5,000 People? I Hope They Like Fish!

Dan McClellan Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat that pernicious spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher I'm as pernicious as usual.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Yeah. We keeps it pernicious up in here. But we also combat perniciousness.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So, that's what we're going to be doing today. We're going to be talking a little bit about the feeding of the 5,000.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher We're getting loaves and fishes all ready to go. Loving loaves and fishes. Which is going to be a lot of fun. So let's just dive into it with chapter and verse. This week's chapter and verse comes from all four of the gospels.

Dan McClellan Woo. This is, apart from the resurrection, the only miracle that is attested in all four gospels.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Just so you're aware.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Significant.

Dan Beecher There you go.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Get at it, John.

Dan McClellan Finally.

Dan Beecher Finally, John gets into the fray.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Shows up, gets on the board.

Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly.

Dan McClellan And our earliest account of this, and it is the official position of the Data Over Dogma podcast, if I may just declare it so- Yeah ... that Mark is the first gospel, Matthew is the second, Luke is the third, and John is the fourth.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan In order of initial composition, even though I think Luke underwent some revisions in the second century CE, mainly to add the first two chapters. But that's neither here nor there. Neither here nor there. We're in Mark 6, starting in verse 30 for the beginning of the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, and as we're going to see, where exactly we are is not totally clear.

Dan Beecher Not only is it not clear, it feels like different authors have a different conception of where it sits.

Dan McClellan Yes. There is a bit of a divergence, a bit of a contradiction, if you will, regarding where this miracle took place.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And the biggest division is going to be between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Okay. Because one of the Synoptics actually says this is where it took place. Another one doesn't really agree with that, and John really doesn't agree with that.

Dan Beecher John just blows the whole thing up.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But let's just fire away and we'll talk about the details as events warrant, as needs must.

Dan Beecher We're somewhere on Galilee, right?

Dan McClellan We're in the northern end of the Sea of Galilee, yes.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Jesus has sent his disciples off. He has empowered them to forgive sins, to cast out demons, and then we hear about the death of John the Baptist, and the very next verse after this is where we begin the story. "The apostles gathered around Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, they're excited about, "Hey, it all worked. Check this out."

Dan Beecher "It all worked. Congratulations, you got John killed. You got the Baptist killed." I will say, it was an abrupt transition between- Yeah ... John the Baptist's death and then, I feel like we're missing something. I feel like there's something in the middle that should be between them, but anyway.

Dan McClellan Well, yeah, and you see Matthew provide that segue.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Because in Matthew, it says, "Now when Jesus heard this," referring to John the Baptist- Right ... "he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself."

Dan Beecher That's right, yeah.

Dan McClellan So, in Matthew, Matthew's like, "Come on, guys. We're not giving Jesus any treatment here. We're going to let Jesus mourn his buddy, his friend."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So Matthew does that, whereas Mark is just like, "And the apostles came back and they were like, 'Cool, look at this. I can do things.'"

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "He said to them, 'Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.'" So ultimately, we end up in a deserted place.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Whether it's because Jesus is like, "I've just got to clear my head," or he's like, "Hey, let's go do a little staycation. We're just going to go rest for a bit."

Dan Beecher Well, you say we end up in a deserted place, but we don't. Everybody gets on a boat, and they head toward what they think will be a deserted place. But then, all the people in the nearby villages see this boat headed toward that deserted place- Yeah ... and beat it there.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, and in Mark, they're leaving crowds, and other crowds end up beating them to where they're headed.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Because the end of Mark 6:31 says, "For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And this is parallel to something that happens in Mark 3:20, where they're in Capernaum. They're at what scholars think probably was Jesus' actual house in Capernaum, and it says that they were crowding around so much that they didn't even have space to eat. So, same issue.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan You've got these people crowding around, and they're like, "This party's dead anyway, man. Let's get out of here." "Let's get out of here." And then verse 32, "They went away in a boat to a deserted place by themselves." And this probably just means they were like, "We're going to go down the shoreline a piece- Right ... to where there's not a village or there's not a crowd of people." "Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them."

