The Seventh Sign, Pt 5: The Catch of Fish

Like the Water into Wine, the Catch of Fish also leaves traces behind in GMk.  It will turn out that they're harder to find, because the sign has actually gone missing, but nevertheless they're still there.

The first location is found in Mk 1, towards the beginning of Mark's gospel.

A Catch of Believers

When the first disciples are called in GMk, we find Simon and Andrew casting a net in the sea.  We also meet James and John in a boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. Jesus tells them that they will become "fishers for men" and makes them an offer: "follow me".  They abandon their nets and follow him. 

These elements all have parallels in the Catch of Fish as we have it in GJn.  There, Simon, James, and John--the last two identified as the "sons of Zebedee"--are all fishing.  Jesus tells them to cast their net into the sea.  After he reconciles with Peter, he tells him "follow me". 

Notice that in GJn, the disciples are not called by the sea at all.  Why is the only parallel with Jn 21 in Mk 1?  Also, why are James and John mending their nets in Mk 1?  It’s as though…there had been a miraculous catch of fish earlier.  There is of course no such miracle in GMk at all, but if the Markan author knew of such a miracle in a source, he would have had it in mind when writing Mk 1.  An explanation for all of the above phenomena is that the Signs Gospel was a source for both original GMk and GJn, and it contained a sign: a miraculous catch of fish.

Now I admit these are not much to go on, but it’s a start.  And I propose we can tell what happened to the rest of the sign in GMk: Mark moved the bulk of this sign to the end of his gospel.  But this ending has gone missing--it was part of the infamous lost ending of Mark, i.e. the ending of the original Markan gospel. 

The Original Ending of GMk

The sign as it stands in GJn is the relic of this ending--John has basically preserved the ending of original GMk.  The Hyper-Synoptic Hypothesis shows us how to confirm this: because we see another fragment of this lost ending at the end of GPet.  There, Peter and his brother Andrew head off for "the sea" having "taken their nets"--presumably therefore to go fishing.  We already know that GPet is derived from original GMk, and we've shown how GJn is derived from original GMk.  So keeping this in mind, the parallel here between GPet and GJn--a fishing expedition led by Peter at the end of the gospel--could best be explained, according to the parsimony principle, by the presence at the end of original GMk of just such a pericope. That pericope would consist of a fishing trip made by Peter, Andrew, and others.  So the missing ending of original GMk was a Markan version of a sign from SG: the Catch of Fish.

In his 1966 Anchor Bible commentary to GJn, Raymond Brown—while not himself wishing to speculate on the relationship of GPet and Jn 21 to a lost ending of GMk—makes an argument for the existence of a story behind Jn 21 involving a seaside resurrection appearance to Peter.  Brown suspects that there was originally a appearance to Peter with “anonymous fishermen” (Brown 1966, p. 1087, citing Gunter Klein), followed by a group appearance to the disciples at a meal, which is intriguing though not totally relevant to our needs; all we need is evidence that at least one of these appearances involved a fishing trip by Peter.  Brown points out that GPet appears to contain the beginning of Jesus’ first post-resurrection appearance, to Peter at the Sea of Galilee (“But I, Simon Peter, and my brother Andrew, having taken our nets, went off to the sea”). 

Speaking again of Jn 21, Brown also notes:

We may add that in the Johannine narrative there are certain features that are best explained if this is the first appearance of Jesus to Peter.  In vs. 3 Peter goes back to his trade as if he is unaware of a higher calling—certainly one would not suspect that Jesus had previous appeared to him and sent him on the apostolic mission.  The failure to recognize Jesus in 4-7 implies that the risen Jesus had not been seen before.  Furthermore, as we have mentioned, the rehabilitation scene in 15-17, made to correspond to Peter’s denials, is more intelligible in the context of Jesus’ first appearance to Peter. (ibid)

The Ending of Q and GPet in the Double Tradition

Now notice that both GMt and GLk feature Peter-stories with regards to a water-miracle: GMt in the Water-Walking, and GLk in the Catch of Fish.  Both seem to be working independently to integrate some sort of material featuring Peter in a water-miracle, with the canonical Markan narrative that both are also using.  Both GMt and GLk are missing the Catch of Fish at the end of their gospels--yet we know (via the HSH) that both used GPet, which ends with Peter heading off to the sea to do some fishing.  This strongly implies that both were aware of some sort of fishing expedition at the end of GPet. In fact, this pericope belongs to Marcion's gospel, writing before Luke, so it must also have been in Q; GPet is just a witness to Q here. 

