The following is a transcription that I copied from a YouTube video titled “The Gospel Catch: Something Fishy About Jesus’ Dinner?” This person’s name is Kameron Waters, and he is promoting his documentary called Christpiracy: The Spirituality Secret on his channel, a documentary that deals with the religious side of the conspiracy of animal slaughter, and how the marketplace in the temple that Jesus toppled is comparable to the meat industry that exists today. I encourage you to watch Christpiracy and Kameron’s Youtube video, both of which are linked above.
I did not transcribe the whole video, but I may finish it sometime in the near future. This important parts are transcribed here, concerning Luke 24 and John 21.
Here’s the version most people picture: exhausted fisherman working all night and catch nothing. Jesus shows up and tells them to cast their net again to the other side, and suddenly nets rip up, the boat starts sinking and a miraculous catch. But contrast that to our earliest Gospel, Mark 1. Scholars across the board agree that Mark 1 came first, and Matthew and Luke borrowed from it. In Mark, no miracle, no fishing, no dramatic catch, and Matthew echoes the same thing. Only in Luke 5, written later, does the scene expand. Most Biblical scholars call it “legendary development”. Even then, the nets tear, the boat is sinking, implying the fish break free and the disciples leave fishing behind.
In John’s gospel, when Jesus calls his first followers, there’s no mention of even a boat. Three out of four gospels skip it. If it really happened, then why did Mark, Matthew and John leave the blockbuster on the cutting-room floor? Red flag or red herring?
Five loaves of bread and two fish…
Same deal with the feeding of the multitudes. We picture bread and fish. Sunday school drilled it in, and shows like The Chosen double down, but chase the bread crumbs yourself. Every gospel spotlights loaves in the blessing, breaking and multiplying, followed by baskets full of leftover bread being collected. In Matthew 16 and Mark 8, Jesus recalls multiplying the loaves alone and doesn’t mention the fish at all. That’s huge especially because the earliest Christian texts and church fathers like the Didache and Irenaeus only mention bread, but no fish. Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine, Chrysostom and Theodore of Heraclea all discuss the miracle only in terms of bread. Fish doesn’t even splash onto the manuscript record until 200 AD—no papyrus earlier.
So, was it loaves or a fish tale? It makes you wonder were those details slipped in for a fish-loving Greek world to devour hook, line and sinker?
Speaking of eating it up, let’s move on to Luke 24, the one critics love. It’s the only gospel where Jesus is actually described eating fish. Not just catching or multiplying, but literally eating it himself. That’s why it’s often treated as slam-dunk proof for Jesus eating fish. We’ve seen this play before the long ending of Mark, the resurrection versus modern Bibles’ bracket off is almost universally recognized even by apologists like Wes Huff as a later tack on.
Wes Huff: “I do not think Mark 16:9-20 is original. I do not think Mark wrote it, and therefore, I don’t think it’s inspired scripture—and that’s the majority position of textual scholars who look and analyze the data on this issue.”
Luke 24 might be running the same post-credit scene because not all manuscripts even agree. Some say he ate broiled fish, and others say he ate broiled fish and honeycomb. When even the food item itself is up for debate, it should make us pause and take a closer look.
Church father Tertullian, one of our earliest sources, only mentions the honeycomb. Another reason to pause before treating this as rock solid history is that even mainstream Christian scholars like NT Wright and John Dominic Crossen agree that Luke 24 reads like crafted literature rather than straight history.
If you look at the amount of dramatic irony, word play and delayed recognition—all classic devices used in the works like Homer—Luke 24 starts to feel like a carefully crafted narrative. These elements align with the same signs that point to Mark’s long ending being a later edition. In fact, stylometric analysis where algorithms track subconscious word patterns shows Luke 24 doesn’t just feel different from the rest of Luke, it is different. Luke 24 clusters closer to Acts than the rest of Luke which is exactly what to expect if the same hand that wrote Acts tacked on Luke’s ending, and Acts refers to Luke as an earlier volume.
This stylometric method is 96-98% accurate—the same standard used in forensic courts. The stylometric gap suggests not only a different author, but a different era altogether decades or more after Luke’s core was written. So, if we’re clinging to Luke 24 as slam-dunk proof that Jesus ate fish, then maybe we’re standing on the same kind of post-credit scene that we already recognize in Mark’s long ending, which makes you wonder if Luke 24 shows these signs, what about our final “fishy” post-resurrection narrative?
