What is the meaning of the number 153?

Explanation:

The disciples have been eyewitnesses to many of Jesus’ miracles. Nevertheless, these supernatural events never get old, and instead provoke even greater awe in Jesus’ followers. Two paragraphs earlier (John 20:30), John writes that Jesus did many miracles, which is John’s indication that he is wrapping up his recording of the signs Jesus performed. Still, John cannot help but recount one more event, explaining that the disciples had fished all night without making a single catch. When they see Jesus in the morning, he simply tells the disciples to put the net on the other side of the boat, and immediately the catch is so great that they can hardly haul it to shore. The disciples are astonished, and carefully count each fish so that the number is imprinted on their minds. Even after the disciples witnessed three years of Jesus’ signs and wonders, including the resurrection, John wants his readers to know that Jesus’ works are not to be taken lightly. Jesus is the ruler of the universe, and yet he cares for his children. John seals the historicity of the event by recording the number that each of the disciples would remember: 153 large fish—and the net did not tear!

Counterargument:

Ernst Haenchen argues that 153 fish from the Sea of Galilee is not nearly enough to break a fishing net.³ If John is trying to stress the fine calibre of Jesus’ miracle, he has not succeeded by citing such a low number as 153. Haenchen is not implying that Jesus did not perform a miracle of staggering proportions, but only that John does not mean for us to take 153 as referring to a literal number of fish, because this number of fish would not be difficult to bring to shore, and therefore, not much of a miracle.

Response to Counterargument:

Haenchen’s complaint would be genuine if he had evidence to support his claim. Unless Haenchen can produce historical evidence that indicates the size of a vessel and an average number of fish caught in the Sea of Galilee in the first century, his objection has no firm ground. More research and evidence surrounding first-century fishing practices on the Sea of Galilee needs to be offered before Haenchen’s conjecture can be taken seriously. Added to this, John explicitly mentions that there were 153 large fish. This adds a further wrinkle to Haenchen’s objection, for he would not only have to show that 153 fish would be easy to haul, but he has to deal with the detail that they were large fish. Unless one knows what criterion John uses to define a fish as large, it is impossible to say how many fish a net could hold.

Explanation:

If John simply wanted to impress his readers with the fact that at Jesus’ command the disciples caught an abnormally large number of fish, there is no reason for him to include such a precise number as 153 in the text. For example, unless John knew the actual number, he could have left the number out, or offered a round number such as 150. Instead, he gives us a precise quantity of 153, which seems to exclude the notion that John offers an approximation.⁴ We know John was present, and that he was familiar with fishing on the Sea of Galilee. They counted the number of fish and John is astonished at the catch, so he shares the details in our passage.

Counterargument:

To suggest that since John used a precise number rather than a multiple of ten, he therefore recorded the precise number of fish, is to ignore other plausible options. For example, maybe the reason John offers a non-round number is because the number is symbolic. He could be utilizing the Jewish hermeneutical practice of gematria, where each Greek letter stands for a number, and thus each Greek word has a numerical value.⁵ Thus, since 153 is the triangular of 17 (1+2+3+…+17=153), and 17 is composed of 10+7, maybe the number represents the 10 commandments and the sevenfold spirit of God.⁶ The point is, just because the number is precise does not mean that it must be literal.

Response to counterargument:

While many authors have offered the suggestion that John is using the number 153 in a symbolic manner, there simply is no indication of this from the text. In other places in Scripture when gematria is employed, such as Revelation 13:18, the author indicates as much. Added to this, we know that John is a fisherman who fished the Sea of Galilee (Mark 1:16–20), and we know he was with the disciples when they made the large catch (John 21:2–3). Given that John gives no indication that the number is symbolic, and that John, a fisherman himself, was present, and it is more plausible that the number is literal and not symbolic.

The possible weakness with the notion that John uses the number 153 to identify the precise number of fish caught is that it overlooks other plausible options. For example, given John’s Jewish ethnicity and the ancient context, it is not unreasonable that John would use the numbers symbolically (see below, Interpretation 3).

Explanation:

In Jerome’s commentary on Ezekiel, he points out that Latin and Greek biologists have identified exactly 153 different species of fish.^8,9,10 This detail must have been common knowledge at the time, so John includes the number in his Gospel in order to symbolically convey that the church will eventually contain believers from every tribe and nation.

Counterargument:

Unfortunately, it is impossible to corroborate Jerome’s claim because none of his sources is extant. Added to this, Keener argues that it is more likely that Jerome is reading this meaning into John than that John has any knowledge of the number of species of fish. Further, Pliny was a Roman natural historian who also lived in the first century and records only 74 species of fish.¹¹ For all these reasons, it is very difficult to prove that John would have thought there were 153 species of fish.

Response to Counterargument:

Just because Jerome’s sources do not survive does not imply that his sources were corrupt. On balance, Jerome is a credible commentator, and if we can trust him for historical accuracy in other areas where his sources have disappeared, we should be able to trust him in this case.

Explanation:

In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), Jesus often uses parables to teach important messages to his disciples. While the Gospel of John does not contain these parables, the miracle in John 21:1–25 is something like a living parable. Jesus wants the disciples to know that with his assistance, the message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ will be accepted by people of all nations, so that the future church will overflow with believers. Instead of explaining this to them in a parable, Jesus uses their failed fishing expedition to illustrate his power and care. At Jesus’ command, the net is overflowing with fish, just as the Church will overflow with believers. Not only that, but just as there are 153 species of fish, the church will be represented by people from all nations.

