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Brief Summary Why 153 Fish in John 21:11 ? Sections :
Introduction
The Fish John goes even a step further to reinforce the connection to Greek wisdom. Besides the conspicuous use of the term “children,” and the obvious reference to the very unique number of 153, which we find so prominently in Archimedes’ work on Pi, John gives us three more clues below. Authors often use repetition to get the reader’s
attention of an implied symbolic meaning. John uses 8 references to
fish and 8 references to the measure of the fish in these 11 verses.
John only makes 4 other references to fish in all his 20 other chapters. 8 References to Fish Verses 6, 8, and 11 use a common word for
fish, Greek ιχθυων [Strong’s number 2486, ΙΧΘΥΣ (Ichthys)] This gives us a total of 8 references to the word fish. 8 References to Measure of the Fish We also see a total of 8 references to the measure of the fish in terms of its quantity and size. In verse 11 alone we see 3 of these besides the number 153. Verse 3 States
“they caught nothing.” 153 Fish John's Gospel 21 John 21:3-14
While this repetition would have most likely gone unnoticed during a first reading the Greek person reading John’s Gospel would have recognized the very specific and unique number 153 as it is associated with Archimedes’ work on Pi. With his curiosity perked he would have noticed this passage more closely and then noticed the eightfold repetition of the word for fish and the eightfold repetition of the measure of the fish. Because of the culture of the Greeks placed such a high value on mathematical wisdom, the Greeks also highly esteemed Euclid and Pythagoras. By using this eightfold reference to fish and to its measure John is able to bring out a secondary reference. The Greeks would notice the connection to Euclid’s work Elements, Book 1, Proposition 1, where he constructs two circles whose intersection is in the shape of fish. The width to the height ratio of this fish is the square root of 3.
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This would cause the Greek reader to recognize that John was referring to the Pythagoreans, and to Euclid, as well as to Archimedes, and in essences all Greek wisdom. It was an allusion to Euclid because it was in his book Elements which has this diagram of the fish. It was also an allusion to the Pythagoreans because it was by their formula the measurement of this fish, the ratio of the width to the height, was determined and found to equal the square root of three. [ See next section to see this calculation, See Calculating the Measure of the Fish ] And it was an allusion to Archimedes who seems to be the first person to use the ratio of
as an approximation for the square root of three. Without the primary allusion of 153 to Archimedes’ work on the value for Pi, the Greeks could not have known with certainty that John intended this tenuous and secondary allusion to the square root of three. Using 153 as a secondary allusion to the square root of three would have been somewhat vague at first. This is because 153 was only one of the four different numbers used to approximate the value of √3. All four numbers are seen in these two fractions..
So, the appearance of 153 in one of these two fractions could have been just coincidental with John’s use of it. And perhaps more importantly, without the primary allusion to Archimedes work on Pi, John could not have known the Greeks would not dismiss this allusion as coincidental. Whereas, 153 is uniquely conspicuous as a clear reference to Archimedes’ work on Pi. When we see this secondary allusion then in becomes even clearer to what John was wanting to allude. It was to all wisdom, and especially the wisdom of the Greeks, and most especially the wisdom of Archimedes who represents the epitome of Greek wisdom. It is interesting that John makes an (8) eightfold repetition and that he does this (2) twice over. The most distinctive doctrine of Christianity as opposed to the pagan Greeks was the doctrine of the Incarnation where God becomes Man and Jesus takes upon Himself a (2) second nature. And the most compelling reason to accept Christianity was the Resurrection from the dead which happened on the day after the Sabbath, or on the (8) eighth day. Third Clue: There are multiply reasons of how John could have been using his reference to the number 3 to as an association with wisdom, and especially that of Archimedes. Reason #1. The 3rd Person of Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is closely associated with Wisdom Sirach 1: 1-9
Reason #2, #3, #4 The following 3 reasons could be an association by John with the best known manifestation of man’s natural wisdom in the Greek world, Archimedes’s work on Pi, which the Greeks would have highly esteemed. Reason #2. 1 Kings 7:23 suggests that Pi, π , is equal to 3.
Reason #3. The number 3 - an allusion to √3 ? The equation listing its rational approximation ends with the number 153. Archimedes uses that approximation.
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| Reason #4. Interestingly, it is Archimedes’ 3rd Proposition where he solved for the value of π. Is John wanting the Greeks to make the connection between the number 3 and Archimedes’ third proposition ? Is there a connection between the number 3 and Archimedes’ wisdom ? Between the number 3 and the √3 and the number 153 ?
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Introduction
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