Where did the Christian fish come from? I found this statement in Google (The Free Dictionary), but I'd like further explanation. It comes from a Greek acrostic?

"One of the most widely used [symbols] in the early church was that of the fish, which is derived from a Greek acrostic (from the late Greek akróstichon, composed by ákros, 'extreme', and stíchos, 'verse'):

Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour Ichthys (Greek: ἰχθύς; also transliterated and latinized as ichthus, icthus, or ikhthus) is the Greek word for "fish."

Here is when my Judaism comes in handy because I can plead ignorance.

I've only ever heard of it as the "Jesus Fish", but I have no idea where it comes from, so I'm really not much help.

I believe it derives from the feeding of the 5000. Matthew 14:15-21 says that Jesus fed "about five thousand men, beside women and children" with five loaves and two fishes. After they had eaten their fill, there were twelve baskets of "fragments" left. The other Gospels (Mark, Luke, John) have similar renditions of the "miracle." Sounds like the original fish story to me!

Tinman

Wikipedia has an article on the Ichthys.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Where did the Christian fish come from?

The water, Kalleh, just like all the other fish. You might also want to check out Mark 1:17.

Asa, I am familiar with the biblical references (very vaguely!).

I was interested in how the Greek word "fish" was an acrostic. The acrostic part apparently is: "Ichthys consists of five letters from the Greek alphabet: I-ch-th-y-s. When these five letters are used as initials for five words, we obtain this Christian Declaration: Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter. This is an acrostic for 'Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior" from this site. Apparently the Greek word fish is an anagram and an acrostic for "Jesus Christ God's Son, Savior." [Please pardon the site I've linked to.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Just a side note about the Christian fish..

Last week, in Isreal, they found what could be the oldest Christian church buried under a prison in the town of Megiddo. Two beautiful mosaic floors with detailed images of fish in the center can be seen in the photos they recently posted online. The fact that the fish were dipicted means that it dates before the cross symbol . This also means that it must be from the 3rd or 4th century. The name of Jesus Christ was written in Greek next to the images of the fish.

Some pictures of the Megiddo church.

Just to clarify, the original association of Jesus with fish is probably not connected to Ichthys, but him feeding the hungry. This is probably the source of the images at the church in Megiddo.

On another note, Megiddo is the source of "armageddon".