Feeding of Five Thousand

             Historical Analysis: Feeding of Five Thousand
             Summary as it appears in the Gospels
             Mark (6:31-44); Matthew (14:13-21); Luke (9:10-17); John (6:1-14)
             The Feeding of Five Thousand begins with a large crowd following Jesus to a deserted place. When Jesus notices the crowd he begins teaching them. The disciples then suggest that Jesus dismiss the crowd because it was getting late and the crowd needed to buy something to eat. Jesus did not wish to dismiss the crowd so he told the disciples to feed the crowd themselves. The disciples then said that they did not have enough money to buy the crowd food but they had five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus then told the disciples to have the crowd sit on the grass and Jesus then broke the bread and fish and gave it to the disciples to distribute; everyone ate and everyone was filled.
             All four gospels almost gave the same exact story but John's had two extra details. First, John's version (Jn 6:1-14) mentioned that Jesus tested Philip by asking him "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?" despite the fact that Jesus already knew what he was going to do (Jn 6:5-6). Philip's response was "Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little" (Jn 6:7). The second variation is that John mentioned Andrew, one of the disciples. Andrew came to Jesus and said "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish" (Jn 6:9). In the other three gospels, the disciples just say that they have a total of five loaves and two fish rather than the food coming from a particular source. Despite these two differences, the main story is the same throughout all four gospels; five loaves of bread and two fish feed five thousand people.
             Historical Evidence: Biblical and Non-Biblical
             In order to consider a passage highly reliable and historical, it is important to look at the criteria for hi...

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Feeding of Five Thousand. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 04:59, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/17533.html