Mark 2:22 — New Wine and New Bottles: Which Clauses Complete the Parable?

“New wine must be put into new bottles.” — Mark 2:22

The familiar English sentence conceals a crowded Greek apparatus. In the received form, new wine breaks old skins, the wine is spilled, the skins are marred, and new wine must be put into new skins. Other witnesses change the verb, rearrange its subject, omit a supplied verb in the final clause, or shorten the ending.

“Bottles” in the Authorized Version means leather wineskins, not glass vessels. Fermenting wine expands. A brittle skin cannot yield, so both container and contents are lost.

A sentence copyists tried to repair

Some critical forms are abrupt: one verb may govern “the wine and the skins,” while the final “but new wine into fresh skins” depends on a verb carried over from earlier. That economy can be original, and scribes often add verbs to clarify ellipsis. Matthew 9:17 and Luke 5:37–38 also offer smooth wording that could influence a copyist.

Yet Mark’s transmission does not show one simple expansion. It shows several attempts to make sense of a compact comparison. Verbs move because readers disagree over what is destroyed: the wine, the skins, or both. “Spilled” is naturally used of wine; “ruined” fits the skins. The received text gives each consequence its fitting expression before stating the rule.

The parable’s logic needs both losses. The problem is not only wasted wine or only damaged leather. An unsuitable form destroys the contents and the vessel. The received clauses make that double warning explicit, then close with the positive command.

No doctrine should be built from whether the last verb is expressed or understood. Jesus is answering a question about fasting and the arrival of the bridegroom. His presence cannot be confined within practices treated as though nothing decisive has happened. That does not make the Old Testament defective; it says the promised fulfillment cannot be handled as a patch on an unchanged situation.

The English history of “bottles” can mislead a modern reader into imagining shattered glass. Early English Bibles used the word for containers more generally, including skins. Importer metadata and excerpts should therefore keep the familiar title while the article body explains the material object. Textual criticism loses credibility when an apparent difficulty is merely an unexamined change in English usage.

The fuller received wording reads as coherent Markan explanation, not random accumulation. It may share language with the parallels because Jesus’ saying was transmitted in all three Gospels. Where the shorter forms leave dangling grammar or only one ruined object, the full text completes both halves of the picture: wine and skins are preserved only when the vessel suits what it carries.

Sources and further reading

• F. H. A. Scrivener, ed., The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (Cambridge, 1894).
• Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010), text and apparatus.
• Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., notes on the stated passage.
• Matthew 9:14–17; Mark 2:18–22; Luke 5:33–39.