Chili

In fact Julio, there was no pool but the parable represents the stage in life that we may know as metamorphosis as a period of time in time wherein our 'world' is allowed to find its own end in eternity, with eternity being the period of time beyond time consciousness which then is why it is a Saterday miracle that lands us in the perpetual light of the eternal Sunday as seventh Day.

It so is a description of the most precious if not sacred time of our life that is religion induced and should never be a public event where vultures (sorry), are likely to gather and so it is a portico event where the traders must be expelled (and it would not surprise me one bit that they already then thought storks to land on wagon wheels to bring new a speedy new life to the 'super motivated' or spiritually empowered 'faithers/doubters' also known as 'saved sinners' of Galilee).

Above all, be it know that the 'Sheep Pool' is there to let us know that the Jews or at least the High Priests knew what was going on, and of course, it is to be juxtaposed with Matthew's ambition who actually 'wanted to be king hereafter' but was left stranded on the very cross that he was counting on to get into heaven ("my God my God, why hast thou forsaken me" as opposed to "it is finished" or Luke's foreshadow of the same).

Julio

Sounds a fabulous "interpretation", it really does.
Have you ever thought about writing a book about the miracles in John from that angle?
[Not like from my angle discrediting them.]
I'm serious.

Chili

Oh but wait, it was a Sheep Pool not to teach sheep how to swim but an allegory describing how Jews find their destiny in the water by which they are predestined = Zechariah and Elizabeth in Luke, again emphasizing the 'hands-off' altar call if you wish . . . which of course gets wilder as the 'fish' get bigger, hence Jonah's whale and the need for indulgences to induce labour pains, as Joyce would have it, who also was pregant with dispair . . . for 38 years.

Julio

Gambling with ignorance.
The next miracle in the story this [second century] John was producing has some easy targets to find the truth of its deceptive flaws.
Why would Jesus end up with an excess of twelve baskets of crumbs and what happened to them afterwards?
But firstly, where would he find the baskets, and what did they contain?
Certainly they were not carried to the place empty.
Was this a miracle too big for the stage?
This “wonder” in John 6 is the only one represented in the four canonical gospels, and yet there are – logically – several differences in detail, if the reader worried too much with it.
Perhaps the most visible is that in the first three accounts no dialogue is portrayed between Jesus and any disciple.
“He said to Philip, Where shall we buy loaves so that these may eat? And He said this to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do. Philip answered him: Loaves for two hundred [silver coins] are not enough for them that every one may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him: There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are these among so many?”, John 6:5-14.
Ah, the scornful laughing!
What about the food the disciples had with them for their Lord and the “apostolic college”?!
Didn’t they eat that day, or were they fasting?
Did Jesus have a preaching break at noon to have lunch with his entourage, and forgot to keep a few loaves and fish for the afternoon miracle?
Do you see the cynical situation?
Nothing like that is mentioned in the preamble.
But if they had brought no food along for their own consumption, did they eat from the “miracle” bread and fish too?
Therefore, the miracle was also for their private benefit, while avoiding the detail.
I have to assume that if they had no food with them, they had already eaten somewhere, possibly at some lodge, down in one of the surrounding villages, and the Lord FORGOT to bring along some loaves and some fish for the necessary miracle later on!
Now, that’s why I say that to discredit any miracle in the NT we need only to find the hidden detail in their coarse presentation.
A sudden dead-end to discredit this miracle is the doubletalk of Jesus asking where to go to buy bread to feed the crowd.
What about Jesus himself and the twelve?
If they would have time, after the sermon, to go down the mount and find some restaurant to buy their meals, so could anyone of the crowd.
Maybe many did exactly that, for they preferred meat to fish; or were vegetarians!
But to cover up the mistake John did through Jesus’ lips he, of his own volition, added quickly that Jesus insinuated it as a sort of a joke to impress [test] the disciples.
Why on earth do gods have this propensity to “test” us?
It hasn’t helped us anything.
It’s us who must test the gods, rather, to see if they deserve our praise!
That is, John is saying that Jesus knew it would be impossible, even if the money were available, to go down the hill to the nearby villages and contract a catering company to climb up the escarpment with a packet meal for each registered participant in that seminar, some seven to ten thousand mouths [including hungry children and women].
Come on, John, didn’t you think we would quickly catch you with your fake story?
By saying “Jesus knew what to do” the process turns into a farce, for in that case he prolonged the teaching to force the miracle!
That is, he could have ended the sermon three hours earlier (!) to dismiss the congregation [after collecting the tithes and offerings to purchase food for the next sermon in the next chapter, Matthew 15].
But if his divine intention was to extend the sermon by three extra hours, why wouldn’t have he thought to bring the necessary “elements” for the afternoon miracle?
What transpires here is that Jesus did NOT after all know what to do earlier on that morning; it doesn’t go well with a Messiah’s credentials, I’m afraid.
This miracle, therefore, is another coarse one in the collection.