This, then, is the source for Matthew and Luke/Marcion’s independent efforts to place Peter in a fishing-miracle.  They have just made different choices about how to do it: Matthew placed it in the context of the Water-Walking, whereas Luke, or rather Marcion (for this pericope is in Marcion’s gospel, and the HSH places that prior to GLk), placed it in the context of the calling of the disciples—ironically, conflating it back into the context of its missing Markan half.  All Marcion did is notice, willy-nilly, the thematic parallels between the fishing expedition at the end of Q, and the calling of the disciples in GMk.  Those parallels existed because it was Mark himself who originally split the sign in two in the original Markan gospel.

Why did both Matthew and Marcion decide to excise this pericope, which they both found in Q, and relocate this material to elsewhere in the gospel?  Their first motivation would have been a narrative one: it was absent from the end of canonical GMk, which both Matthew and Marcion used.  And they both would have had a second good narrative motivation to leave it out: their source—Q—related the pericope in the first person: “I, Peter”.  Both Matthew and Marcion were using GMk for the basic outline of their gospels, interleaving the Q material into it as need be.  GMk was not a first-person narrative; it was a third-person narrative, and that’s the voice that Matthew and Marcion both wrote in.  So when they came across the first-person narrative of the Catch of Fish pericope in Q, they would both have been somewhat perplexed as to how to handle it.  Furthermore, the first-person voice when combined with the absence from canonical GMk would have given them every reason to view the Q version with significant skepticism. 

So why did Matthew and Marcion relocate the pieces of the pericope, rather than simply leave it out?  Each would have needed a good reason, either a narrative reason, a theological reason, or both.  We’ll consider these reasons for each in turn.  

Peter’s Fishing Trip in the Marcionic/Lukan Tradition

Marcion does seem to have basically kept it, but relocated it elsewhere in the gospel, i.e. to the calling of the disciples (Lk 5:1-11).  We’ve provided a plausible narrative reason for leaving it out of the end of the gospel, namely: it was not found at the end in canonical GMk.  But Marcion could have left it out altogether, so we need a bit more than this.  What we need is not just a good reason for Marcion to have kept it, but also a good reason to relocate it.  Its absence from the end of canonical GMk is a good reason for leaving it out of the end of Marcion’s gospel, but why would he have kept it at all, even in a different location?  There isn’t a really good narrative reason for this, so it seems we may need a theological reason for him to have kept it.  If we can identify the contents of the pericope, that might provide us with the clues we need to figure out why and how Matthew and Marcion did not re-use this pericope as written, in the location that Q/GPet placed it.  We know it was some sort of fishing expedition by Peter and some disciples.  What else did it include?

If the pericope resembled the version remaining in GJn, it would have included a post-resurrection appearance by Jesus.  Indeed, it seems unlikely it could have been about anything else, coming as it does at the end of the Cerinthean gospel, right after we see Jesus walking out of the tomb, and right after the angel announces to the women that “the crucified one” has risen.  But this means that in Q, we would have read about the first post-resurrection appearance, with Peter serving as the main eyewitness.  (ETA: of course I mean the first appearance to the disciples; in GPet at least, the Romans and the Jews at the tomb are arguably the first to see the risen Jesus.)  Marcion would not have been interested in repeating this story, because he doesn’t want to concede anything to the Roman church.  Instead, the first post-resurrection appearance Marcion presents is the one made to the two travelers on the road to Emmaus/Oulammaus.  The identity of these travelers is somewhat shadowy.  One may have been a Cleopas or a Clopas; the other may or may not have been a “Simon”—or, perhaps in verse 24:34, Marcion was referring obliquely to an appearance to Simon Peter, but drawing some doubt as to whether it was the first appearance.  The point, however, is that in Marcion’s gospel (GMc) none of these people is actually identified with Peter. 

