Walking along the lakeshore, Jesus said to\u00a0some fishermen, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mk 1:17).\u00a0Great turn of phrase.<\/p>\n
In Jesus’ experience, however, the phrase has an assorted history.\u00a0In\u00a0prophetic use, the phrase refers to God’s judgment of exile.<\/p>\n
Prophet Amos warns the people of Israel, “The time is coming when you will be carried away in baskets, all of you in fishermen’s pots.” (Amos 4:2)<\/p>\n
Habakkuk also\u00a0describes, “The Chaldean brings all of them up with a hook . . . and gathers them in his fishing net…” (Hab 1:15; See also Ezek 38:4 for another reference to hooks.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Jeremiah declares, “Look! I will send many fishermen,” announces Yhwh, “And they will catch them” (Jer 16:16).**<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I\u00a0conclude that Jesus knew his Hebrew Scripture. So is he using the fishing metaphor in spite of its earlier use? Or perhaps\u00a0the disciples should have heard Messianic overtones. Who appointed fishermen?\u00a0God did.<\/p>\n
In broader first-century Jewish\u00a0thought, we stumble across a reference to humanity-fishers in the Psalms\/Hymns of the Dead Sea Scrolls that echoes the Messianic ring.<\/p>\n
You made my lodging with many fishermen,
\nthose who spread the net upon the surface of the sea,
\nthose who go hunting the sons of iniquity.
\nAnd there you established me for the judgment,
\nand strengthened in my heart the foundation of truth.
\nThe covenant, therefore, for those looking for it. (1QH\u00a0XIII (=V) frag. 29 ++)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe entire psalm deals with rescue of God’s approved ones, but the judgment of God toward oppressors.<\/p>\n
There is an interesting reference to man-hunting in Plato’s Laws, <\/em>823b.<\/p>\n
“There are…very many varieties also of hunts of\u00a0land-animals\u2014not of beasts only, but also, mark you, of men, both in war and often, too, in friendship [i.e. hunters of men]…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Plato’s reference simply gives a larger Greco-Roman context to the use of the metaphor. Was Jesus aware of Plato?\u00a0It’s worth considering but hard to build a case for or against. Some early Greek\u00a0Gospel readers surely would have thought of Plato, however.<\/p>\n
So what did Jesus mean, “Follow me, I will make you fishers of men”?\u00a0The\u00a0discipleship calling is clearly stated in the invitation, “Follow me.”\u00a0Up to this time, it is God who appointed fishermen for epoch-transitions (Assyria-Israel, Babylon-Judah, Approved-Oppressors). The\u00a0metaphor is startling because it was Jesus who\u00a0was making this appointment.<\/p>\n
** For more info, see Robert Eisler, Orpheus\u2014The Fisher<\/em> (London: J. M. Watkins, 1921), 75\u201483.<\/p>\n
++ Florentino Grac\u00eda Mart\u00ednez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English<\/em>\u00a0(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 337.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Walking along the lakeshore, Jesus said to\u00a0some fishermen, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mk 1:17).\u00a0Great turn of phrase. In Jesus’ experience, however, the phrase has an assorted history.\u00a0In\u00a0prophetic use, the phrase refers to God’s judgment of exile. Prophet Amos warns the people of Israel, “The time is coming when you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experience-reconsidered"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}