Why did the disciples want the crowd to go away when Jesus fed the 5000?

A:There is no logical reason for this arrangement and, if we place ourselves in the position of a great crowd of hungry, tired and largely illiterate people of the first century milling around on a mountainous slope, it is hard to see how this arrangement could have been achieved. However, Dennis R. MacDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) has provided a very plausible explanation.

MacDonald has found many close parallels between Mark's Gospel (which was the primary source for the other New Testament gospels) and the Homeric epics. Taken individually, these parallels could be dismissed as interesting, albeit improbable coincidences, but the sheer number of such parallels has attracted the attention of other New Testament scholars.

The feeding of the 5000 described in the gospels is very similar to a sacred feast in which Nestor fed the 4500. Jesus commanded the people to sit in groups, using the Word sumposion, which literally means a 'drinking group'. Homer used the same unusual Word in his epic. In both stories everyone ate and was filled (by the power of Jesus in one story, by the fabulous wealth of the host in the other), but the gospel went one better by having baskets of food left over.