Julio

Oh dear me, dear John, many years absorbed by religious imponderables doth make thee mad (Acts 26:24).
Besides, it looks like those three hours of less preaching wouldn’t do the listeners much moral or spiritual damage, since very little of the ethereal substance is transpired in the text; all those people would eventually forget the magic and the magician and abandon the Lord to his fate (“that” lord).
The gospels tell us that Jesus was, for the greater part of his ministry, followed by the crowds.
It is then logical to understand that there were many hungry people following him just for the food supply [once the news spread around].
In fact, the gospels say exactly that: many stuck with him for another feeding miracle (John 6:26), but Jesus got tired of it quickly and wouldn’t perform more than two “multiplications” in the synoptic and one in John.
The miracle backfired and the “performance” had to be cancelled.
How’s that for compassion and commiseration when he had the power to convert water into wine and multiply loaves and fish at his discretion?
Later on, the same weird “Jesus” would state that the poor would always be at the street corners (John 12:8), whether or not we had a Messiah or a hundred of them on Earth! But what did he do from heaven when the first poor appeared in the first street?!
NOTHING!
Christs do miracles only for their own propaganda ends.
There is no memory of one true Christ putting to his heart to really HELP us when we were being hurt by the living conditions in this planet.
Poverty is a clear case; hunger another.
And you cannot forget that statistically there was a day in our human condition when it would be much EASIER to be helped from heaven.
Sadly, we were left at the “mercy” of the Devil (1 Cor 5:5 in the NIV).

Julio

Again, the text reveals its limitation in vital detail.
Jesus instructed the disciples – not the crowd – to gather the leftovers (fragments), but we don’t hear what happened to that food.
Bread can hold its flavour for a while until it turns mouldy, depending on what kind it is, but FISH?!
Was it cooked, raw, dried or pickled fish?
Isn’t that detail important to accredit the miracle?
We might assume that the “sample” from which Jesus “cloned” the harvest was roasted in the fire; what difference does it make?
Why must we take miracles at face value?
Why must we believe the Bible without enough freedom to analyse its content and ask for better detail?
“Oh, no, it’s divine inspiration, and pure scripture with no need for anything else!”, shouts the inspired teacher.
He can shout his lungs out, but we also have a brain and intelligence to find the truth.
Naturally, the twelve baskets of bread had to be carried by the disciples down the mountain afterwards, and stored somewhere for later consumption [the next day].
Since it appeared Jesus didn’t have permanent domicile, we – again – assume the baskets were left out there in the open, perhaps covered with some borrowed cloths.
We presume too that no fish was left being, except all the bones and the litter scattered all over the “park”, to feed the prides of hundreds of cats!
If Jesus performed this miracle today he would be prosecuted for the LITTER left behind, or get some suspended jail sentence.
He would not be allowed to go on from town to town violating the local by-laws and damaging the environment.
The disciples quickly found the twelve baskets, which leads us to ascertain that the crowd had brought them along filled with “something”: what else if not F O O D; Lots of it!
We can also establish that there were MANY more than those twelve; perhaps a thousand.
That is, the disciples had at least two meals for free that day and the next – one basket of bread per disciple.
Nice job.
Did they return the baskets and the cloths to their rightful owners?
I doubt it; it’s unimportant detail.
One thing, however, we can estimate: if each basket carried 20 kilograms of crumbs, the local Salvation Army was suddenly blessed with 240 kilograms of bread to support the needy for that week.
Why doesn’t Jesus do this miracle anymore for that philanthropic church: the need for bread today among the poor is astronomical.

Julio

What is important is that there was plenty of food amongst the crowd, and in the end the miracle of bread and fish multiplied helped only a few in the front row.
It was cheap magic, some would leave saying, and reject the magician; well, John only quotes those [ANONYMOUS, unauthorised and unquotable] who called him a prophet:
"Truly this is the Prophet who was to come into the world!" – in the ISV.
Let go six more centuries and yet another Prophet would appear in the same Middle East to carry on the world’s evangelisation with lethal weapons.
Funny that “authorized scripture” comes always via the ANONYMOUS voice, from that who called those messiahs “Prophets”.
It’s been a landscape of victims to help the prophets go.
None really helped us carry the suffering load imposed on us by some Almighty with the help of some Devil: we are innocent victims of both.
We cried for bread and were given stones; for fish and received snakes; for eggs and got scorpions (Luke 11).

Chili

That all has to do with illumination Julio, here arriving at the place he first started and know it for the first time with the 5 loaves being the burden the shepherds carried to find closure on the sixth day where the set-aside-water is converted into rock that they could walk on and so is tied in heaven and loosed on earth, wherefore then the burden of the shepherds are the scraps that remained who so became 'pillars of understanding' to let us know that it is not good enough to be an apostle short if you want to get heaven where 'home is home.'

bacht

If Julio is worried that religious fundamentalists will overrun the world I don't see how mocking them will improve the situation.

Julio

GOODNESS!