New Wineskin Buying Guide

Last Sunday morning my wife and I were waiting for a table at our favorite breakfast place. At the cashier’s station I saw an elderly gentlemen carrying a very thick book. As he headed out the door, I caught a glimpse of the book’s cover and saw it was a 900-page exegetical commentary on Ephesians. Not exactly what I would call casual Sunday-morning reading.

The Letter to the Ephesians consists of six short chapters and maybe five or six printed pages. Why would someone want or need a 900-page book on it? Well, the fact of the matter is that no matter how feature-laden your study bible is, there will be times when you need more information. Fortunately, there are plenty of supplemental sources you can turn to.

Commentaries

The most essential bible reference is the commentary. You can use a commentary to help interpret the meaning of a particular passage or as a guide in working your way through an entire book of Scripture. Finding a good/reliable commentary isn’t easy. Commentaries range from the very introductory to the very scholarly. If you want to focus on the practical application of the Bible for Christian life, there are devotional commentaries (e.g., Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible) that would suit this purpose. But if you want the history, culture, and background to the biblical text, you will need something more in-depth.

Commentaries come in mainly two formats, the single-volume and the multi-volume varieties. One-volume commentaries (e.g., HarperCollins Bible Commentary, New Jerome Biblical Commentary) provide you with basic, introductory material on every book in the Bible. If you are starting out with scripture study and building up your library, a one-volume commentary is a useful first step. But by its nature as a concise commentary, do not expect the analysis to be in-depth.

Multi-volume series (e.g., Anchor Bible, Hermeneia) have an entire volume (or two) dedicated to one of the biblical books. A commentary dedicated to a specific biblical book will usually include the author’s translation of that book with textual notes explaining the rationale behind the translation choices. Because different volumes in the series have different authors, the quality and writing style will vary.

Commentaries are geared towards different audiences. A commentary on Genesis intended for pastors and well-educated laymen will be less dense and run a couple of hundred pages, but one intended for scripture students and readers familiar with Greek and Hebrew could be 1500 pages spread over three volumes. Individual textbook-level books such as this could easily run more than $50. Before making a big investment, check out reviews and, if available, the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon to see if the reading level and style of the commentary is suitable for your purposes.

Other Reference Works

While bible commentaries are an essential study aid, other reference materials such as a bible dictionary, bible atlas, and concordance could come in handy.

A bible dictionary is really a bible encyclopedia. You use it as you would an encyclopedia to learn more about a biblical person, place or thing. They also come in the single-volume (e.g., HarperCollins Bible Dictionary) and multi-volume (e.g., Anchor Bible Dictionary, New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible) varieties. Multi-volume dictionaries are very expensive and would be considered an investment. A good one-volume bible dictionary is probably all you need and Wikipedia might do in a pinch.

A bible atlas is more than just a set of maps. Some bible atlases include articles on history and archaeology, details of battles and conquests, artistic renderings of biblical cities, etc. I would put this in the “nice to have” category, especially if your bible already has some decent maps.

A concordance is used to look up all the verses in the bible that contain a particular word (e.g., all the verses in the bible with the word “camel”). Since the Hebrew and Greek words can be translated using different English words, you need to use a concordance that is keyed to a particular translation. There are free bible concordances available online for popular translations like KJV and NIV.

A Gospel Synopsis places similar passages from the four gospels side-by-side so that you can easily compare them. It’s in the “nice to have” category but very useful if you want to study gospel parallels.

Old and new wineskins.

How They Work Together

Let’s say you want to research Jesus’ proverb about “old wine in new wineskins” but don’t know where it is in the Bible. Looking up “wineskins” in a concordance you find references to Mt 9:17; Mk 2:22; and Lk 5:37f. You could then look up these three passages individually in your bible, but a Synopsis of the Four Gospels presents them side-by-side on the same page.

From the synopsis, it is easy to see that Luke adds a non-related statement (v. 39) that no one drinking the old wine desires the new wine. This saying apparently has no bearing on what was just said about old wine in new wineskins and seems a bit odd, so now you want to know what biblical scholars have to say about it.

A single-volume commentary only has two sentences on v. 39. From this you learn that v. 39 is a unique Lucan proverb that conditions how the previous saying about “new wine” should be interpreted. The “old wine” represented by the Sabbath and practices like fasting are not to be cast aside as they also contain God’s will.

That provides some insight and many people would be happy enough to stop right there. But those wanting to go deeper could consult a commentary volume dedicated to Luke and there they would find several paragraphs devoted to v. 39. Reading the detailed commentary, you learn the proverb is referring to religious conservatives comfortable with the old practices like fasting having difficulty in accepting the “new wine” that Jesus offers, saying, “The old is what is good.” Therefore, this proverb does not contradict what was said before about the incompatibility of the old practices with Jesus’ new teachings, but confirms it.

