Mark 1:17

To Fish in the Realm of Men

The Greek noun ἁλιεῖς is a nominative plural form of ἁλιεύς, meaning "fisherman" or "seaman." It is not a verbal form. The verb ἁλιεύω, meaning "to fish," does not occur in this phrase. If the intention were to express the traditional interpretation—"those who fish for men"—the expected Greek construction would be οἱ ἀλιεύοντες, the articular present participle, meaning “the ones who are fishing” or “those who fish.” This participial form is attested in sources such as the Perseus corpus (Cf. Perseus ἀλιεύοντες):

οἱ ἀλιεύοντες ἀνθρώπους
“those who fish for men,”
with ἀνθρώπους in the accusative, indicating the direct object of the action.

The common rendering of ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων as "fishers of men" reflects an English idiomatic translation rather than a precise grammatical equivalence. In Greek, ἀνθρώπων is genitive plural, which typically denotes possession, origin, or association—not direct object. Therefore, the phrase grammatically suggests “fishers belonging to men” or “fishers associated with men,” not “fishers who fish for men.”

The traditional interpretation thus imposes an accusative sense onto a genitive construction by exploiting an ambiguity in English. In English, the preposition "of" can sometimes imply agency or object, allowing a phrase like "fishers of men" to be understood as "those who fish for men." But in Greek, the genitive case does not serve this function unless the construction demands it—e.g., with partitive, possessive, or certain objective genitives in specific lexical contexts.

To express the idea "those who fish for men" in clear and grammatical Greek, one would expect either:

• a verbal construction: οἱ ἀλιεύοντες ἀνθρώπους, or

• a noun phrase with an accusative: ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπους.

In both cases, ἀνθρώπους (accusative plural) correctly serves as the direct object of the action implied by ἁλιεύειν. Conversely, ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων, with ἀνθρώπων in the genitive, cannot grammatically bear the meaning “fishers for men” without significant theological or interpretive presumption.

In short, the phrase ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων has been theologically or interpretively shaped to mean “those who fish for men,” but strictly speaking, this reading is not supported by the grammar of the Greek text. The traditional rendering is a case of interpretive license rather than syntactic fidelity.