Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T23:58:03.455Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“One Hundred Fifty-Three Large Fish” (John 21:11)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Robert M. Grant
Robert M. Grant
Affiliation:
University of the South Sewanee, Tennessee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The theory that this number reflects the number of kinds of fish recognized in antiquity comes from Jerome, Comm. xiv in Ezechiel (Migne, PL 25, 474C). He says, “Writers on the nature and properties of animals, who have learned ‘fishing’ in either Latin or Greek (one of whom is the most learned poet Oppianus Cilix), say there are one hundred fifty-three species of fish.” It was customary in antiquity — and the practice has not come to an end — to generalize from single instances, and we shall not be far from the mark if we suspect that Jerome's only source for this statement is his understanding of Oppian. Jerome knew the work of Pliny on natural history, and Pliny (N. H. ix. 43) states that there are seventy-four species of fish, in addition to thirty varieties of Crustacea.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , October 1949 , pp. 273 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1949

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Note that according to John 21:13 the fish were presumably edible. Thusmany of the species listed in writers on fish are excluded. Josephus (Bell. iii. 508) tells us that in the lake of Gennesaret the species of fish were different as to taste and appearance from those found elsewhere. He gives no clues as to how many there were.