Well, quite. That was supposed to be clear in the OP. My whole analysis depends upon the eucharistic overtones of fish being late and derivative, not early and constitutional.
This is a valid concern. The earliest explicit naming of Leviathan as a fish may well be the Talmudic attribution of a saying about the monster to Johanan bar Nappaha (century III). However, I think that the naming of Leviathan as a fish is based on ideas implicit in the Hebrew scriptures and attendant traditions.I don’t think you have provided clear linkages between fish being symbolic of something in Judaism, or of it being a particular symbol of the Messianic banquet.
Before I go into that, however, I ought to point out that nothing central to my thesis hangs on this. If you are completely correct, then it merely means that I cannot explain how exactly fish came to represent the eucharist (say, in the catacomb art and such). My central thesis, however, requires only that this eucharistic connection not be the reason for fish being a theme in the resurrection appearances. And I think the evidence that I gave for this negative is pretty good.
Okay, perhaps, but not the kind of serpent that we find in the garden of Eden, for example. Not the kind that crawls upon the ground. The Jewish tradition repeatedly divides animalkind into 4 basic groups:2 Baruch 29:1-8 has people eating the Behemoth and the Leviathan monsters but not fish. I am not sure there is any evidence that anyone in first century Judaism would have seen the Leviathan as a fish rather than a serpent.
B. Birds of the sky/air.
C. Fish of the sea/water.
D. Creeping things upon the land/earth.
Genesis 1.26: 26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over [C] the fish of the sea and over [B] the birds of the sky and over [A] the cattle and over all the earth, and over [D] every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Genesis 1.28: 28 And God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over [C] the fish of the sea and over [B] the birds of the sky, and over [A and D] every living thing that moves on the earth."
Genesis 9.2: 2 "And the fear of you and the terror of you shall be on [A] every beast of the earth and on [B] every bird of the sky; with [D] everything that creeps on the ground, and [C] all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given."
Deuteronomy 4.15-18: 15 "So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, 16 so that you do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of [A] any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of [B] any winged bird that flies in the sky, 18 the likeness of [D] anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of [C] any fish that is in the water below the earth."
1 Kings 4.33: 33 And he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he spoke also of [A] animals and [B] birds and [D] creeping things and [C] fish.
Job 12.7-8: 7 "But now ask [A] the beasts, and let them teach you; and [B]the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you. 8 Or speak to [D?] the earth, and let it teach you; and let [C] the fish of the sea declare to you.
Psalm 8.6-8: 6 You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the [A] beasts of the field, 8 [B] the birds of the heavens and [C] the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
Ezekiel 29.5: 5 "And I shall abandon you to the wilderness, you and [C] all the fish of your rivers; you will fall on the open field; you will not be brought together or gathered. I have given you for food to [A] the beasts of the earth and to [B] the birds of the sky."
Ezekiel 38.20: 20 "And [C] the fish of the sea, [B] the birds of the heavens, [A] the beasts of the field, [D] all the creeping things that creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth will shake at My presence; the mountains also will be thrown down, the steep pathways will collapse, and every wall will fall to the ground."
Hosea 4.3: 3 Therefore the land mourns, and everyone who lives in it languishes along with [A] the beasts of the field and [B] the birds of the sky; and also [C] the fish of the sea disappear.
Habakkuk 1.14: 14 Why have You made men like [C] the fish of the sea, like [D] creeping things without a ruler over them?
Zephaniah 1.3: 3 "I will remove man and [A] beast; I will remove [B] the birds of the sky and [C] the fish of the sea, and the ruins along with the wicked; and I will cut off man from the face of the earth," declares Yahweh."
1 Enoch 7.1-6: 1 And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. 2 And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: 3 Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, 4 the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. 5 And they began to sin against [B] birds and [A] beasts and [D] reptiles and [C] fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. 6 Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.
This typology is pervasive. (As a side note, humankind seems to occupy a niche apart from the four other categories.) It continued well into the medieval period, giving us the concept of primacy: the lion is the king of beasts, the eagle the king of birds, and the dolphin (or sometimes the whale) the king of fish.
So far so good. But for anyone thinking in these categories Leviathan would surely belong, not to the things which crawl upon the earth, but to the creatures of the sea; at the same time, the expression "the fish of the sea" was as ubiquitous as its siblings "the birds of the heavens/sky" and "the beasts of the earth/field" were. This is obviously why the Leviathan came to be thought of explicitly as a fish in rabbinic thought; the only question is whether this concept came early enough to account for the fish at the feedings of the 4000 and 5000. If not, then that is a loose end in my reconstruction, albeit not a central one. If so, however, I think the link would be clear.
For my money, in a world of zoological thought dominated by the fourfold typology outlined above, considering Leviathan a fish would be simply obvious. Psalm 104 (103 LXX) has sections about the beasts of the field and about the birds of the sky, as well as about various kinds of vegetation, but Leviathan is mentioned in the section about creatures of the sea.
The simplest clue would be, however, simply that Leviathan is said in 2 Baruch 29.4 to provide food for the messianic banquet. That must mean it is kosher. Serpents are not kosher; fish are.
I take it you mean that fish are not a good symbol during this time period. It is indisputable that Leviathan was considered a fish in later Jewish thought, and indisputable that its flesh, salted and preserved (just like that of fish!) was to provide food for the messianic banquet. You must just be questioning the timing of the concept, not its very existence.Therefore the association of the Behemoth and the Leviathan monsters does not make fish a good symbol for the Messiah banquet....
If the reasons given above for considering Leviathan a fish as part of its original conception are not good enough for you, then you are free to doubt this part of my reconstruction.
Granted. And somewhat irrelevant, since not every passage has to hit on every available symbol.It should also be noted that the two Lucan passages that refer to a Messianic banquet do not contain any fish – Lk 13:29 and 14:15-24 and nor do the parallels in Matthew (8:11, 22:1-10).