Indeed, if we examine what Marcion did with the pericope—move it to the front of the gospel, blending it with the Marcan story of the calling of the disciples (and in doing so, inadvertently reuniting the two halves of the original sign that Mark had split apart)—we suddenly realize that the Marcionic/Lukan version of the Catch of Fish is a Marcionic parable.  Jesus tells Simon to row the boat out from shore–Simon has to follow Jesus’ orders!  Jesus then preaches from the boat—and in doing so, is a kind of stand-in for Marcion, who was both a shipwright and an apostle for his own church. 

Jesus then tells Simon to let down his nets.  Simon is (typically) disbelieving, and protests that his own efforts at catching fish have been futile.  Again, however, he obeys Jesus’ orders, and to his surprise pulls in a miraculously large catch of fish.  It’s so large, in fact, that the other boat must be called, the one with James and John in it.  The symbolism here suddenly seems obvious; Jesus—taking on the role of Marcion—shows Simon up by preaching to the crowds, which appears to enable the miraculously large catch of fish.  But these fish aren’t just fish; they represent the recruitment of followers into Christianity—in this case, into the Marcionite church (the Roman church having had comparatively little success).  The catch is so large that the boat with James and John must be called to gather in all the fish.  Here, James and John represent the eastern, Semitic church, with centers in Syria and Palestine (James) and Egypt (John). 

Peter then falls at Jesus’ feet in supplication.  This is a vision of Marcionite triumph over the Roman church.  The Marcionite church claimed it held the real teachings of Jesus.  To a Marcionite, the Roman church would have seemed hopelessly corrupt, eating meat and celebrating marriage and procreation, preaching a human Jesus, and accepting the Jewish God whom Marcion thought was not God at all.

So what Marcion was confronted with was a third-person GMk narrative, without any post-resurrection appearances, and a first-person Q narrative that gave Peter a share in the first post-resurrection appearance.  To resolve these problems, he simply removed the pericope from the end of the gospel altogether, and put it somewhere he felt it would naturally fit: the calling of the disciples at the beginning of the gospel.  Furthermore, in order to combat the witness of Peter in the pericope, he made sure to show Peter in negative light and a suppliant position.  If GJn is any evidence, these elements may already have been found in the original pericope, for Peter is portrayed in Jn 21 in a somewhat ridiculous and contrite manner.  Odds are that both the Q-author and the GPet author kept elements of this portrayal at the end of his gospel, adapting them somehow to a first-person narrative (we don’t know exactly how), and Marcion happily followed his lead.

The HSH can aso beH H fairly confident that the end of GPet, and by extention Q, referred to a miraculous catch of fish, and not just to a seaside appearance to Peter of the resurrected Jesus, because Peter falls at Jesus’ feet in Marcion/Luke’s version of the Catch of Fish.  That seems like an element taken from a post-resurrection story, not from Simon’s first encounter with Jesus.  But the GPet author, at least, seems likely to have included a confrontation between Peter and Jesus at the end of his gospel, because there goes Peter at the end of GPet, off to the sea to go fishing, and we can be certain that he’s going to meet the risen Jesus there. So this confrontation must have been found at the end of GPet, and likely at the end of Q—meaning, Marcion was the one to move it to the beginning of the narrative, to the calling of the disciples.  But the miraculous catch of fish was also moved to the calling of the disciples, and the simplest explanation for this is that they were moved together, hence were originally found together.  So they must have been found together at the end of GPet and Q, and the person who moved them to the calling of the disciples must have been Marcion.

Peter’s Fishing Trip in the Matthean Tradition

So why would Matthew have removed it from his gospel?  We do have the narrative reasons outlined above, but it’s not clear why Matthew couldn’t have just rewritten it to fit more naturally into his story.  Matthew, of course, would have been very interested in giving Peter the first resurrection appearance. 

