A Hidden Solution to the Feeding Stories

There are some obvious pointers to an answer and they require a little expertise in the Hebrew Scriptures.
This is the reason for our first week spent on that literature. First, it is clearly the numbers which are
important (the words attributed to Jesus while in the boat makes that apparent)t. Secondly, there are two
different words used for basket, although this only becomes obvious when the text is read in Greek. The
first story uses kophinos, a distinctively Jewish fish-basket. The second story uses spyris, the common
Greek word for a basket.
The elements found in the story can be tabulated. Two sets of numbers and two types of basket are
involved:
5000 people

4000 people

5 loaves

7 loaves

12 baskets
(kophinosa Jewish basket)

7 baskets
(spyriscommon word for basket)

The first set of 5 and 12 are archetypal Jewish numbers. There were five books in the Torah of Moses and
there were twelve tribes of Israel. The second set of 4 and 7 are universal numbers: the world was
considered to be divided into four quarters and seven was considered in the east to be the perfect number,
the number of completion. We can presume that Mark's audience would have understood the message,
cryptic though it might have been. The first feeding story refers to the Jews and the second to the entire
world. This interpretation is made clearer by the distinction of the baskets, Jewish and common.
Reference to the desert, to the feeding of a multitude in the desert, to the dividing up of the people into
groups of hundreds and fifties all point to the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt and the feeding of
the Israelites with the food called manna. There were Jews expecting that at the end of times the Messiah,
or Jewish Deliverer, would feed his people during a new Exodus just as Moses had provided food, the
manna, in the first Exodus. This new Exodus would mark the end of time.
The idea of a final meal in which God lavished his people with good food at the end of time was common
among Jews:
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
Isaiah 25:6
Mark dramatically shows that this has been fulfilled: Jesus was the new Moses or Messiah for the Jews
(the five thousand) and he was also the new Moses or Messiah for the gentiles or 'peoples' (the four
thousand).
There is another dimension to this very rich and complex story. The bread is accompanied by fish. Among
the early Christians the fish was a secret symbol. The Greek word for fish (ichthus) spelled out the first
letters of the basic statement of Christian faith: Jesus (iesous) Christ (christos) of-God (theou) Son (uios)

and Saviour (soter). It also became the symbol of the eucharist or holy communion (the meal of bread and
wine celebrated in Christian churches) in the early church. The eating of the sacramental bread was a
proclamation of Christian faith, the ritual moment when the presence of Jesus was overwhelmingly
experienced.
The story therefore has three levels. On the level of the Markan narrative, Jesus reveals to the disciples
who accompany him that he is the new Moses, come to gather his people together and to lead them to the
final salvation. On a second level the feedings are the Meal of the Last Times which was announced in the
prophetic books. On a third level the meal is an anticipation of the Christian eucharist.