Dan Beecher This is your moment to remember that Galilee is not a sea, but rather a lake. And not very big. It's like One seventh the size of Tahoe. I know this because I looked it up and tried to compare it to lakes that I know.

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah. It's still a decent-sized lake, but yeah, it's not enormous.

Dan Beecher If you're a Utah person, just think of Utah Lake, but cut it in half. It's a decent size, but it's not big.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And apparently, you could beat a boat to a deserted place from wherever you are on foot.

Dan McClellan I think the circumference of the Sea of Galilee is, it might be what, 28 miles? 32 to 33 miles. So that's the circumference of the Sea of Galilee.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But it's not like they had roads back then, and you could just hike down the road. The shoreline would've been pretty problematic to navigate. But yeah, so they're sprinting down ahead of him. "As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd."

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan This is important. "And he began to teach them many things. When it grew..." So he's on the shore. He's gotten off the boat.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And he's just like, "Gather around, my people- Yeah ... and I will sing you the song of my people."

Dan Beecher I feel bad for the crowd in Mark because other crowds get to be healed by him.

Dan McClellan Yeah, he's just teaching.

Dan Beecher But this crowd just gets to be lectured.

Dan McClellan Yeah, they get a lecture. "When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, 'This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late. Send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.'" So they're on the shore somewhere. They're not near much, but there are villages scattered around.

Dan Beecher Roundabout, yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. "But he answered them, 'You give them something to eat.'" Which is just what you expect from Jesus.

Dan Beecher No, keep them here, but you guys feed them.

Dan McClellan Yeah, he hit them with a, "I'm rubber, you're glue." "They said to him, 'Are we to go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?'" And 200 denarii would be like a half year's wages.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan So a lot of people requiring a lot of bread.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It would be six months wages to pay for it all. "And he said to them, 'How many loaves have you? Go and see.' When they had found out, they said, 'Five.' And two fishies. Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass." And this is another interesting detail. Why would you say the grass is green? Narratively, the Gospel of Mark is pretty sparse about detail.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan When the author of the Gospel of Mark provides detail, there's a reason for it, and some people use this as an indication that this is historical. This is a true historical memory. Why would he say the grass is green unless it was actually green? Well, I see green grass almost every day. I don't tell stories where I say, "The grass, it was green." "Can't you see I'm telling the truth?"

Dan Beecher Israel is not the greenest of places- No ... in the world.

Dan McClellan Well, the Galilee is the most humid, and that's where most of the water falls.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And also the sources for the Sea of Galilee are closer to Galilee, and yeah. So anyway, it could indicate that it happened in the spring or early summer, and so some people use that to indicate this happened at Passover, which is one of these undesigned coincidences, magical ways to prove that Mark and John agree with each other without colluding. But the real purpose of identifying the grass as green has to do with the fact that Jesus was like, "Huh, look at them. They're like a sheep without a shepherd.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan I'll be that shepherd. I'll be the good shepherd. I will be the good shepherd who causes them to lie down in green pastures, just like it says in Psalm 23." So this is a literary allusion to things going on elsewhere, and specifically the green grass, the sheep without a shepherd. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake." So we've got Psalm 23 being alluded to with these details that otherwise don't really mean much.

Dan Beecher So I think that's- Other than green grass is more comfortable to sit on than brown grass.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan We'll just go with that. But there's another allusion here that we can talk about now. The idea of feeding somebody, feeding a crowd of people with not adequate amount of food- Yeah ... and getting everybody, and even having stuff left over, that's not original to this story.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan That's actually an allusion to something that happens way back in 2 Kings 4, where we have Elisha, who's dealing with all kinds of different folks and doing all kinds of different magic tricks. But 2 Kings 4:42, "A man came from Baal-shalisha bringing food from the firstfruits to the man of God: 20 loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, 'Give it to the people and let them eat.' But his servant said, 'How can I set this before 100 people?' So he repeated, 'Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, they shall eat and have some left.' He set it before them, they ate-" "And had some left, according to the word of the Lord." So, we've got a miracle where food is mysteriously and magically multiplied, and so we're doing the same thing here.

Dan Beecher So- Now wait a minute. First of all, okay, that's very clearly seen a reference there. But Elisha's miracle, can we just say everybody still gets what? A fifth of a loaf of bread when you're- ... dividing 20 loaves among 100 people?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You're still getting a good amount of bread.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Depending on the size of the loaf. It seems like- Yeah ... that seems less miraculous.

Dan McClellan So- You get a good meal. So- That's a Simpsons reference that I think only my wife would get.

Dan Beecher Oh, no. Somebody is about to comment. Someone's already in the comments in YouTube telling us that they caught that reference.

Dan McClellan Okay, good.

Dan Beecher Anywho, and matter of fact, many people.

Dan McClellan Good.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Go do it.

Dan McClellan Do it.

Dan Beecher Make that comment, please.

Dan McClellan Also, so, okay.

Dan Beecher Jesus has five loaves, not 20- Uh-huh ... and 5,000 people. Can I just mention, by the way, I did a little Googling just to figure out how many people probably lived in the surrounding villages and whatever.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It seems really difficult to get 5,000. A fishing village is probably 100 to 300 people. A bigger village, maybe up to 500 people.

Dan McClellan But getting 5...

Dan Beecher And it says that they're men, too. It says 5,000 men. Yeah, 5,000 men.

Dan McClellan If there are women and children there, then it's at least twice that.

Dan Beecher Then they're ancillary.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So, 5,000 seems like an incredible number of people to have all gathered- Yes ... just on a random Tuesday.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's like all of Northern Galilee- Yeah ... has gathered around the seashore in this deserted place.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so it's taking the miracle of Elisha, and it's just multiplying it by 50.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And saying, "We're going to escalate things here."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan We've got less food. We got far more people.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And it says in verse 20, "And all ate and were filled."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, it's not that they weren't rationing it out. Everybody ate as much as they wanted, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, 12 basketfuls. So we've got, it's not just a, "Hey, there are some scraps left over." It's, "We got plenty of food left over. Far more is left over than we started with."

Dan Beecher Right. Now we've got 15 fish and 32 loaves left- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan or something. So yeah, something ridiculous. So, the idea is to really eclipse the previous miracle.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So that's- Take that, Elisha.

Dan McClellan By the way, I somehow scooted over to Matthew. He looked up to, blessed and break. They took up 12 baskets full. Yeah, so they- Yeah ... still get the 12 baskets full, divided the fish among them all. Also, think about this. How long would it take you to break up bread, and hand bread and fish to 5,000 people?

Dan Beecher Well, I will tell you.

Dan McClellan Take a long time.

Dan Beecher I will tell you, I was a Mormon deacon once- ... and I was in charge of distribution of broken bread. If you're really, really on the ball, you can get it done pretty quick. But no, you're right.

Dan McClellan But that's just one little, tiny, thumb-sized piece of bread per person.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And, yeah, a half a swallow of water.

Dan Beecher So- Yeah, it's funny. I've heard many sort of either apologetic or explanatory takes on how this miracle could have happened, and I think it's very funny to me when people do that because it's supposed to be a miracle, so- Yeah ... it's just so, yeah, everybody got fed, and there was a bunch left. But I remember being a kid and being told that what probably happened was that everybody passed the basket around, and they pretended to eat, but nobody actually took anything. And I was like, "Oh, well, that's..." But no, it can't be that because they all ate, and they were filled.

Dan McClellan Yes, and verse 42 is quite explicit about that. "And all ate and were filled."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "And then they got 12 baskets full of broken pieces, and of the fish, those who had eaten the loaves numbered 5,000 men." And here's the... Go ahead, sorry.

Dan Beecher Sorry. I was just going to push back on that 5,000 because Matthew says, and I don't know how to interpret this. Besides- Matthew says- Yeah, maybe it says- ... "And those who ate were about 5,000 men, besides women and children." So does that mean- Yeah ... that there were women and children there?

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Mark doesn't say that explicitly. Matthew was like, "Oh, we'll say that."

Dan Beecher Yeah. It sounds like Matthew's like, "Oh, Mark just said there are only men. We can make this miracle double- Yeah ... if we just say there were also women and children there that we're just not even counting in the 5,000."

Dan McClellan Yeah. That makes it even more escalated.

Dan Beecher So- Even miracleier. So there you go.

Dan McClellan So here's something interesting. The very next verse of Mark 6, it says, "Immediately Jesus told them to get in the boat, and they headed across to Bethsaida."

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan So Bethsaida is a city that is somewhere on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. There's kind of the traditional site of Bethsaida, which is up the little feeder river a little bit.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then within the last few years, scholars are pretty sure they've identified the actual site of Bethsaida, a place called El-Araj.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And it's closer to the shore, and it's just an archeological site that's smaller than the more traditionally identified site of Bethsaida. But it's on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. According to Mark- They are across the Sea of Galilee, or at least at some distance- Yeah ... from Bethsaida, and they hop in the boats to head to Bethsaida.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So that's going to be significant when we look at the other tellings. Matthew, we already pointed out, Jesus was in his feelings and needed to go off by himself.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.

Dan Beecher So- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan Matthew, sick people get cured. And then, when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late. Send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." And then Jesus said to them, "They need not go away. You give them something to eat." They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Matthew is kind of balking at the Psalm 23 reference of Mark and is just like, "They just sat down on the grass. This is no big deal." He breaks, he blesses, he gives them to the disciples. The disciples give them to the crowd. So maybe Matthew's like, "Look, it's unreasonable to have Jesus handing stuff to 5,000 people."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "So we're going to divide it up a little bit." All ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over, broken pieces, 12 baskets full, and those who ate were about 5,000 men, besides women and children. No hint of where this is taking place in this telling because I think- Hmm ... and I think you do not have-- It does say immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the crowds, but it doesn't say anything about where they were headed.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And then after he dismissed the crowds, he went up to the mountain by himself to pray. And in Mark and Matthew, this is where we then get the calming the storm story- Right ... and the walking on water.

Dan Beecher Luke does- And we're going to have to do that at some point because I read ahead on that and I was like- ... "Wait, what's the timeframe?

Dan McClellan What?"

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's late at night, it's in the morning, it's all the things.

Dan McClellan So- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher yeah, eventually, and also walking on water's a pretty cool trick, so we should- Yeah ... talk about that.

Dan McClellan Now, we get to Luke, and then the story starts differently. On their return, the apostles told Jesus all they had done. Then taking them along, he slipped quietly into a city called Bethsaida.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan We're being quiet. And so this contradicts Mark.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It seems like he misread Mark- Yeah ... and was just like, "Oh yeah, they're in Bethsaida." He just wasn't reading carefully, and he just saw the word Bethsaida and was like- Yeah ... "Okay, so that's where."

Dan McClellan Well, I think there's a reason for Bethsaida, and we'll get to it in just a second.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Because the rest of the story is more or less following after what Mark says.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan When the crowds found out about it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed to be cured. So he's not only teaching, he's also healing. So Mark says teaching, Matthew says healing, Luke says teaching and healing. Why not both?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The day was drawing to a close, and the 12 came to him and said, "Send the crowd away so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside to lodge and get provisions, for we are here in a deserted place." I thought we were in Bethsaida.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Now we're in a deserted place. Not only a deserted place, a deserted place that has villages and countrysides in between the deserted place and Bethsaida.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So either he likes to do an awful lot of walking or maybe sprinting while he's healing and teaching, or Luke has messed something up. So I think what's going on here is Luke is basically repeating what he's found in Mark and Matthew with little changes here and there. But for whatever reason, he throws Bethsaida in, and I think there's a reason he threw Bethsaida in.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And it is that there's another part of Luke where Jesus says, "Woe to you, Chorazin, and woe to you, Bethsaida. If the miracles that had been performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes." Here's the thing.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan So in Mark, there's a miracle that happens in Bethsaida. In fact, it's a couple chapters later. He heals a blind man in Bethsaida quite explicitly.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So when Mark says, "Woe to you, Bethsaida, because of these miracles you didn't repent," we know what he's talking about. Oh, the blind man got healed in Bethsaida. That's the story. In Matthew, you've got the woe to you, Chorazin and Bethsaida, but there's no miracle that happens in Bethsaida. Luke is probably looking at this and going, "I don't have anything happening in Bethsaida." Because he does not include Mark's story of the blind man being healed in Bethsaida. "I got to have something going on in Bethsaida."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So he probably was just like, "Eh, eh, eh, here," and has this occurring in Bethsaida so that it makes sense for Jesus to condemn Bethsaida for not repenting despite the miracles that were done there. So I think that's what's going on with the inclusion of Bethsaida. But yeah, that does seem to contradict Mark. And then the story kind of basically follows the same outline.

Dan Beecher There were 5,000 men.

Dan McClellan They sit down. Oh, and something we didn't talk about. They sit down in groups. In Mark, they sit in groups of, I think, 50s and 100s. And Luke says they sit down in groups of about 50 each. This has reference to Jesus as Moses leading the people because there are groups of tens, 50s, 100s in the story of the Exodus. That's how they divide up into their companies in the wilderness in the Exodus narrative. So you've got an additional allusion there. And then all the details are pretty much the same there. And then did you have anything you wanted to say about Luke?

Dan Beecher I don't know. Yeah, not really.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I noticed that Luke- Yeah, the Bethsaida thing is the main thing about Luke. Let's get to John.

Dan McClellan John. Yeah, and I love this story in John because John 6:1 says, "After this, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Fair enough, except the verse right before that, the story right before that, is Jesus sermonizing in Jerusalem.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Okay. So this is a pretty significant literary seam where John is probably editing, he's moving things around, and for- Yeah ... whatever reason, he's in Jerusalem, and the next verse says, "Then he went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd kept following him because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick." Now, here's John's main contradiction. "Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples." Now, if you'll- Right ... recall, in the Synoptics, it's all happening on the seashore.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, Jesus sells seashells to 5,000 men on the seashore.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then we get this verse, "Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near." So, an odd detail.

Dan Beecher But- Just some world-building. It's fine.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's good.

Dan McClellan But this is something that some people identify as an indication that, oh, Mark says it was green grass. That's because that happens around the Passover. So this is these interlocking puzzle pieces. It all fits together, except for the fact that John is the only gospel that says Jesus's ministry was three years long. The Synoptics all have Jesus's ministry lasting about one year- Okay ... culminating in the Passover.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So it makes no sense. In order to read an additional Passover into the Synoptics, you have to just ignore the fact that most scholars think there was no additional Passover in the Synoptics.

Dan Beecher You're basically begging the question.

Dan McClellan So- Yeah ... so no, we've got another contradiction here between John and these Synoptic Gospels. "When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, 'Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?' He said this to test him, for he knew himself what he was going to do. Philip answered, '200 denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.' One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 'There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?'" And then we have the blessing.

Dan Beecher I love this.

Dan McClellan The blessing.

Dan Beecher This boy.

Dan McClellan I love- The blessing and the breaking, not the breasting.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting to me that now we've got a boy. Before it was just like, "Hey, what do you have?"

Dan McClellan "I don't know."

Dan Beecher "What's on the boat?" "We got, I don't know."

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And now there's a kid who's like- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan "Bro." He's like, "I was on the way home with this. This is our dinner, man." "My mom's going to be mad."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But people make a big deal out of the fact that Philip is a character now who speaks- Hmm ... in the story, and Philip does not speak and plays no role in any narratives in any of the Synoptic Gospels.

Dan Beecher Oh, at all?

Dan McClellan At all.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan His name is mentioned once, and that is in listing off disciples.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan That's it. Now, there's another Philip who is mentioned, and that is one of Herod's sons.

Dan Beecher Of course there's another Philip. There's always- Yeah. There's no character that is the only one of his name.

Dan McClellan So.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan There are four times in the Gospel of John where the narrative talks about Philip.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow.

Dan McClellan So Philip is a figure in the Gospel of John. Now, some people will say, "Oh, Philip, according to John, chapter one," another place where John is talking about Philip, says he's from Bethsaida. That's where he lives. And so you have some folks going, "Hmm, interesting that he would be asking the local where they're going to get the food." So that's another thing that people will point to as an indication that we've got these undesigned coincidences that are- Oh, okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah ...

Dan McClellan that are really, even if you accept them as undesigned coincidences, at best, it just demonstrates that they're all working from a shared source of some kind.

Dan Beecher Could be actual- I'm trying to imagine ...

Dan McClellan historical events, could be a text, could be an oral tradition.

Dan Beecher I watched your video about the guy talking about undesigned coincidences.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And I'm suddenly realizing, what is a designed coincidence?

Dan McClellan I think if- Yeah, that would be an author like, "Oh, he says this. I'm going to write something that fits that."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So even if you do have something that is a coincidence where it's like, yeah, these things fit together, they all were literarily dependent upon the preceding gospels.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So there's not really a way to say this coincidence was not designed. Like, they can all be designed.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Well, and all of these were written.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And therefore, there is a designer who is-- Maybe they don't intend the coincidence, and maybe they do.

Dan McClellan I don't know.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So- Hard to say.

Dan McClellan Hard to say indeed. Hard to prove.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But that does not stop people from insisting that's the case.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, "Jesus takes the loaves, gives thanks, distributed them to those who were seated, so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, 'Gather up the fragments left over so that nothing may be lost.' So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten, they filled 12 baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, 'This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.' When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself." He's already in the mountain.

Dan Beecher Shh.

Dan McClellan Quiet. There was a video one time I was tagged in, like 50 times.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan And I didn't really want to respond to it, but I ultimately did because I thought it was a cool thing. It was of a woman talking about how Jesus served sushi in the New Testament. And people are like, "What?" And it's this story. It's like they didn't-- It's not cooked. They never talk about cooking it.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They just talk about dividing it up, and that's a clever way to understand the story, but really, this is salted and dried fish.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan That's how they preserve the fish at the time. Salt it, dry it. Fish jerky, basically.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then it lasted much longer. If it wasn't just fresh, it could've just come fresh out of the... Well, no, that would be the sushi part of it, and they didn't cook it.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It would've been, yeah, dried and salted.

Dan Beecher That makes more sense.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, there you go. Jesus withdrawing himself into a mountain is where John ends it. John is by far the best storyteller of the gospel writers.

Dan McClellan I think, yeah. John is really stretching his kind of literary legs when it comes to some of the details here.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan He's had the longest time to think about it.

Dan Beecher That's right.

Dan McClellan Everybody else had to get their-- Everybody else was on a stricter deadline. They got their manuscripts in decades before John.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right. Well, there you go.

Dan Beecher 5,000 people, five loaves of fishes. That's loaves and fishes. It's a lot.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's a miracle is what it is.

Dan McClellan But 5,000 people can't be wrong, so.

Dan Beecher That's right.

Dan McClellan All right. That's what I heard.

Dan Beecher Well, friends, if you would like to help make this show go by becoming one of our patrons, we encourage you to do that. Our patrons are the wind beneath our wings. They are the things that make this all possible.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And all you need to do is go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma. You choose however much you feel you can give. There you'll get access to early and ad-free versions of every episode, including, also, bonus content from us every week. So please do that if you'd like to. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show, and we'll talk to you again next week.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.