What the hell does this passage in the Gospel of Matthew mean? I came across it last night… Anybody? This happens when they come to Capernaum where it is demanded that Jesus and his band pay tribute (tax) to the temple. Jesus then asks Simon/Peter who typically pays tribute before a king, stranger or his own children. Peter answers, strangers and then Jesus conveys a peculiar set of instructions to him:
Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.
I’m sure there is a (or several) wonderful “normal” explanation that exists for this passage, but to me this whole thing of catching a fish with money in its mouth strikes a much more mythical/esoteric chord for me. I know there is a folktale about something similar as well. Will have to track down the link to that… Here’s something similar. I believe it is the tale of the fisherman’s wife.
(And hey, since it came up in a Google search on the subject, also check out this early 19th century Japanese erotic woodcut entitled “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.”)
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15 Comments
Sounds like that may be a gematricv puzzle of some sort, there are a lot of those in fish related stories in the NT.
I don’t know about the esoteric meaning, but it might be worth nothing that the temple tax was a half-shekel and a “coin” was worth two didrachmas, twice the temple tax. Some people read this passage as an example of one of Jesus’ miracles, but others read it as a commentary written to address the question of Jewish-Christian obligations to the temple and as an example (based on familiar folklore) serving as a standard for the conduct of all the disciples.
I knew that minor in Religious Studies would come in handy one day
And what are we to make of ‘King Fisherman’ in the Grail romances, that’s what I’d like to know?
Images of money always make me think of the ‘render unto Caesar’ episode: whose face is on this coin? Caesar’s? Then render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. And remember in whose image /you/ were created…
This also reminds me (mine of useless information here!) that I heard that in Japan, one of the strongest protests a senior official or politician can make is to pack his or her things, walk out of the office and go fishing… apparently it’s some sort of middle-finger to the whole system of governance, to take oneself out to catch one’s own food.
Well, he is talking to Peter, so I assume if that’s the case, then the tax would be to cover each of their share? Although I don’t know if they were each being charged individually. But this story, for obvious reasons, isn’t one I would take at face value.
And on our coins, we have dead presidents, but the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” so the two have been conflated.
Never look a gift fish in the mouth. ?
Go drag the net and find some fish with money…
Maybe Simon was big J’s strongarm dude, collecting.
Fisher of Men , he was known as also. Could that be. ?
In ‘Lives of the Muslim Saints’ there are a couple miracles where the sea is suddenly filled with fishes, each with a jewel or coin (depending on the version of the story) in its mouth:
hxxp://omphaloskepsis.com/ebooks/pdf/mussm.pdf
Must be very hard to know what to do with a passage like that if you believe that the gospels give a literal account of what happened. I used to be an evangelical Christian (middle class, not fundamentalist, allowed to believe that the creation took place across millions of years, etc), and I don’t recall ever coming across the passage before. I think that what those kind of believers generally do is just try and avoid the tricky passages.
Does sound more like something from a gnostic gospel than the canonical gospels.
Or maybe it’s just one of those odd things that shaman type people do - seeing stuff the rest of us can’t, communicating with a greater reality including animals etc. I mean, money does get dropped in the sea sometimes and maybe the fish happened to have swallowed it, and Jesus picked up on that and thought it was a cool way of illustrating that with faith and insight then things come along when you need them. Perhaps.
For my money, Jacques Ellul’s explanation in “Anarcy and Christianity” is my fave:
More here.
Well, what about the whole “resurrection” thing? Thats certainly pretty outrageous in itself, but they dont seem to have a lot of problems “swallowing” that
Right on! I am about to post another great quote that I’m surprised no one talks about.
The tricky part of the passage is the take any fish line. Good ol’ Jacques points this out.
That any shines a different light on things as compared to the passage in the Gospel of Thomas where Jesus talks about how the wise fisherman throws out all of the little fishies and just holds onto the big one.