distillation of mandrake in vinegar, soaked in a sponge and held under the nose.
Of course, the rest of the theory (which they admit is highly improbable) is that Jesus wasn’t dead when he was taken from the cross, just unconscious. Well, it *is * the Discovery Channel 
But it’s possible then vinegar did have some sort of numbing agent. Does anybody have a recipe for gall?
I assume gall would be the awful stuff you get out of a gall bladder. (Anybody cleaning out a butchered animal has to be very careful not to puncture that, or the bitter stuff can ruin rather a lot of meat.)
As other notes point out, it’s suggested that gall may have been used as something of an anaesthetic. I don’t know whether that’s ever been actually tested; but even if it were no more than a “folk remedy,” the Roman soldiers might conceivably have offered it to a condemned man they had no grudge against.
I thought gall was raw opium base. The base is dissolved in the wine/vinegar, and offered up to the lips of Jesus on a sponge at the end of a long stick, for relief.
Enola Straight, that definition of gall does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary, or in Merriam-Webster. What is your source?
I derived my own conclusion.
Isn’t the fruiting body/flower bud of the opium poppy, which the farmers score to release the sap, called a gall?
The only claims that “gall” is a derivative of opium come from discussions of this very topic — the crucifixion. I can’t find any non-Christian discussion that says the bud or body of the poppy is called a gall.
Ah. No, on a plant a “gall” is usually a swelling caused by disease or an insect.
Doesn’t necessarily solve the issue, though
http://www.carm.org/diff/Matt27_34.htm
Oxgall - used by artists for G_d-knows-what - is also known as ox bile extract and has a bitter taste.
This discussion of biblical plants looks well reasoned: What are Gall and Hemlock in the Bible?. The argument leans toward Gall being Hemlock, however: