Why Not Put Grape Juice in Old Wineskins?
In Luke 5:37, Jesus said that fresh juice bursts old wineskins. The first thought that comes to many peoples minds is that the fresh juice must be fermenting and the old goatskin bottle could not hold it but a new one could. Dr. Jimmy L. Albright wrote in 1980 in Wine in the Biblical World that gas producing fermentation took place . . . within a few hours after the pressing . . . .Freshly made wine was put into new wineskins; old wineskins would burst under pressure.1 Was fermenting grape juice put into new wineskins because they were strong enough to hold the fermenting juice? No. The truth is that fermenting juice would break the strongest barrel. A new goat skin could not hold fermenting wine. Jesus was not thinking at all about a fermenting, intoxicating wine but of grapejuice.The oinos neos or new wine Jesus tells about in the parable will not burst the new wineskin. He was simply saying what everyone knew to be true, that grape juice was ordinarily kept without fermenting in new