Hopefully, this very brief example illustrates how to incorporate multiple reference works to bring out a deeper meaning in a passage that, on initial reading, seemed odd and confusing.

The New Passover

All four gospels recall Jesus’ last meal with his disciples as one with special significance. For the synoptic gospels it was a Passover meal and, during it, Jesus intoned a special blessing over the bread and wine. John differs from the synoptics in that his last supper was not a Passover meal and the symbolic act was one of foot washing. I’ll leave a discussion of John’s last supper to a later time. In this article, I will just focus on what the synoptic evangelists have to say about the last supper.

Passover Preparations

After describing how Judas offered to betray Jesus, Mark then proceeds to the preparations for Passover (14:12-17). Matthew (26:17-19) abbreviates the story, but Luke (22:7-13) stays fairly close to Mark. It is Passover eve, or the Preparation Day in which lambs begin to be slaughtered in the Temple court for use at the Passover supper. Upon being asked where they would celebrate the Passover, Jesus provides some odd instructions. 

He sends two disciples – Luke names them Peter and John – into the city where they will follow a man carrying a water jar. The man will lead them to a house with a furnished upper room where the disciples will prepare for the supper. Since it was typically the woman’s job to carry water, perhaps this particular man was part of a community, such as the Essenes, that did not admit women. It seems that Jesus had already made prior arrangements.

Growing up, I think just about every Catholic home had a framed Last Supper print similar to this. No, it's not da Vinci's famous mural, but a painting done in his style by Austrian artist H. Zabateri (1859-1945).

Reinterpreting Passover

As the supper begins in Mark and Matthew (Mk 14:18-21; Mt 26:21-25), Jesus foretells his betrayal before he blesses the bread and wine. In Luke, he does this after the blessing, most likely in order to add it to his lengthy discourse after the meal.

For the supper itself, Mark (14:22-25) and Matthew (26:26-29) describe the blessing and breaking of the bread, followed by Jesus giving thanks and sharing the cup. In Luke (22:15-20), Jesus shares the cup, breaks the bread, and then shares a second cup. Luke’s longer account deviates from Mark in other respects and can be broken down into two parts. 

In the first part (vv. 15-18), Jesus more clearly ties his supper to the Passover meal, twice asserting (“for I tell you”) his belief that the fulfillment of Passover will occur in the messianic banquet (Is 25:6) of the Kingdom of God:

He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;
for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves;
for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

In the second part (vv. 19-20), Jesus reinterprets the signature foods of the meal. In a traditional Passover meal, the head of the house would say, “This is the bread of affliction which our fathers had to eat as they came out of Egypt.” Jesus, instead, identifies the bread with himself:

Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

There is a clear connection between the mentions of Jesus’ imminent suffering and death in the first part of the unit and his body and blood in the second part. His death is salvific because his body is “given for you” and his blood is “poured out for you.” Exodus 24:3-8 described one covenant sealed with blood between God and his people. This will be a “new covenant” confirmed with “my blood.” Being “poured out” is an allusion to the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53:12.

In Memory of Me

The Lucan Jesus instructs his disciples to repeat his actions “in remembrance” of him, just like the yearly Passover meal was repeated in order to make present God’s saving act in the past. Jesus’ own body and blood will replace the Passover lamb as the sign for how the Kingdom of God will be realized from now on.

In light of how important Jesus’ words instituting the Lord’s Supper are, there is disagreement over exactly what those words were. Mark/Matthew present one version and Luke/Paul present another. Luke’s wording is very similar to what Paul hands on in 1 Cor 11:24-25:

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

In contrast, the Marcan Jesus says of the bread, “Take; this is my body.” And, for the cup, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” Mark lacks the explanation that Jesus’ body is “for you” and the command to “do this in remembrance of me.” Mark also misses the allusion to the “new covenant” in Jer 31:31, but does capture that Jesus’ blood is to be “poured out,” something that is missing in Paul. The reference to “many” is another allusion to Is 53:12 where the Suffering Servant “bore the sin of many.” It really means “for all,” not just one or a few.

Matthew slightly alters Mark’s words. The Matthean Jesus doesn’t just tell the disciples to “take” the break but to “take, eat.” Similarly, when it comes to the cup, the Matthean Jesus asks the disciples to “drink of it, all of you.” The cup isn’t simply “poured out” but is poured out “for the forgiveness of sins.” Matthew is attempting to explain that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross forgives sins in the way that the blood of sacrificial animals in the OT forgave sins.

When Jesus tells his disciples that the bread is his body (Greek, soma), he is referring to his entire “self.” As biblical scholar Rudoph Bultmann once wrote, “A man does not have a soma; he is soma.” Jesus is not sacrificing his physical human body, but his entire life, everything he is. When Jesus says “do this,” he is not simply urging his disciples to relive the supper. He is asking them to give of their entire being.