This suggests that there may have been some ambiguity in the Q version.  And indeed, based on the evidence of the various versions we have of the pericope, it appears to have ended with a remorseful and chastened Peter.  We have the Johannine and Marcionic/Lukan versions—but we also seem to have the remains of a third, Matthean version, in his account of the Water-Walking.  The Matthean account is anomalous, different from both the Markan and the Johannine Water-Walking.  In those accounts, Peter leaves a boat to enter the waters.  But this is exactly what he does in the Johannine version of the Catch of Fish.  The Matthean Water-Walking also ends with an exchange between Peter and Jesus, with Peter contrite and upset, and Jesus demanding and somewhat inquisitional—again, just as in the Johannine version of the Catch of Fish.  The Matthean Water-Walking also ends with the disciples falling at Jesus’ feet and worshiping him—as Mary does, for example, in the first Johannine resurrection appearance.

Raymond Brown (in his Anchor Bible commentary on GJn) notes several salient elements in Matthew’s version of the Water-Walking that relate it to a post-resurrection appearance to Peter, beginning with the fact that “Matthew alone attributes to Peter a special role in this scene” (Brown 1966, p. 1087).  First, we note that Brown cites Charles Dodd with the suggestion that the Water-Walking in general contains “many of the features appropriate to the literary form of a post-resurrectional narrative, and that the story may have originally concerned an appearance of the risen Jesus”, though he cautions that the story seems “firmly welded into the context of the multiplication of the loaves, and this localization goes back to a pre-Gospel period” (ibid, p. 1087f).  But the HSH agrees with this.  Because the Water-Walking is a Markan pericope, and because GJn depends on the Markan narrative, we should expect exactly the features that Brown describes: the Feeding of the 5000 and the Water-Walking should appear to be linked thematically and geographically, in a strata prior to GJn, because that’s exactly the way Mark wrote it.

Getting back to the unique elements in Matthew’s version of the Water-Walking, Brown also notes the following similarities between it and Jn 21:

• Peter is in a boat
• He sees Jesus from a distance
• He recognizes Jesus
• He calls him “Lord”
• Peter leaves the boat to come to Jesus
• Jesus saves Peter after admonishing him for his faithlessness (Brown links this thematically to Peter’s rehabilitation in Jn 21:15-17) 
 

As Brown says, “Of course, in John there is no miracle of Peter’s walking on the water, but that element in Matthew may stem from the story’s having been placed in the context of Jesus’ walking on the water—here probably John is more primitive than Matthew” (ibid, p. 1088).  Brown also points out several inconsistencies in the Lukan version, suggesting that the Lukan author (i.e. Marcion) has conflated two different stories.  Notably, he points out that “Simon’s action in falling down at Jesus’ knees would be more appropriate on land than in a boat, as would his words, ‘Depart from me.’”

Indeed, a remorseful and chastened Peter is consistent across all three versions: in GJn, Peter is "grieved" at Jesus' questioning, and John seems to go out of his way to effect a reconciliation between Jesus and Peter.  (Furthermore, it's not Peter who recognizes Jesus; it's the beloved disciple.)  In GMt, Peter falls into the sea from fear, and must be rescued by Jesus, who asks him "Why did you doubt?"  In GLk, Peter falls at Jesus' feet and begs Jesus to leave him, for he is a "sinful man".  All this suggests a scene at the end of the pericope featuring a contrite Peter in a suppliant position.  Indeed, none of the versions present anything like an unambiguous recognition of Peter as the chief disciple, or even as reliable. 

So we can easily imagine even the first-person GPet version ending somewhat ambiguously for Peter, with a first-person account of Peter expressing his sorrow at abandoning Jesus in his hour of need, and Jesus reprimanding him with something like “You of little faith” or “Why did you doubt?”  Matthew would have had no desire to retain this, since he's trying to bolster Peter's reputation.  He wasn’t clever or confident enough to totally rewrite the pericope as a scene of reconciliation between Peter and Jesus, as John did, so he just moved the event prior to the crucifixion. 

