98 J. Duncan M. Derrett John wished us to understand that Jesus chose Peter as his permanent agent. Two factors weighed on his mind: (1) Peter’s behavior with the fish (not regarded as absurd), and (2) his loyalty to the Mission as Jesus’ personal mission (see 21:l0b). Until this is grasped the author of Jn 21 has labored in vain. As Smith pointed out (1959) the term “fishers of people” (Mk 1:17) (which Klein [p. 34] admits was known to John) is intrinsically mysterious and challenging and had not been looked into17. Wuellner (1967) went a long way to illuminating it, but even he missed some details of the material culture. To recover this poses no threat to confessional or dogmatic formulae. III. “Fishing” as “Hunting” and “Huntsmen’s” Rights The biblical Hebrew word for “fishing” (DYG; dāwāgîm, fishers) was no longer in use. “To fish” (Ger herausfischen) was expressed in Aramaic and Syriac with the root MWD, “to hunt” 18. In Gk θηράω means both to hunt and to fish, and Luke’s εἰς ἄγραν at 5:4 is easily explicable19. When Peter said “I am off fishing” (cf. Bab. Talm, M.Q. 11a, Soncino trans., 60) he will have been content with that root alone. To particularize that one hunts fish one adds nūnîn, etc., nūnēy yamā being “fish of the sea”, such as the Lake was20. It is interesting that in Syriac sād means “hunting”, chase, and game, including the “catch” in fishing, so that at Gen 27:4 Pād can be rendered venatus, piscatus; and Paidā can also mean esca, for which phenomenon a Latin equivalent exists21. Fishermen were subject to hunters’ superstitions22. We know from Luke, which John may well have known23, that a superabundant catch 17 C.W.F. Smith, “Fishers of Men. Footnote on a gospel figure”, HTR 52 (1959), 17 187-203 at p. 187. Bab. Talm., M.Q. 11a. Tg. Is 19:8; cf. Tg. Jer 16:16; Ezk 47:10; Tg. Prov 3:26, 6:2 LXX 18 (Tg. ’itPēydetā; Vulg. illaqueatus es). “To be caught”: Midr. R. Lev 30.6 (trans. J. Slotki, Leviticus, London & New York, Soncino Press, 1983, 388). “To catch as with a net” of a bird: Midr. R. Gen. 79.6 (trans. H. Freedman, Soncino Press, II, 1983, 730). The fowler and his nets: Bab. Talm., Er. 54b (Sonc. trans., 380: Prov 12:27). Going fishing: Bab. Talm., M.Q. 11a (Pūd) (Sonc. trans., 60). In a net: Mishnah, Šab. 1:6. Hunting stags with nets: Bab. Talm., B.M. 85b (Sonc. trans., 490); Ket. 103b. Note the amusing passage at Plato, Laws 823E. 19 Tgg. Num 11:22; Job 12:8; Ezk 38:20, 47:10; Hos 4:3; Hab 1:14; Zeph 1:3. 20 Plautus, Rud. 4.4,31 = 970 (L.C.L., Plautus IV, 382). 21 J.D.M. Derrett, “ ἨΣΑΝ ΓΑΡ ἉΛΙΕΙΣ (Mk 1:16). Jesus’ fishermen and the parable of 22 the net”, NT 22 (1980), 108-137 at p. 123 (= Studies III, 1982, 1-30 at p. 16). John’s knowledge of Luke is betrayed in several places. Derrett, New Resolutions of 23 Oid Conundruma (Shipston-on-Stour, 1986), 137, 162.