Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

aEGYPT'S INFLUENCE ON PALESTINE 401The introduction, however, of the historical facts cannotbe branded as irrelevant. They demonstrate a constantassociation for over two millenniums with Egypt, and thedeep influence of Egyptian civilisation and methods of Hfe onJewish policy.And yet, notwithstanding such intercourse and suchcultural influence, we can nowhere in the Uterature of theBible or of the Rabbis discern either a direct mention, or (asI hope to show) an impUed allusion to the use of the Rod,2000 B.C.which as a weapon both for market and sport from c.found favour in Egypt. ^The same holds true of the Land of the Two Rivers ; inno Assyrian sculpture, on no Assyrian seal, can we detect anydehneation or any suggestion of angUng, although instancesof other kinds of fishing occur frequently. 2In no book of the Old or of the New Testament can befound any direct mention of the Rod. In the Talmud—vast work of teaching and discussion—the same silence prevails.The authoritative Talmudische Archaologie (by S. Krauss,1910) gives us fishful places such as Lake Tiberias, and manypoints of ichthyic or piscatorial interest such as the hook, theline, salted fish, garum, etc., but contains no reference to theRod. 3 Mr. Breslar, it is true, has recently girded up hisloins to estabhsh that in the Bible and the Talmud can befound at any rate the implied use of the Rod, but to a practicalangler quite unconvincingly.*^ See Plates 370 and 371 in Wilkinson, and antea, p. 314.* See antea, pp. 355—9.' In Singer, Jewish Ency., V. p. 404. " Fishing implements such as hookand line, sometimes secured on shore to need no further attention {Shab. i8a),and nets of various constructions " are practically all that are given.* After acknowledging {Notes and Queries, Dec. 2, 1916) that there is nomention in either Old or New Testament of a Rod, Mr. Breslar goes on, " Yetthere are places such as Job xl. 31 (xU. 7) where the Hebrew words are translatedbarbed irons and fish spears, and in Job xl. 26 (xli. 2) a thorn. Afishing-rod in the modern sense no one could reasonably demand, though 1opine that in agtnoun (Isaiah Iviii. 5), used in that sense in Job xl. 26, we havethe nucleus of one." Mr. Breslar is evidently not aware or does not realisethat fish spears, bidents, etc., were of the earUest weapons of fishing, longanterior to the Rod, and that these are the weapons referred to in Job. Areference to the Jewish Encyclopcedia edited by Isidore Singer, would haveshown him that tilzal dagim in Job xli. 7 was in all probabihty a harpoon.Then, " that this phrase {Klei metxooda) or a similar one is not found in theBible is merely an accidental omission like, I believe, that of the name of