(And, Marcion would still have wanted to remove this scene from the end of the gospel, since even though it presents Peter in an ambiguous light, it still awards him a share in the first post-resurrection appearance.  Furthermore, if the element in the Matthean version of the Water-Walking where Jesus pulls Peter from the water had any parallel in the original Q version, Marcion would not have been happy with a Jesus who can physically pull Peter from the water, particularly after his resurrection.)

Notice also that Matthew seems to preserve the remaining element of a miraculous catch of fish in his gospel, in Mt 17:27, where Jesus tells Matthew to cast (BALE, cp. Jn 21:6 BALETE) a hook into the sea, to catch a fish in the mouth of which he will find (HEYRHSEIS, cp. Jn 21:6 HEYRHSETE) a coin.  This is an infamously awkward pericope, for it is the only time Jesus promises a miracle but the reader doesn’t see it happening.  This would make more sense, however, if the Matthean author was aware of a fish-catching miracle in his source that involved Peter casting and finding, and had it in mind when he wrote Mt 17:27.

Summary: The Catch of Fish was in GPet and Q

And it seems like the fishing expedition at the end of GPet must have resulted in a miraculous catch of fish.  GPet clearly tells us that Peter and Andrew were headed out with their nets, so this detail must have been added for a reason.  Otherwise, why not just put the disciples in a boat, as happens elsewhere in the gospels (the Storm-Stilling, the Water-Walking)?

Because it’s also at the end of GJn, the simplest conclusion is that the original Markan author must have placed a miraculous catch of fish at the end of his gospel.  The Q-author copied it into Q, from whence it found its way into GPet; John copied it into GJn.  It was then excised from canonical GMk.  Although “Matthew” and Marcion would both have found it in Q, they also found it missing from canonical GMk, and both Matthew and Marcion would have made independent decisions to relocate the material to elsewhere in the gospel narrative.

But now we need to know which gospel this pericope was original to—SG or GMk—and where it was found in each.  Was it added to the end of Q and GJn because it was found at the end of SG, or because it was found at the end of GMk?  Remember, the HSH assumes that both the Q-author and John used both SG and original GMk.

First of all, this does not really seem like the sort of pericope Mark would invent.  It's not accomplished by Jesus' touch in either the Lukan or Johannine versions (nor in the Matthean fragment about the fish with the coin in its mouth, though Jesus does touch Matthew in the Matthean Water-Walking), and I showed in this post how the miracles Mark added to those of the Signs Gospel all feature some sort of touch.  So it seems original to the Signs Gospel, as Fortna noticed. 

However, there is some good evidence that it was found in Mark's gospel, and in this location.  Both versions of the Catch of Fish (the Lukan and the Johannine) end with an encounter between a contrite Peter and Jesus.  This makes the most sense in the context of Peter's denial of Jesus during the passion narrative--that is, it makes the most sense after the denial, not before.  That would place it after Peter's denial in the overall narrative.  Peter does not really play a very important role (or any role at all) in the other six signs, but he is central to Mark's gospel.  Peter's denial during the passion of Jesus bears the hallmarks of Mark's creativity:  Peter's denial is threefold (Mark is fond of patterns of three), and Michael Turton has even constructed a plausible (and very interesting) chiasm for Peter's denial.  A contrite Peter in the presence of the resurrected Jesus hardly makes sense in the context of the Signs Gospel, but it makes all the sense in the world in the context of the Markan gospel. 

So it looks like this sign was original to SG, but adapted by the Markan author into a post-resurrection appearance by Jesus, i.e. it was found in both gospels.  And in original GMk, it was found right here, at the end.

Original to GMc/GLk?

