Here’s an example of a true “man inside fish” story with vague, generic resemblances to what you recall reading about: http://sharkattackfile.net/spreadsheets/pdf_directory/1931.08.30-Nakatus.pdf
This story became famous among “fundamentalists,” because Harry Rimmer reprinted one of the newspaper stories in his very widely read book, “The Harmony of Science and Scripture,” first published in that format in the 1930s.
In other words…
Whether it is possible that someone could have survived in the belly of a sperm whale (albeit a very unusually sick one that was filled with air for some strange reason), isn’t really the issue. The real question is whether we honestly think that this book was really telling an historical tale or a made up tale to teach particular points. While I think Genesis has a clear historical intent even if it is not quite up to modern academic standards for history, both Job and Jonah just don’t look like they have any historical intent whatsoever.
I have been taking this point of view for Jonah, a real person and a real event in which God called him to preach to the Assyrian people but as with Genesis 2-3 and other events a bit of symbolism is added in the story to further drive home the point of the message.
The Rev. John Polkinghorne, who is both an ordained priest and a brilliant scientist, says that Job is best thought of as a play.
I enjoyed your article. Thank you! Well researched–especially before Internet. Here, too, is an article that alludes to yours: Have any real-life Jonahs been swallowed by whales and lived? - The Straight Dope
There are quite a few things in the story that encourage us to read it as fiction: for example, the exaggeration of the geographical size of the city and the comic relief of the farm animals wearing sackcloth.
Upon looking into various stuff on the issue of Jonah and the other stuff people talk about Jonah in seeing that it is a piece that i like Job in which it is a work of fiction meant to tell a moral story i have come back to that conclusion such as
and
and
So it is to my view that Jonah, much like Job, is a piece of work meant to tell a moral story with a bit of “comedic relief”.
I guess this is a wake up call for me to better understand what the style of scripture is and take care in studying it.
Jonah makes a great play. My children were in a play based on Jonah when they were little.
What exaggeration and what contemporary comic relief?
I mentioned the animals in sackcloth as comic relief. It would have looked silly in a play.
So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days ’ walk across.
How far is a three days walk across?
I can leisurely walk about 3 miles an hour.
It wouldn’t have sounded funny at the time, deadly serious, it was all played straight in the text. Would it have been dramatized after it was written in the C4th BCE? Did the Jews ever do even street theatre?
Nineveh was three and a half square miles with a dense population of 120,000 people. Try walking through that at 3 mph whilst prophesying their damnation at the top of your voice!
The 3 days was not described as walking and shouting time.
And “played straight in the text” is your reading, not mine.
3.5 square miles is the equivalent of 1 mile by 3.5 miles. That is not a three day walk any way you go.
What do you think an alien prophet did in a foreign metropolis that was so effective, in this brilliantly crafted, culturally aware story, that they all listened to him and repented? The fact that he fulfilled their messiah myth might have helped. Bleached white after being puked up by Dagon.
Are you asking me why the writer wrote the story the way he or she did?
We sometimes neglect how Jonah responded his enemies repented and were saved. Sort of like we revolt at grace given by deathbed conversions, and the strong emotions that are evoked by suggestions that Hitler may have repented in his bunker at the end. There is a lesson there also of the plant and the worm.
No. I’m asking why you think it was a stroll through the Tuileries.
My statement was that saying the city took 3 days to walk across was a great exaggeration.
I wrote nothing about French palaces or gardens.
Do you think it takes 3 days to walk 3 or 4 miles?
Yes, there is a lot going on in this book. How could God possible call to repentance such vulgar and cruel pagans? It didn’t sit well with Jonah. In the lectionary, the Gospel reading that goes with this is Matthew 20:1-15, the parable about the workers in the field–the workers were complaining about the guy who worked one hour and yet received the same pay as the others who worked longer.
The prophet Nahum delivered the expected judgement of God on Nineveh, which came later:
“Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and booty – no end to plunder! The crack of whip, and rumble of wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot! Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, host of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end… Nineveh is laid waste; who shall bemoan her… All who hear news of you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?” (Nahum 3:1-19)
Do you think an alien prophet in an ancient foreign metropolis, appearing as their messiah, with a terrifying message for the 120,000 population, that they heed, would take an hour to do that? Did they have TV? In the brilliant mind of the story teller?
How many streets and squares are in a city of 3.5 (4) square miles? He walked straight across it? Once? A grid of streets every 30 yards gives 200 main streets nearly 2 miles long. Each. 400 miles. He couldn’t have walked much more than 10% of it in three days. So, how miles of street were there? Every 300 yards? Very suburban. 20 x 2 = 60 miles? Do-able in three days. At a push.
No exaggeration. No laughs.
But yeah, that’s post hoc. The writer said three days period. So he was either talking about a 60 mile diameter city district or exaggerating wildly. Even Jesus did that.
Klax, you seem to not be reading the text.
Take a look:
3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
The description of Nineveh was that it was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across.
This is not a statement of how long Jonah would be walking and shouting.
In fact, the next verses say he walked a day and the people believed.
You seem to be reading the text to say “and it would take Jonah three days to walk across while preaching.”
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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