Jesus Did Not Multiply Fish to Feed the 5000. By Dr Chapman Chen
Did Jesus multiply "five loaves and two fish" to feed the multitudes (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:12-17, John 6:1-14)? Well, Jesus therein broke and handed out loaves, not fish (Matthew 14).
Equally importantly, the Greek word for fish (ichthys ἰχθύας), as in Mark 6:41, Matthew 14:19, and Luke 9:16, is an acronym for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” (cf. Akers 2000), a secret code commonly used by the early Christians to avoid persecution. And the ‘fish’ in the Johannine version of the miracle may conceivably represent a vegan relish rather than animal flesh. John 6:9 uses ὀψάριον (opsarion), derived from ὄψον (opson), a general term for an accompaniment or relish that was not intrinsically animal-based; Homer, for example, calls an onion an opson (Iliad 11.630). [Hicks (2019) and Giron (2013) have accordingly proposed that the opsaria could have been an aquatic plant preparation or ‘fishweed.’ This specific identification should, however, be regarded as an interpretative hypothesis, unless independent evidence can be produced for this usage in the relevant period and region.
Intriguingly, when Jesus himself later recalls the feeding miracles, he speaks only of ‘the five loaves’ and ‘the seven loaves’ (Matt. 16:9–10; cf. Mark 8:19–20), without mentioning fish.”
Objection: If ὀψάριον (opsarion) could refer to a plant-based relish such as seaweed, how can it occur in the plural? Isn't “fish” countable whereas “seaweed” is normally a mass noun?
Answer: The argument about the plural completely misses the grammatical point. ὄψον (opson), meaning a relish or accompaniment to staple food, has a plural, ὄψα (opsa), just as its diminutive ὀψάριον (opsarion) has the plural ὀψάρια (opsaria). The fact that John 6:9 says δύο ὀψάρια, “two opsaria,” therefore does not prove that the referents were two animal fishes. A relish can consist of plant food: Homer explicitly calls an onion an ὄψον (Iliad 11.630). Two portions/items of a plant-based relish can obviously be plural in Greek.
Comments