We must still, however, consider the possibility that John drew this miracle from GMc/GLk.  This possibility has been considered by many scholars, though their conclusions are mixed.  Many have drawn attention to the similarities between the Johannine and Lukan versions, but there is just as much attention paid to their differences.   Brown notes the following similarities:

• The disciples have been fishing unsuccessfully all night
• Jesus directs them to cast their nets
• There is a large catch of fish
• There is an effect on the nets
• Peter reacts
• Jesus is called Lord
• There are other fishermen who remain silent

Brown also adds that the "theme of following Jesus" is found at the end, that the symbolism in each case is that of evangelization--explicitly in GLk--and notes shared vocabulary, especially in the name "Simon Peter".  F. Lamar Cribbs (“St. Luke and the Johannine Tradition", JBL 90 v. 4, p. 433-34) adds also that: a) Andrew is missing b) the name "Simon Peter" is used, and c) Simon is addressed directly.  However, Joseph Fitzmeyer, in his own Anchor Bible commentary on GLk (citing Alfred Plummer) notes the following fairly obvious dissimilarities in GJn: 

• Jesus is unrecognized
• Jesus in on shore
• the Beloved Disciple (John?) is in the same boat as Peter
• Peter does not drag the fish himself
• the net is not torn (note: technically in GLk it isn't torn either)
• the fish are caught close to the shore and taken there
• Peter swims to shore

Cribbs likewise notes there are “important differences”, saying that they render a direct influence “quite dubious”.  He also points out that the use of “Simon Peter” here in Lk 5 is textually problematic, especially since Jesus doesn’t give Simon the name “Peter” until Lk 6, and adds “the fact that John 21:1-14 possesses less of a miraculous element than does Luke 5:1-11 could possibly indicate that the Johannine form of this pericope reflects a greater antiquity than does the Lukan.”  To all this he adds, in a subsequent article:

Moreover, Luke 5:8 (“But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O lord’”) possibly suggests that the original setting for the Lukan version of the miraculous catch of fish was in a post-resurrectional context such as is found in John 21, for this vivid expression of Peter’s sinfulness would seem more appropriately to belong to a time subsequent to his three-fold denial of Jesus rather than representing, as it does in Luke 5:8, merely a general confession of sinfulness that had been brought about by an unusual catch of fish.” (SBLSP 1973.2 p. 29)

But just so do I argue that the Markan author placed the Catch of Fish at the end of his gospel (wherever it was originally found in the Signs Gospel”), and that’s why we find a version of it there in both Q and in John’s gospel. 

I should also point to J. A. Bailey’s 1963 mongraph “The Traditions Common to the Gospels of Luke and John”, which flatly states

A direct relation between the two accounts, i.e. literary dependence of one on the other, is excluded by the fact that only two significant words are common to both: ICQUS and DIKTUON.  That is to say, though the fourth evangelist knew the Lucan passage he has not grafted elements from it into the related passage in his own gospel.  A connection between the two can only be a matter of a connection at an earlier stage in the transmission of the tradition, before the two stories were parts of the two gospels. (Bailey 1963, p. 12)

The Hyper-Synoptic Solution: Two Middle Terms

I argue the HSH is the only existing solution to this puzzle: prior to GLk and GJn, there were indeed two versions of this passage—the original sign in SG, and the Markan version at the end of SGM.  The Q author and John knew both, and each re-wrote their own versions, choosing different sets of elements from each.  Marcion then used the Q version.  J. A. Bailey continues:

It is clear, then, at the core of 21.1-14 lies the miraculous catch and the recognition of the resurrected Jesus rising out of it.  There is good reason to believe that this was originally the first appearance of the risen Christ and not the third (or fourth), as it is in its present Johannine form. (ibid, p. 13)

I argue this is not the core, in the sense that this is the meaning of the original sign in SG, but rather this is the core of the original Markan version.  In original GMk, this was indeed the first appearance of the risen Christ.  John is blending the SG narrative with that of SGM, and in the SG narrative, the first appearances were to Mary and then to various other disciples, as we find in Jn 20.

Rudolf Bultmann, in his own commentary (1971 in English) on GJn, though he does not think Jn 21 was written by the gospel author, notes various odd features of the Johannine Catch of Fish (Gospel of John, p. 701f).  For example, it is the first time John portrays the disciples are fishermen.  But, of course, this is a synoptic feature, and would have been perfectly at home in the context of original GMk.  So the HSH explains this detail as well.

