|
Matthew 14:15-20
The website for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) contains an article, “Did Jesus Eat Fish?” This question may seem easy for us to answer because we are familiar with Matthew 15, Mark 6 and 8, Luke 9 and 24, John 6, and more—but not to these people. The author writes: Although there are stories [!] throughout the Bible that appear [!] to suggest [!] that Jesus ate fish, there has been serious theological debate as to whether he actually did, or if the word “fish” is a mistranslation. Who writes this nonsense? “Stories,” “appear,” and “suggest” inject a great deal of wiggle-room into this quotation. And “serious theological debate”? Really? We will unpack one of these “stories,” Christ's feeding of the 5,000 (Matthew 14:15-20), to find out what God's Word says about this claim. We will consider the simplest matter first. In verse 17, did Matthew really write “fish”? The Greek word behind it is ichthus (Strong's Concordance #2486), which means “fish.” New Testament authors use it 21 times, and each time it is translated as “fish.” Sometimes a word has multiple applications and shades of meaning, but not ichthus. It means “fish” and nothing else. That seems straightforward enough. But not so fast, our “serious theologians” say. Half the disciples were fishermen. They tell us that early Christians used the fish symbol to recognize one another, in the manner of something like a secret handshake. (We will set aside the fact that the fish symbol is probably pagan in origin, in religious use long before the early church. This symbol was not a part of the true church, if for no other reason than its members did not have car bumpers to slap stickers on.) The five Greek letters used to spell ichthus are ΙΧΘΥΣ (iota chi theta upsilon sigma). These “theological scholars” assert that these letters are an acronym, standing for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” Therefore, their reasoning goes, Jesus was not giving the multitudes “fish” to eat but using the code word for “Christians.” Does this sound like “serious theological debate” to you? They further argue that verse 17 informs us that the only food in this crowd is five loaves and two fish. Christ says in verse 18, “Bring them here to Me,” and in verse 19, He blesses the food, both the loaves and the fishes, but gives only the loaves to His disciples. The verse does not mention that He gave the fish back to them. In verse 20, they gather the fragments, but again, the text does not explicitly say anything about the fish! Using this account alone and disregarding the other three gospels is called “proof-texting,” that is, lifting a passage that says what one wants and ignoring other verses that clarify or add to it. The same event is related in Mark 6:30-44. Verse 43 records, “And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish.” Despite this clarification, these folks say that none of the gospel accounts of feeding the 5,000 say specifically that Jesus ate the fish! He blessed it and had the fish passed out to the crowd, but it does not say that He ate any. They, of course, ignore Matthew 14:20: “So they all ate.” Again, the text does not say explicitly that Christ ate, but even PETA knows this is a thin argument, writing, “We may never know for certain whether or not Jesus ate fish . . ., but it's certain He wouldn't today.” How do they know this? They back up their doubtful reasoning with another assumption.
Mike Ford
Was Jesus a Vegetarian?
|