Counterargument:

The notion that Jesus’ actions are parabolic and indicate that with his provision and care the church will flourish, is likely accurate. Still, there is no evidence to suggest that the known species of fish was 153. Unless evidence can be offered to prove that in the first century, 153 was the known species of fish, the argument loses all credibility.

Response to counterargument:

The whole scene is clearly parabolic. The disciples will soon begin evangelizing and the church will overflow with people from all tribes and nations. If the number used by John represents a diversity of species of fish, it fits nicely with the overall parabolic message of the incident. Unless one offers a better explanation for John’s use of 153, the notion that he used 153 as the number of species of fish to represent the diversity of believers is consistent with the message of the parable, and the reality of the future church.

There are two weaknesses in this view.

1. If John’s purpose is to convey the parabolic message that the future church will contain a diversity of believers from all nations, then, without evidence that it was widely known that there were 153 species of fish, the number seems arbitrary. For example, if ten is supposed to represent fullness, why not use a round number that was a multiple of ten to symbolically convey the fullness and diversity of the church? Better yet, why not leave the number out altogether, and state that the disciples caught a wide variety of fish, one from every species? There is just not sufficient evidence to suggest that John, or anyone else, thought there were 153 species of fish.

2. Even if there were 153 species of fish at the time, what are the chances that John’s original audience would have known this? As it is today, biology would have been a fairly specialized field of study. Given the educational system at the time, it is hard to see why John would expect his average reader to have any idea about the number of species of fish in the Sea of Galilee at the time.

Explanation:

The hermeneutical practice of gematria was a Jewish practice that had to do with assigning a numerical value to each letter of the alphabet. Thus, each letter in a phrase of words corresponds with a specific numerical value. For example, the Hebrew letter א (alef) corresponds with the number 1, ל (lamed) with the number 30, ה (he) with the number 5, י (yod) with 10, and ם (mem) with 40. Together these letters spell אלהים (Elohim), which is the Hebrew word for God. Adding together the values represented by each letter are added together yields the following: 1+30+5+10+40=86. Gematria could be used with both the Greek and Hebrew alphabets.

With the basic practice of gematria in mind, some authors argue that John, as a Hebrew, utilized the practice of gematria to encode a specific phrase in the number 153. So, what phrase did John encode? There are a limited number of intelligible Hebrew phrases that might both fit the context of John’s Gospel and add up to 153. Still, some authors, after performing this exercise, have landed on the Hebrew phrase בני האלהים, which translates as children of God¹⁵ ((ב)2+(נ)50+(י)10+(ה)5+(א)1+(ל)30+(ה)5+(י)10+(ם)40).¹⁶17¹⁸

These authors argue that we know from Mark 1:17 that Jesus told Peter he would be a fisher of men. In our passage, Peter is the one who hauls in the net, and it overflows with 153 fish, which represent the children of God. This is a symbol of Peter’s future responsibilities as a church leader, and that the gospel will gather many children of God.^19,20

Counterargument:

While it is true that Peter would be a fisher of men, and that, even in Peter’s lifetime the church would experience significant growth (Mark 1:17), this is not enough to show that John is using 153 symbolically. In fact, D.A. Carson argues that John’s audience likely knew very little Hebrew, evidenced by the fact that even elementary Hebrew words were translated into Greek in John’s Gospel (John 1:38; John 1:41, John 1:42).²¹ If John’s audience was not primarily Jewish, then it is hard to see why he would deploy a gematria.

Response to counterargument:

There are other instances in the New Testament where the author uses gematria even though the audience is not primarily Hebrew (Revelation 13:18). As a Hebrew, John must have been familiar with the Jewish tradition of gematria, and the scenario that unfolds in John 21:1–25 would be his perfect opportunity to utilize this technique.

Explanation:

The Gospel of John was written in the first century, and at that time, numbers often held great significance. For example, Nicomachus of Gerasa was a Neopythagorean who lived in the 2nd century AD. He argued along Platonic lines that there existed forms in the mind of God by which the universe was modelled. These forms, according to Nicomachus, were numbers.²² Nichomachus fell into a long line of Greek philosophers, who thought that numbers and geometry were significant features of reality. It is not surprising then that John would use the number 153 symbolically to convey a message to his ancient audience.

Counterargument:

While the ancients did elevate numbers, they often did so on a deep metaphysical level to explain the fabric of reality. In this sense, numbers carried mystical and even religious overtones in some circles. The Pythagoreans for example, said that all things are numbers,²³ and Plato used numbers to develop his theory of forms.²⁴ Given the fact that through his gospel John is bearing witness to the Messiah, it is highly unlikely that he would incorporate the mystical aspects of his culture, encapsulated by number theory, to convey his message.

This position has two weaknesses.

1. If John is using the number of 153 symbolically, he has offered no indication as to how to solve the mystery of what the number represents. This is a problem because it has led to a variety of interpretations that have no basis in the text. For example, some authors try tying the number to the Trinity, while others tie it to the notion of completeness. Still others find resemblances to Ezekiel 47:1–23, where the prophet mentions a river flowing from the temple.²⁵ In any case, there is no consensus when it comes to the symbolic interpretation of the number, and in fact, some authors argue that such an interpretation damages the text.²⁶

2. The majority of scholars reject the idea that the number is symbolic. Although Moloney does not deny the possibility, he offers no argument to support it. Other authors, such as Keddie, argue that when symbolic interpretations are pressed too far they demean the Word of God.²⁷