Bultmann also makes the argument that this was originally the first appearance to the disciples, and was “set only subsequently in the place that it now occupies”.  Just so does the HSH claim that in original GMk this was indeed the first appearance.  Bultmann portrays Jn 21:1-14 as originally an “Easter story” (ibid, p. 705), i.e a post-resurrection appearance, and I agree inasmuch as by “original” he means “prior to John”.  The HSH explains: in GMk, it was indeed an Easter story (though in SG, a source for both SGM and GJn, it was not).  Bultmann points out that Jn 21:1-14 does not assume that Jesus had already appeared to the disciples, and that their failure to recognize him makes no sense unless this appearance was originally supposed to be the first appearance.  He says further:

Accordingly v. 14 is understood on the assumption that the redactor wished to combine the Matthaean-Markan tradition of a Galilean appearance of the Risen Lord with the Johannine representation.  Inasmuch as he now added this story after relating two appearances of the Risen Lord (20.19-23, 24-29), he was compelled expressly to correct the tradition from which he took vv. 1-13 in this point, and to stress that what is here recounted is the third “revelation” of the Risen Jesus. (ibid, pp. 705-6)

Raymond Brown concludes, similar to Cribbs, Bailey, and Bultmann, that “independently Luke and John have preserved a variant form of the same miracle story” (Brown 1966, p. 1090).  Brown notes that both versions seem to have “undergone development”; just so does the HSH say the same: the Markan version was itself a rewriting of a sign from SG, and both Q and John developed their versions from it in turn.  Marcion/Luke then developed the Cerinthean version even further.  Brown points out that Luke had good reasons not to include such a resurrection appearance: “Luke xxiv has constructed a sequence where all the appearances of Jesus take place in Jerusalem and Jesus ascends into heaven on Easter night.”  Furthermore:

One may theorize that in having to transfer the story of the catch of fish and Peter’s rehabilitation back into the ministry, Luke thought it most appropriate to attach it to the common Synoptic story of the call of the first disciples….Also the “Do not be afraid” of Luke v 10 may be an echo of the original post-resurrectional setting where fear greets the risen Jesus (cf. Matt xxviii 10; Luke xxiv 37-38). (ibid, p. 1091, 1092).

Bonus Round: Explaining GMt’s Mountain in Galilee

Brown also goes on to connect this appearance with the puzzling Matthean appearance on “the mountain to which Jesus had directed them”.  Brown writes:

There is no logical reason why the disciples should have gone to a mountain, and that is why Matthew has to add the explanatory clause “to which Jesus had directed them”—a direction for which there is no other Gospel evidence, not even in Matthew.  On the other hand, if the disciples left Jerusalem without having seen the risen Jesus and still puzzled by the empty tomb, naturally they would have returned to their homes, and for many this would mean the neighborhood of the Lake of Galilee.  That at least one of them did come into this neighborhood is implied in our reconstruction of the appearance to Peter while he was fishing.  Thus, it is at least possible that the Galilean appearance to the Twelve took place near the Lake rather than on a mountain, and such a localization would help to explain why the narrative of this appearance got confused with that of an appearance to Peter at the lake shore. (p. 1093)

This is totally in congruence with the HSH.  GPet explicitly says that the disciples returned to their homes, which perfectly sets up a pre-Matthean appearance like the one Brown describes: by the sea of Galilee.  And then GPet begins to describe exactly such an appearance—a visit to the sea by Peter himself.  This sequence in GPet is, in the HSH, a source for GMt, and it is exactly what Brown says would explain the awkward Matthean attempt to place a resurrection appearance in Galilee. 

There is much more to say about this appearance, but we will leave this for a later discussion about the lost ending of GMk, and what the Markan author would have found in the Signs Gospel.

The Original Location of the Catch of Fish?

There is still the question of where this sign would have been found in SG--was it here at the end of the narrative, or earlier?  This question is interesting, but for our purposes here it's a little irrelevant--all we really need to know is that it was one of the seven signs, in whichever narrative location it was found in SG, but that Mark re-used it and placed a version of it here at the end of the gospel, regardless of where it was found in SG.

