Four More Gospel Number Puzzles (You Have Probably Never Noticed)
Is a Secret Code Embedded in the Gospels?
Following an earlier post, we take a look at four more number puzzles.
#4. Thirty Eight Years (The Healing of the Paralysed Man)
In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus heals a paralysed man by the pool of Bethesda. In our introduction to his character, we are told that ‘a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years’ (5:5). Why has John told us the length of his sickness?
It is possible that this detail is a flash of memory; perhaps mentioned to set up the magnitude of the coming miracle. We find a similar usage in Mark, when we are told that a woman had been suffering for twelve years. No one could heal her but Jesus.
In support of a historical reading, Bethesda provides a cautionary tale in over-allegorising numbers. Commentators once thought that the ‘five porticoes’ mentioned in the same episode symbolised the five books of Moses. That is, until archaeologists discovered a group of porticoes in Jerusalem – and there were five of them!1
If we do read thirty-eight years symbolically, however, an attractive option presents itself. Namely, that this is the number of years Israel wandered in the wilderness. When I first came across this explanation, I scratched my head. Were the Israelites not in the desert forty years, between leaving Egypt and entering the promised land?
Forty is the round figure often mentioned in the Bible. But in Deuteronomy 2:14, it is stated that it was thirty-eight years from Kadesh Barnea to the Zered Valley. This was specifically the time it took for the generation of Israelites who had been wandering in the wilderness to die out, since their wandering was as a sentence for sin.
This may not seem like a terribly strong parallel. Yet Jesus goes on to say to the man: ‘Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you’ (5:14). This verse implies that the man’s sin had led to his infirmity – a common connection in ancient texts.
This link between the man’s sin and his sickness for thirty-eight years is thus more closely related to Israel’s wandering, which was for thirty-eight years as a result of their sin. Indeed, this specific length of time is mentioned in Deuteronomy 2:4 because it was the duration it took for the Israelites to die out as a punishment.
In John, then, we might not only find an allusion to but a reversal of Israel’s fate. Whereas the Israelites died after thirty-eight years in the wilderness, the man who has been paralysed for thirty-eight years received the healing and salvation of Christ.
#5. The Feeding of the Five Thousand (A Gentile Banquet)
The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle to occur in all four Gospels. But in Mark and Matthew, it is followed by a near-identical miracle: the feeding of the four thousand. Why do Mark and Matthew follow the first feeding with a second?
The best explanation I can see is that the feeding of the four thousand emphasises the extent of Jesus’ ministry. While the first messianic banquet takes place in Jewish Galilee, the second is in the region around the Greek Decapolis, opposite Galilee. After feeding five thousand Jews, Jesus goes and feeds four thousand Gentiles.
But how does this connect to the number four thousand?
If there is any significance to the number, I wonder whether it lies in four, which is often used in the Scriptures to represent geographical completeness. We might think of Revelation’s ‘four corners’ of the earth, which is a common ancient merism, representing the whole earth and everything in between (7:1).
The sense of ‘completeness’ is also brought out in another element in the feeding: the repeated use of the number seven. While in the first banquet with seven items, there are twelve baskets left over – symbolising the twelve tribes of Israel – here we are left with seven baskets, representing the completeness of Jesus’ mission.
#6. The Four Soldiers (John’s Crucifixion)
We have seen that the number four can be used in reference to the whole earth. A similar numerology may also be present in John. For when Jesus is crucified, his garments are divided into four parts – one to each of the Gentile executioners.
At first glance, the platoon of Jesus’ executioners seems to have little to do with numerology. As Craig Keener observes, “[the] Roman army’s basic unit was a contubernium, eight men who shared a tent; normally half of such a unit would be dispatched for a work detail such as a crucifixion, thus the four soldiers in 19:23.”2
Yet there are good reasons to think that something more is going on here. For a start, Jesus’ seamless tunic – the one garment not divided by the soldiers – has often attracted symbolic interpretation, from the early Church to modern scholarship. This is not surprising, as the garment is described as woven ‘from above’ (ἄνωθεν), a term that is used twice elsewhere in the Gospel with a symbolic as well as literal meaning.3
More importantly, Jesus has already declared that when he is lifted up, he will draw all to himself (12:32). It seems plausible then that the four soldiers, who each take a ‘part’ of Christ, represent all of those who will receive him. In support of this reading, the term ‘part’ (μέρος) has already been used by John to refer to a share in eternal life (13:8).