John 21 is the exact passage that I debated Wes Huff over.
Kameron: “The Gospel of John, chapter 21, there are two words used there: prosphagion and opsarion the fish…”
The one he later mocked on Rouselon’s channel laughing about the idea of “miracle fish” and the idea of Jesus catching relish. During the debate and this reaction, Wes got tangled up in the details, and honestly, it’s understandable. John 21 reads like a mashup of Luke’s miraculous catch in chapter 5 and Luke’s resurrection scene in chapter 24. You’ve got the empty nets, the sudden hall, bread and fish—all familiar beats reassembled in a way that could trip anyone up. In that exchange, Wes tried to tie the word opsarion, which appears in John 21, to the overflowing net scene in Luke.
Wes: “Nets are overflowing with relish?”
But the miraculous catch where the nets break and the boats nearly sink, that’s Luke 5, and the Greek word there is ichthus meaning ‘fish’. Opsarion doesn’t appear in Luke at all. To complicate things further, Wes also brought up optos, the Greek word for “broiled” in Luke 24 as if it’s somehow related to opsarion.
Wes: “as, um, broiled, and I’ve found numerous instances of it being found in Greco-Roman literature, but that’s not what’s in Luke 24”
Kameron: “No, I’m not talking about Luke, I’m talking about John 21 opson”
But those two words are not even etymologically connected. ὀπτός (optos) and ὀψάριον (opsarion) are not etymologically related. They come from completely different Greek roots despite their superficial similarity in sound. Opsarion only shows up in John 21, and not when fish are pulled out of the water—that’s ichthus again, which I clarified in the debate.
Wes: “Hold on, so they caught relish when they couldn’t catch relish the whole night, what were the catching?”
Kameron: “Ichthus”
In that scene, the nets don’t break. The text actually says they specifically didn’t (‘but with even so many, the nets were not torn’ -John 21). So, when Wes joked about the nets “overflowing with relish,” he was unintentionally blending different Gospel moments and different Greek words, misrepresenting my argument and the scripture itself. It’s the kind of mix up that shows how even a respected apologist can get tangled in these details, and honestly it proves the very point I opened with. When we don’t slow down and look carefully, it’s easy to confuse fragments and miss the deeper truth.
It’s time to finally clear the air and clear up the evidence. First off, most scholars agree that John 21 was tacked on later, conveniently at the end of the gospel, much like Luke 24 and the long ending of Mark. This is a point that Wes Huff conveniently avoided in our debate. John seems to wrap up cleanly at John 20:31. It even says, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book, but are written so that you may believe.” Sounds like a natural conclusion, right? Then suddenly chapter 21 pops up and it feels almost like a remix of Luke’s miracle catch, but with some major edits. This time, the nets are not left behind, but dragged ashore. Jesus isn’t just appearing, but he’s already on the shore grilling bread and opsarion, echoing Luke 24’s strange pairing of fish, bread and post-resurrection meals—complete with the same fingerprints of a late addition.
That brings us to a major issue hiding in plain sight. In this added chapter, three different Greek words, prosphagion, opsarion and ichthus all show up within a few sentences of each other, yet they are all flattened into ‘fish’ in English. In verse 5, Jesus asks “don’t you have any prosphagion?” In verse 9, he’s cooking opsarion with bread. In verse 10, he tells them to bring some opsarion which they have caught. In verse 11, they catch 153 ichthus. In verse 13, we’re back to Jesus giving them bread and opsarion to eat. Why the inconsistency?
First, prosphagion doesn’t necessarily mean ‘fish’. It simply means ‘food’ or anything eaten with bread. In Leviticus 2:1 in the Septuagint refers to oil or side offerings presented with bread. Opsarion? Same issue. While often translated as ‘fish’ today, it originally meant any side dish or relish served with bread in Homer’s Iliad. It’s literally a relish made out of onions—nothing about fish. It’s only later in a culture of indulgence that opson became closely associated with fish and seafood.
Apologists like Wes Huff will try to claim that by the time of John, opsarion always just meant ‘fish’. There are two Greek words for fish.
Wes: “Uh, there are both standard words for ‘fish’, but one is a more obscure word that’s used in the Gospels”
And he even said that Homer is the only classic reference where it means something other than fish.
Wes: “and that word in one usage in the Homeric epics also means like a relish.”