But I suspect we know exactly where the Catch of Fish was found in SG: right where the Water-Walking is now.  There are linguistic traces of it left behind in GMk: in the Markan Water-Walking, Jesus appears towards the end of the night (NUKTOS), and in the Lukan version of the Catch of Fish, Simon protests that he and his co-workers have been working all night (NUKTOS).  This may not be much to go on, but it would also explain why the Markan author moved it to the end of the gospel; if he hadn't moved it, he would have had to explain why Jesus and the disciples didn't just go out and catch a bunch of fish to feed the multitudes (or why they didn't just have them on hand the second time around, to feed the the 4000).  Notice also that in the Johannine version of the Feeding of the 5000, only bread is picked up at the end to fill the baskets.  This seems to be an actual example of Johannine fatigue: he makes sure to mention the Markan fish at the beginning of the miracle, but by the end he seems to have reverted to a more primitive version of the miracle that didn't involve fish at all.  This suggests that it was Mark who added the fish to the miraculous feedings, and that the original sign was just a feeding of bread. 

What Mark did is (I suspect) redact the original sign of the Catch of Fish, sending part of it to the beginning of the gospel, the bulk of it to the end, and traces of it to the Feeding of the 5000 just before it, as well as to the Feeding of the 4000 that Mark adds after it.  John is trying to combine the accounts from both SG and original GMk, but can't quite pull it off.  He doesn't add it back in at its original location (right after the Feeding of the 5000) probably because he felt that he'd just featured a miraculous multiplication of food (including fish, since he was trying to copy the Markan version, however inexpertly).  He would also have been very interested in including the Water-Walking in his gospel, since it shows off Jesus' divinity so well, and John is acutely interested in that, in opposition to Q and GPet (represented by Cerinthus, who likely used one or the other).  But when he came to the end of SG and original GMk at the same time, he did make sure to try and include the Markan version of the catch of fish, featuring a Petrine baptism and a contrite Peter.  That's why Jn 21 seems a bit "tacked-on"; Jn 20 is probably taken mostly from SG, whereas Jn 21 is apparently taken mostly from original GMk.

A Catch of Fish pericope at the end of original GMk would also be extremely appropriate, because it would complete the overall Markan gospel chiasm if there originally was such a thing.  The scholars who investigate chiasmus in GMk not only try to find it in individual pericopes (like Turton does), but also within the overall gospel narrative.  The idea that the whole gospel is one large chiasm (with smaller chiastic structures within individual pericopes), with a center in the Transfiguration.  If this is true, then we should expect the beginning and end to echo and reflect each other thematically.  Canonical GMk lacks this at its beginning and end: the empty tomb does not reflect the baptismal themes found at the beginning of the gospel.  But...if something like the Johannine version of the Catch of Fish were found at the end of original GMk, this would reflect the earlier themes perfectly, for in the Johannine version, Peter leaps into the sea after Jesus, embodying the baptismal themes found in Mk 1.  (This may even be yet more Markan irony, for Peter becomes baptized before he confesses his sins--how typically inappropriate!)  It also echoes the calling of the disciples just after Jesus' return from the wilderness. 

The Catch of Fish: At Home in Original GMk

So the Catch of Fish is present and accounted for, not only in canonical GMk, but especially in original GMk.  The canonical and original versions both feature the calling of the disciples in a boat by the sea, and fishing vocabulary.  GMk also seems to add fish to the original sign of the Feeding of the 5000, which was apparently (from the Johannine evidence) just a multiplication of bread loaves in the original version in the Signs Gospel.  And GMk seems to have faint traces of the Catch of Fish in the Water-Walking, which I argue was not one of the original seven signs, but is a Markan creation.

Original GMk went even further than this and included a full-fledged Catch of Fish at the end of the gospel, recasting the miracle as a post-resurrection appearance to Peter and some of the disciples.  The Catch of fish was part of the famous lost ending of GMk.

And in my next post, before we finish examining the seventh sign, I'll detail what was in that lost ending of GMk.