If the four Gentile soldiers represent those who accept Christ, then John’s own scene can be seen as a reworking of Mark’s, in which the Gentile centurion accepts Christ. It also gives meaning to Jesus’ seamless and undivided tunic, which from early times has been considered a symbol of unity. For more on that reading, see my post here.
#7. One Hundred and Fifty-Three Fish (Breakfast on the Beach)
Our final number puzzle is found in John’s epilogue. The risen Jesus appears to his disciples on the Sea of Galilee, and in a miracle which echoes Jesus’ calling of Peter in the Synoptics, the disciples have a catch of one hundred and fifty three fish (21:11).
Why has John taken the liberty of stating the number of fish which were caught? This strikes me as a number which is symbolic, rather than historical. (While one response of fishermen to the appearance of a resurrected man might be to count the catch, I am not sure if it is how I would spend my time with him!)
The case for a symbolic reading is also indicated by the special character of the number. As commentators routinely note, 153 is the triangle of 17. That is to say, 153 is the sum of each of the numbers between 1 to 17.
This in itself may not seem overly impressive. As Keener points out, “with many randomly selected numbers it is possible to retroactively observe peculiar features not found elsewhere.”4 Thus, while the chances of a random number being a triangular one may be one in nine, the odds of a number having some special feature – perhaps being prime, or triangular, or square, etc. – are significantly less.5
It is surely not a coincidence, however, that “almost all the numbers between 100 and 1,000 in the New Testament are triangular numbers: 120, 153, 276, and 666.”6 Triangular numbers seem especially important for early Christian writers. Yet this does not take us any closer to understanding the meaning of the fish. Why 153?
One possible means of unpacking the number is gematria. Richard Bauckham favours an interpretation of John Emerton, according to 153 points to Ezekiel 47:10, which states ‘it will be the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds.’
This verse describes a time when water will flow from the New Temple from the spring of Gedi to the spring of Eglaim. Notably, the numerical value of the words Gedi and Eglaim are 17 and 153,7 respectively, and Bauckham further notes that the word Gedi is the 153rd word in this section.8
A numerological reading of this kind may seem like a a stretch, but a couple of factors support Bauckham’s judgement. On the one hand, the meaning of the most famous triangular number in the New Testament, Revelation’s 666 (the mark of the beast) can also be unpacked using gematria. According to the Jewish numerical system, 666 is the numerical value of the words ‘Caesar Nero’ – an important figure in the apocalypse.
More importantly, Ezekiel 47 seems to be a significant chapter for John. In John 7:38, Jesus claims that ‘Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them,’ which already appears to allude to Ezekiel 47:1. Notably, in the same verse, water flows specifically from the shoulder – or the side – of the Temple, which is exactly what happens to Jesus during the crucifixion (19:34).
Why then does John mention 153 fish? He uses the number to develop his motif that a New Temple is here. The Temple is Jesus’ risen body, from whom living waters flow.
See Vardaman, E. Jerry. “The Pool of Bethesda.” Bible Translator 14 (1963): 27–29. For commentators who allegorise the pools, see Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 637.
Keener, John, 1139.
Whilst Nicodemus thinks that being born ἄνωθεν means being physically born again and Jesus’ words to Pilate are construed as Pilate gaining authority ‘from above’, from his Roman superiors, the phrase has a spiritual meaning in both instances. Nicodemus must be born spiritually, and Pilate has been given his power by God.
Keener, John, 1233.
Keener, John, 1233.
Richard Bauckham, “Confessing the Cosmic Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6 and Colossians 1:15-20)” in Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity, ed. Matthew V. Novenson (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 148.
See John A. Emerton, “The Hundred and Fifty-Three Fishes in John xxi. 11,” JTS 9 (1958): 86-89.
Richard Bauckham, “The 153 Fish and the Unity of the Gospel,” Neotestamentica, 36 n.1/2 (2002): 77-88 (82).