But that’s simply not true. Dr. James Davidson, in his bestseller Courtesans and Fishcakes, dedicates over 250 pages to showing that opson, the root of opsarion, could mean any side dish, especially vegetables, wild greens and even nettles, but later became known to just be fish or seafood. Greek thinkers, like Plato and Socrates, weren’t fans of where this was headed. They warned that obsession with luxurious opson symbolized moral decay. Plato accused people of making opson their side dish—their main dish—turning what should be a simple staple, like bread, into an indulgent focus of life. It’s kind of like today. If someone says, “I need a drink,” you assume that they mean alcohol and not just water. The same drift happened with the word opson, and the philosophers despised it.
Even in the era that the gospel of John was written, Phrynichus Arabius, a 2nd century Greek grammarian, confirmed that opson wasn’t just fish, it was still at that time referred broadly to any food eaten with bread. In other words, if two out of these three Greek words didn’t originally mean fish, then how literally should we be reading this fish breakfast? Now, let’s cast our net into deeper waters because up to this point, we’ve been standing on some really solid scholarly ground, but this next part is more of my own theory, but it’s a theory I think the patterns strongly support.
First, ichthus. Unlike the other Greek words, ichthus does clearly mean ‘fish’, but it carried a deeper as well. Ichthus was an acronym for Jesus Christ, God’s son, Saviour (Iesous, Khristos, Theou, Huios, Soter). It became a secret Christian symbol during times of persecution for the early followers of Jesus. A simple ark traced in the dirt completed by a stranger meant they were safe and could trust each other to talk about their faith—a hidden handshake of survival, now a familiar symbol on suburban minivans and bumper stickers.
And speaking of persecution, just want to note that one common way authorities tested and suspected Christians was by forcing them to kill or eat animals in a ritual sacrifice. Refusing to kill often meant being exposed and executed, but that’s another video for another day.
Now, back to John 21 in a really important detail. The disciples catch 153 large ichthus, and this is where things get really wild. 153 is a triangular number, meaning it forms a perfect triangle when stacked. Triangular numbers were a sacred kind of numerology to the Pythagoreans in the school of Pythagoras. Now, Pythagoras wasn’t just the a2 + b2 = c2 guy. He also taught non-violence, vegetarianism and the rejection of animal sacrifice—deeply resonant with the core value of the Nazarenes, Ebionites and Essenes, which scholars agree Jesus was associated with.
Josephus, and even Philo, wrote about the connections between Essenes and Pythagoreanism. When you map the ancient vesica piscis, the intersecting circles forming the ichthus symbol, the width to height ratio comes out to about 265 to 153—an extremely close approximation to the square root of 3, a ratio sacred to Pythagoreans who revered the vesica geometry and triangular harmonies. Even Augustine—yes, St. Agustine—later noted that 153 was a triangular number symbolizing completeness and unity of all the faithful. Yet, Wes laughed this off in the debate, like finding the speed of light in the Bible.
Wes: “Numerology really doesn’t go very far with me because you can extrapolate number to the speed of light.”
But this isn’t just some speculation or conspiracy theory to write off. You’ve got triangular numbers, Pythagorean sacred geometry and the ichthus acronym and the vesica symbol all packed into one scene right down to the square root (153). What are the odds of that just happening by chance? Trillions to one.
I find another critical dimension here when I turn to the Gospel of Thomas, which Christians automatically assume is a Gnostic forgery, but many scholars believe it just may preserve some of the earliest recorded sayings of Jesus. Dr. Elaine Pagels even thinks the gospel of John is a polemic of Thomas. If we zoom in to saying 8 in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus compares the kingdom to a fisherman who catches a net full of small fish, but finds one large fish worth keeping and throws the rest back. Not a feast, but a moment of discernment. Now, look again at John 21. It’s not just 153 fish, but 153 large ichthus—big fish, large.
If that wasn’t enough, in the Life of Pythagoras by Iamblichus, there’s a story wherein Pythagoras approaches fisherman struggling with their nets. He guesses the exact number of fish that they’ve caught, and he’s right. On his condition, the fisherman release the fish back into the sea, showing reverence of life, not consumption. So, follow me here. Pythagoras standing on the shore, guesses the number of fish, and the fish are released. John 21, Jesus is standing on the shore. The number is given, but no mention of release. Instead, many reasonably assume the fish are eaten, but should they have been? Are we certain about this? Maybe the real miracle isn’t the size of the hall, but it’s the choice of what to do with it.
