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Interesting biblical story...

geetarmoore

Critical Thinker
geetarmoore
Joined
Jan 20, 2006
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280
Were the stories in the New Testament 'lifted' from previous histories, or where they actual historical events?

Read this section from the Life of Pythagoras:

Pythagoras was going from Sybaris to Krotona. At the shore, he stood with men fishing with nets; they were still hauling the nets weighed down with fish from the depths. He said he knew the number of fish they had hauled in; (number removed for dramatic effect) The men agreed to do what he ordered if the number of fish was as he said. He ordered the fish to be set free, alive, after they were counted accurately. What is more astonishing, in the time they were out of the water being counted, none of the fish died while he stood there. He paid them the price of the fish and went to Krotona. They announced the deed everywhere, having learned his name from some children.
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Now, read the Gospel of John 21:1-11, known as the 'miraculous catch of fish'...

1 After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself.

2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.

3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.

4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.

5 Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No.

6 And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.

7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.

8 And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes.

9 As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.

10 Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.

11 Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.
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Two stories about fishing, maybe a little similarity, but nothing too closely related, right?

Well, notice the number of fish that Simon Peter was said to have caught. 153. This is not a significant number to the story of Jesus and the catch at all. Why would these fish have been counted? What could it mean?

Pythagoras was a Greek mathematician (580BCE-500BCE), and there was a cult that centered around him and his mathematics during and for years after his life. They had many strange beliefs and customs, and they were vegetarians (which explains why Pythagoras wanted the fish returned to the sea...) but this isn't really about his cult.........;)

One of the mathematical terms that Pythagoras is said to have coined was what is known as a 'triangular number'. It's a number you get when you add a sequence of positive integers together. Like 1+2+3=6, for example.

Well, it just so happens that the 16th possible triangular number is;

1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17=

Do you want to guess? ;)

Yes. The answer is 153. This is why the number is preserved in the Gospel of John, despite being absolutely meaningless to the story. It had to mean SOMETHING, and it did - to Pythagoras, as the number he guessed in his legendary fish story was the triangular number one hundred and fifty three.

This concludes our Saturday bible study ;)
 
Yes, but can you get it to somehow relate to the Lincoln/Kennedy assassinations? ;)
 
I'm currently reading "Don't Know Much about Mythology", and the author has a lot of fun showing how far back some of these "biblical" stories go.
 
same vein

In this same vein - I read the "pitch" that Noah spread on his ark is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible. And it is the same word for pitch used in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
 
The explanation is simple:

The Fish People only send attack squadrons in groups of 153. Why? Because they're the Fish People, that's why! Who are you to question them? All hail the Fish People!*



*This message brought to you by the Eel People.
 
TragicMonkey said:
The explanation is simple:

The Fish People only send attack squadrons in groups of 153. Why? Because they're the Fish People, that's why! Who are you to question them? All hail the Fish People!*



*This message brought to you by the Eel People.
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I would like to hear from a real expert on this. Piscivore, where are you???
 
triadboy said:
In this same vein - I read the "pitch" that Noah spread on his ark is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible. And it is the same word for pitch used in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
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It appears twice in the Song of Solomon (admittedly a much later work than Genesis).

If Gilgamesh was written in a Semitic language that's hardly surprising. Even if not, ancient Hebrew borrowed plenty of words from other language families. But a similarity in detail does not a copy make. The believer could counter that both stories preserve an earlier event, and the one written down earlier only got some of it right. Nicely unprovable, but plausible enough for many not to throw away the whole package.
 
geetarmoore said:
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17=
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By the way, you can just cut and paste that entire string into the calculator built in to Windows and it'll do all the work for you.

Is the Pythagoras story known to preceed the Biblical one? Because you know people will claim it came after, and was a copy of the previous, Biblical one, rather than the other way around.

Is it a solid proof? No, it could be coincidence. But only 1/200-ish so coincidence, which is pretty good odds the Bible ripped it off if you ask me.
 
Beerina said:
By the way, you can just cut and paste that entire string into the calculator built in to Windows and it'll do all the work for you.

Is the Pythagoras story known to preceed the Biblical one? Because you know people will claim it came after, and was a copy of the previous, Biblical one, rather than the other way around.

Is it a solid proof? No, it could be coincidence. But only 1/200-ish so coincidence, which is pretty good odds the Bible ripped it off if you ask me.
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There are people who try to claim that this story came after the biblical one, but it is not clear if ths chapter of John was a latter addition to the book of John either. Some say that it was.

At any rate, the real question is; What significance does the number 153 have to the John story of the fish? None whatsoever, of course ;)
 
Obviously, Satan wrote the Pythagoras story, knowing that someday Jesus would help the disciples catch 153 fish, and Satan wanted to mislead the faithless.
 
geetarmoore said:
At any rate, the real question is; What significance does the number 153 have to the John story of the fish? None whatsoever, of course ;)
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It would, I suspect, mean something to a certain kind of enlightened - illuminated, even - reader.

Does the winkie mean you're one of them, I wonder? :eek:
 
Meadmaker said:
Obviously, Satan wrote the Pythagoras story, knowing that someday Jesus would help the disciples catch 153 fish, and Satan wanted to mislead the faithless.
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Indubitably. The god laid its hand down at the start of the game, just to make it a real challenge. The whole of creation is just about settling a bet. That's the message of Job's story. Job is Everyman.
 
OK...somebody please explain to me...

What are the similarities of these stories besides the number 153 and fish?
I think it is quite a stretch to say these are the same stories. If I told a story about a dozen eggs, and there was a story about a man with a dozen eggs...are they related?
 
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wastepanel said:
OK...somebody please explain to me...

What are the similarities of these stories besides the number 153 and fish?
I think it is quite a stretch to say these are the same stories. If I told a story about a dozen eggs, and there was a story about a man with a dozen eggs...are they related?
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What about two stories about 153 eggs ?

If it had been about a dozen fish ( in both stories ), we wouldn't be having this conversation..

You seemed to have missed the part about the significance of the number ' 153 '
 
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Diogenes said:
What about two stories about 153 eggs ?

If it had been about a dozen fish ( in both stories ), we wouldn't be having this conversation..

You seemed to have missed the part about the significance of the number ' 153 '
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If they would have eaten 3.1415926535... fish, then we could argue the coincidence. I'm calling BS on this association due to lack of evidence. If you can find more evidence, then I'll listen. The only way I could see a very similar line would be if Jesus told them to let the fish go.

Don't jump to conclusions too fast on these things.
 
wastepanel said:
If they would have eaten 3.1415926535... fish, then we could argue the coincidence. I'm calling BS on this association due to lack of evidence. If you can find more evidence, then I'll listen. The only way I could see a very similar line would be if Jesus told them to let the fish go.

Don't jump to conclusions too fast on these things.
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It's just interesting, that's all. See? "Interesting bible story". That's the name of this thread.

I didn't post; "This story PROVES that CHRIST did not exist!!!!" I said it was an interesting story, and it was. That is all.

The fact that the Christ story borrowed from multitudes of mythic cults before it is no great secret.

The question remains; What is significant about the number 153 to John? Why would an mundane piece of information like this be preserved, perhaps as late as 100 years past the time the actual story would have occurred, especially when it had nothing to do with the outcome of the story? I think that is an interesting question, and the Cult of Pythagoras and its special number 153 is a possible answer.
 
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