More on the Jesus Fish

As I was googling for pictures of the Jesus Fish, I ran across a short essay by G. Stroumsa in googlebooks here from Messiah and Christos, on the problematic origins of this symbol.

Here are some pics of ancient depictions of the fish (much less stylized than today's bumper version) from the catacombs of Rome:






The fish and anchor is from the Catacomb of St. Domitilla; the anchor, fish, and Chi-Rho is from St. Sebastian; and the color fish with loaves (obviously depicting the famous miracle from the gospels) is from St. Callixtus.

Finally, here are some fish from the mosaic of a third or fourth-century church floor from Megiddo (just discovered in 2005):