Now, zoom back into the Greek key words. The net catches ichthus or ‘fish’, but when Jesus speaks, he says bring me some of the opson you just caught. Why the word switch if it was just fish? Why not stay with the word ichthus? Could it be that the net hauled in more than fish? Now, check this out: wild green, nettles and sea vegetables are all common around the Sea of Galilee, proven by historical record, often tangled by fishing nets, and they were traditional opson—foods eaten with bread. Greek physicians and writers including Hippocrates, Diocles, Galen and Athanasius all recommended making opson out of vegetables, wild greens or even nettles rather than rich decadent fish.
Contrary to Wes’ misinterpretation of my claims in the debate, it’s obvious they caught ichthus, but when Jesus asks, he wants opson. So, maybe Jesus wasn’t pointing to the fish at all. Maybe he was pointing to something else caught in their net. Maybe he was offering a final teaching: simplicity over indulgence, life over death, and discernment over appetite. It fits the tone of an epilogue. John 21 doesn’t just wrap up loose ends, but it offers a final Socratic riddle. Maybe the real opson Jesus served wasn’t seafood, but food for thought. Maybe that’s what he was really inviting us to digest, which brings up a bigger question. If Luke 24 and John 21 were later additions, then what is the earliest resurrection story we can actually trust? It turns out we have one, and it flips the menu entirely.
Early fathers like Jerome, Origen and Epiphanius all reference a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, called the Gospel of the Hebrews—almost certainly earlier than the Greek one we read today. In this text, the risen Jesus doesn’t meet Cleopas on a road or grill fish for Peter. He appears first to James the Just, the brother of Jesus, the leader of the Jerusalem movement after Jesus’ crucifixion. What do they do? They break bread together. No fish, no catch—just bread. Exactly what Jesus said, he wouldn’t eat again until the kingdom at the Last Supper, and here he is keeping that promise. James, according to Hegesippus, the early Hebrew Christian historian, was holy from his mother’s womb and never ate flesh or even wore wool. If Mary raised James that way, are we supposed to believe that she raised Jesus differently?
This Hebrew gospel version where Jesus appears first to James was preserved not by later Roman churches, by the Nazarenes and the Ebionites themselves—Aramaic-speaking believers who kept the earliest teachings of Jesus alive—and here’s the kicker—they rejected meat and animal sacrifice believing that Jesus came to end it. Even Paul, the later apostle, who often butted heads with James and the early Hebrew disciples, admits the some of the early followers only ate vegetables. He calls them “weak”, but note, if Jesus had eaten meat, Paul could have easily ended the debate with just one simple verse, “Guys, look at our Lord. He ate meat. Case closed,” but he never does.
Jesus wasn’t accidentally aligned with these ideals; he was born into a movement that upheld them. Remember the inscription on the cross? Our earliest manuscripts read “Jesus the Nazarene,” not of Nazareth, but of the Nazarene sect—a group known for rejecting sacrifice and flesh long before Jesus walked the shoreline. This exact point almost got cut from Christspiracy, flagged by Netflix, forcing us to buy our rights back and release independently because it’s “disruptive”. It challenges one of the oldest assumptions in Christian tradition, but the evidence is clear, “Nazarene” was a sect label, not a “zip code”. It was a movement, not about barbecue pits and bloody altars, or even fishing trips. It was about broken bread and nourishing life—not taking it.
Now, a quick reality check on the very sentient beings we’re talking about here. Fish can recognize human faces and remember tasks for months. They signal pain with the same opioid receptors that we do. Some even build geometric sand nests more precise than a Pythagorean Zen garden—hardly the “mind-numbed” sea critters we were taught, and that takes me back to my own childhood, “fish are friends, not food” [movie quote from Disney’s and Pixar’s Finding Nemo]. I finally realized what I loved wasn’t yanking gills out of the gulf. It was the dawn light, the suspense, the camaraderie of waiting with friends to see what the water would give. That’s why today I surf instead. It’s the same sunrise anticipation. Same salt on the lips. Only now, I’m catching waves—not killing the locals.
I’m not telling anybody to throw the whole baby out with the bath water when it comes to scripture or tradition, I’m just saying maybe the real discipleship we need in 2025 is one anchored in truth, nets dropped, and willing to toss any of the “big fish” back where they belong. If this deep dive opened your eyes or even just made you curious, then watch our ground-breaking documentary Christspiracy: The Spirituality Secret.
kohreinur.org 