Christian Message Boards: Jonah

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Posted by Carol Swenson (Member # 6929) on :

Myth or History? (Jonah 1:17)

Could Jonah really have been swallowed by a great fish, survive for three days inside that creature and live to tell about it? Is this a myth, a parable, an allegory or real history?

The Bible, of course, does not speak of Jonah being swallowed by a “whale”; it specifically mentions a “great fish” (Jon 1:17). Some English versions of Matthew 12:40 use the word “whale,” but the Greek original is kētos, a general word meaning a huge sea-monster. Taken as such, there are several sea-monsters that would be able to swallow a full-grown man easily enough, but the true whale, which has its home in the Arctic seas and is not found in the Mediterranean Sea, has a narrow throat that would generally prevent such a swallowing. There is another species of the same order in the Mediterranean Sea, however, which could swallow a man.

Ambrose John Wilson in the Princeton Theological Review for 1927 mentions a case of a sailor on a whaling ship near the Falkland Islands who was swallowed by a large sperm whale. The whale was later harpooned, and when it was opened up on deck the surprised crew found their lost shipmate unconscious inside its belly. Though bleached from the whale’s gastric juices, he recovered, even though he never lost the deadly whiteness left on his face, neck and hands.

The problem with claiming that this text is a parable, allegory or myth is that each “solution” presents its own problems of literary genre. For example, parables are simple; they treat one subject. But the book of Jonah has at least two distinct parts: his flight and his preaching. Neither does Jonah fit the category of allegory, for there is no agreement on what the values are for each of the characters and events. The very diversity of answers is enough to state that allegory is not the solution. The same judgment would hold for suggesting that Jonah is a myth.

The book of Jonah, up until modern times, was everywhere treated as an historical record of the repentance of the city of Nineveh under the preaching of a man named Jonah. The apocryphal book Tobit has Tobit commanding his son Tobias to go to Media, for Tobit believes the word of God spoken about Nineveh. The Greek Septuagint text says that the preacher who predicted judgment on Nineveh was Jonah. In New Testament times, Jesus and the early believers took Jonah to be a real character. Thus, the objections to the book come down to this: it has too many miracles! But that is hardly an adequate basis on which to reject the internal claims of the book itself. Jonah is a believable account of a harrowing sea experience and of an unprecedented Gentile response to an ever-so-brief exposure to preaching about the need for repentance. But it happened!

(Hard Sayings of the Bible)

Posted by yahsway (Member # 3738) on :

My hubby attended a Nazarene College many years ago and took their theology class. I was shocked to find out that they believe the story of Jonah is just that! A made up story.

I dont know how many other denominations believe that, but I take the Bible as authority and believe every book in it to be true!

Posted by Carol Swenson (Member # 6929) on :

Amen yahsway

Those who consider the Book of Jonah an allegory or a parable should note that 2 Kings 14:25 identifies Jonah as a real person, a Jewish prophet from Gath Hepher in Zebulun who ministered in the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (793-753 b.c.). They should also note that our Lord considered Jonah a historic person and pointed to him as a type of His own death, burial, and resurrection (Matt. 12:41; Luke 11:32).

The reign of Jeroboam II was a time of great prosperity in Israel; the nation regained lost territory and expanded both its boundaries and influence. But it was a time of moral and spiritual decay as the nation rapidly moved away from God and into idolatry. Jonah’s contemporaries Hosea and Amos both courageously denounced the wickedness of the rulers, priests, and people. It’s worth noting that Hosea and Amos also showed God’s concern for other nations, which is one of the major themes of Jonah.

While Jonah had a ministry to Nineveh, a leading city in Assyria, he also had a ministry to Israel through this little book. He discovered God’s compassion for those outside Israel, even those who were their enemies. God had called His people to be a blessing to the Gentiles (Gen. 12:1-3), but, like Jonah, the Jews refused to obey. And, like Jonah, they had to be disciplined; for Assyria would conquer Israel and Babylon would take Judah into captivity. Jonah’s book magnifies the sovereignty of God as well as the love and mercy of God. Jehovah is the “God of the second chance,” even for rebellious prophets!

Posted by Betty Louise (Member # 7175) on :

I had always thought a whale swallowed. Jonah, but I was wrong. The Bible said Jesus created a fish to swallow Jonah.

Jon 1:17 ¶ Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

God spoke the world into existence, He can surely speak and a special fish be created for His purpose.
betty

Posted by Zeena (Member # 7223) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Betty Louise:
God spoke the world into existence, He can surely speak and a special fish be created for His purpose.
betty

Amen!

Posted by Carol Swenson (Member # 6929) on :

Amen Betty Louise

Jonah 1:17

Now the Lord had (literally “And the Lord”) prepared—

Jonah (as appears from his thanksgiving) was not swallowed at once, but sank to the bottom of the sea, God preserving him in life there by miracle, as he did in the fish’s belly. Then, when the seaweed was twined around his head, and he seemed to be already buried until the sea should give up her dead, “God prepared the fish to swallow Jonah”. “God could as easily have kept Jonah alive in the sea as in the fish’s belly, but, in order to prefigure the burial of the Lord, He willed him to be within the fish whose belly was as a grave.” Jonah, does not say what fish it was; and our Lord too used a name, signifying only one of the very largest fish. Yet it was no greater miracle to create a fish which should swallow Jonah, than to preserve him alive when swallowed. “The infant is buried, as it were, in the womb of its mother; it cannot breathe, and yet, thus too, it liveth and is preserved, wonderfully nurtured by the will of God.” He who preserves the embryo in its living grave can maintain the life of man as easily without the outward air as with it.

The same Divine Will preserves in being the whole creation, or creates it. The same will of God keeps us in life by breathing this outward air, which preserved Jonah without it. How long will men think of God, as if He were man, of the Creator as if He were a creature, as though creation were but one intricate piece of machinery, which is to go on, ringing its regular changes until it shall be worn out, and God were shut up, as a sort of mainspring within it, who might be allowed to be a primal Force, to set it in motion, but must not be allowed to vary what He has once made? “We must admit of the agency of God,” say these men when they would not in name be atheists, “once in the beginning of things, but must allow of His interference as sparingly as may be.” Most wise arrangement of the creature, if it were indeed the god of its God! Most considerate provision for the non-interference of its Maker, if it could but secure that He would not interfere with it for ever! Acute physical philosophy, which, by its omnipotent word, would undo the acts of God! Heartless, senseless, sightless world, which exists in God, is upheld by God, whose every breath is an effluence of God’s love, and which yet sees Him not, thanks Him not, thinks it a greater thing to hold its own frail existence from some imagined law, than to be the object of the tender personal care of the Infinite God who is Love! Poor hoodwinked souls, which would extinguish for themselves the Light of the world, in order that it may not eclipse the rushlight of their own theory!

(Barnes’ Notes on the Old Testament)