Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
John 21:1-14, Breakfast on the beach
Back in Galilee, seven disciples fish all night and catch nothing. At dawn a man on the shore tells them to cast to the right side, the net fills with 153 large fish, and Jesus gives them bread and fish by a charcoal fire.
John 21:1-14, in every translation this tool compares.
Back in Galilee, seven disciples fish all night on the lake and catch nothing. A stranger on the shore at dawn tells them where to cast, the net fills, and the beloved disciple realizes it is Jesus; Peter leaps into the water to reach him. Jesus has a fire going and feeds them bread and fish, his third appearance to the disciples since rising.
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Commercial fishing mattered to the lake's economy; Galileans fished at night, sometimes with torches, so the catch could be sold fresh in the morning, using dragnets weighted along the wide edge (Keener and his notes; the ESV and CSB Study Bibles). Naked could mean without the outer garment, which men took off for hard work, and pious Jews avoided public nakedness (Keener and his notes). Nets were woven from flax or hemp rope, and that this one did not tear under such a load is part of the wonder (the cultural backgrounds notes). Proposals for 153 abound, from a triangular number to Jerome's unsupported claim of 153 kinds of fish, but Keener and his notes think the disciples simply counted the catch, and the ESV Study Bible says fishermen routinely counted fish before selling them. The host passed out the bread (Keener). Some scholars once held chapter 21 a later addition because it seems an anticlimax after 20:30-31, but the Iliad also ends with an anticlimactic book, and more scholars now treat the chapter as part of the Gospel (Keener and his notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on John 21:1-14, 21:1-3, 21:5-6, 21:7, 21:11 and 21:12-14
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on John 21:1-25, 21:3, 21:6, 21:7 and 21:11
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on John 21:3 and 21:11
- CSB Study Bible, note on John 21:3
