h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You've seen them, usually on the back of cars. A simple fish symbol, sometimes with the word Jesus inside. Pardon my apparent Christian illiteracy, but where the heck did they get this odd thing from? What's up with the fish and what's it got to do with Jesus?

As my religion teacher told me (and she had one herself), it dates back to roman times where christians would be persecuted for their beliefs. To identify themselves when speaking to strangers they would trace half the shape of the fish in the sand, if the other person was a christian they would complete the shape.

It comes from Jesus being a "fisher of men" I think.

Okay, so we suspect it dates back to the Roman times. But why the fish? But why not a sheep? Jesus is more frequently referred to as a kind of shepherd of men. I shall not rest until I discover the mystery of the Jesus fish.

Maybe fish are easier to draw than shep

Might also stem from the fact that some of the apostles were fishermen or from the loaves and fishes at the feeding of the five thousand.

Check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A273610

I read a novel where it was mentioned. I don´t know if it was true but it said it was to show Jesus was the son of God. Apparently if you write "Jesus is the son of God" in latin, and takes all the first letters of the words you get PISCES.

Close Xanatic, but The Nitpicker gets the prize. The mystery of those annoying little car fish has been revealed. I thank ye all.

I preferred the sheep or maybe a loaf of bread!

And of course you can now get a LINUX fish, if you so desire - the saviour of the world from the work of the devil that is Microsoft!
agcB

I thought is was a penguin? I'll catch on, penguins do eat fish.

Well, it is. But someone somewhere decided that a LINUX fish would be nice take on the JESUS one.

There is a site called Think Geek which has some merchandise which I found cool enough to buy. (T-shirts which said "Will work for Bandwidth" and "Bow down before me for I am root").

URL from my links page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A545320. Give me 10 mins to add the link, tho.

I think you can get these fishes with little legs that say Darrwin in the middle as well.

Mina is right. One of my favourite guide articles is about bumper stickers and it covers the fish thing at the end. If you want an alternative to the Jesus fish then there are options out there. Check it out at ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A508268

Red

That is class "JESUS is coming look busy."

Hi Baggyfish - there are also some good bumper stickers in the postings against the article as well. My faves are ...

`Lord, Help Me to be the Person My Dog Thinks I Am`
`Rock is dead (long live Paper and Scissors)`

Red

And of course Jesus and his buddy John invented swimming. Until then 'water' was as scary as the 'the dark of night' to ancient Man. John had come up with a way to stay afloat and not drown. Jesus came along and improved upon the method, soon learning to move about in the water, to progress from one point (a sinking boat) to another (the shore). J&J are credited with teaching this method of travel-through-water to hundreds of fishermen who hitherto would have died if they fell overboard. There was no word for 'swimming' so they called it 'walking on water'.
Credited with saving so many fishermen's lives with this technique, they became known as the saviours of men generally as more and more people overcame their primordial fear of water and learned to 'swim'.

Interesting theory jwf - where'd you get it from?

I'm not convinced that noone swam BC, though. I'm sure I've heard otherwise somewhere - I'll go look it up & get back to you...

The best I can do for evidence of swimming BC is greek myths, where there are a number of examples of swimming.
Two problems:
-I have no idea what time period Greek myths come from, so can't say whether they're before or after Christ
-Like any literature or story handed down over a few thousand years, they'll have been changed and added to, so unless I can find one where swimming is a key theme essential to the myth itself, I guess that we can't take any greek myths as proof of swimming...

Hmmm - this is bugging me now. I'm determined to prove you wrong

.fishy.

Lots of Greek stories about swimming - the obvious one is the story of Hero and Leander which sadly changed from a story about swimming to a story about drowning half way through. The leander rowing club was named after the Leander in the story.

Another word for swimming pools are Nataturiums from the Latin Natatorius (pertaining to swimming) and Natare (to swim).

Red

"which sadly changed from a story about swimming to a story about drowning half way through"

Laughed out Loud
Rolled on the Floor Laughing

Thanks Red, I needed that.

Atheneian civilisation flourished abotu 400BC - before Christ being the operative words here. I cannot remember when the Iliad, Oddesey, etc are credited with being written, but they were certainly pre-athenian. I am trying to remember if Oddeseus can swim.

But how relevent would Greek myths be to Judaic-Aramaic culture anyway?

But it IS a very interesting theory, (unless jwf is pulling our frogmans flippers - surely not?)

agcB