I don’t think hydrochloric acid, which is what stomach acid is, would have bleached him white. The HCl helps break down food. If it penetrates the mucosa in the stomach you can get an ulcer. Most of us have puked occasionally, and the acidic taste is revolting, but the vomit is not white.
Of course. But there is a difference between what God can do, and what He has done. Without any suggestion in the text of “constant miracles”, it is unwise to posit them. Otherwise we can make up anything we like and just appeal to “constant miracles”, the way people do when claiming there was a global flood. In this case there is more evidence that Jonah died, than there is that Jonah was preserved by “constant miracles”.
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Well you addressed me, personally, so I responded to what you said.
Given that Jonah’s prayer, with language indicative of death (“I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever”, “When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord”), and given Christ’s use of the passage, and given the fact that no one in the rest of the Bible provides any indication that Jonah survived, this is not an unnatural reading. You don’t need theological coaching to realise that Jesus said that his death and burial would be analogous to Jonah’s experience.
Given your personal preference to write off the entire Genesis flood as something which never happened (which is hardly a natural reading of the text), I’m surprised that you view Beaglelady as a skeptic. I’ve found you at least as “skeptical” of the Bible as her.
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Well, as for me, I think the book of Jonah is a parabolical short story, a work of inspirational fiction to teach how God’s mercy extends beyond the borders of Israel to even the worst and most undeserving of enemies. I find that the book just reads far more naturally in that light; many interpreters including C. S. Lewis have thought so too. I’ve given several reasons for understanding the book this way previously, none of them original or idiosyncratic, and you can reference them if curious ("Narrative Theology" approach to Scripture - #50 by Relates).
So I find speculation about what really happened to the man Jonah while in the belly of the fish to be misplaced. What happened to him? Well, as the story says, the character Jonah prays elegantly, poetically and at length to God over the course of 3 days as he contemplates his fate, until God causes the fish to vomit him onto dry land; and nothing more of note (like a death and resurrection) takes place to Jonah over that period.
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Even if we view it as an inspirational fiction (which Christ does not appear to have done), that doesn’t avoid the question of whether the text is telling us Jonah died in the whale, or survived in the whale. Given Jesus’ use of the parable, the question is relevant regardless of whether the narrative is fictional or not.
I think the odds are that Augustine got the message written between the lines … that Jonah was dead for 3 days.
If God can miraculously keep someone alive in a fish … it makes even more sense that God miraculously RESURRECTED after being dead for 3 days.
Thanks, Dr. Jorgenson. The book of Jonah is about God’s love for gentiles who were given a chance to repent of their sins. Jonah wanted nothing to do with this, but was finally obedient. This book is read in the synagogues on the Day of Atonement, quite fittingly.
Ninevah is in present-day Iraq, and ISIS has been destroying the archaeological treasures of this city.
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Friends, I am thoroughly inspired by all of your comments. As an author, I need to write from a particular point of view, and since my main character is Jonah, I’m trying to ascertain what really happened to him. I know we can never know except for what I feel are his reflections on the event years afterward. He is very poetic and his writing beautiful when he remembers what happened. He had to have died I think, because most experts of whale anatomy say there would have been no air for him to breath–therefore…Your comments have been excellent, thank you for contributing to this discussion. Maybe you can check out my novel when it comes out this fall. “Return From the Abyss,” by yours truly. I have about 20 readers who will tear apart the manuscript which I find very helpful. I only which they would ask the kinds of questions you folks have been raising. Thank you once again. There are so many questions. Did he marry? What did he do after his pity party with the gourd at the end of the book. Did he go home again after Nineveh?
Thank you beaglelady for your wonderful and insightful comments. They have been very helpful to me, personally. I will be well-armed for my discussion groups on Tuesday and Thursday as we attack my manuscript. Thank you for participating.
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As to what happened to him afterwards, a pastor of mine once speculated that he committed suicide. Not too much of a reach, as he remained bitter and despondent at the end. Of course, you have to assume he survived and wrote the book if you take it literally, as no one else could tell his thoughts. I have no problem either with it being a story without an actual Jonah having lived, or of the fish being representative of being “swallowed by the sea” and washed ashore 3 days later, or of Jonah being miraculously sustained in a unique special order custom fish. The message communicated remains intact. It does seem a little difficult to mix physical death in the fish with bodily resurrection as in three days, he would be fish poop. Also, I don’t think Jonah at the end was very representative of what my idea of a resurrected guy would be.
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One possibility missing from this discussion of Jonah is that the phrase “in the belly of a fish” was a figure of speech that meant what today we might call “in a blue funk.” I heard this interpretation on the radio over 50 years ago. if a scholar 3000 years from now read about someone’s having been a blue funk, they might have put together their limited knowledge of the 21st century to conclude that he got in his car and drove around trying to sort out his feelings that God wanted him to preach to a people who would as soon have killed him as looked at him.
If Jonah made his long speech while inside the fish, then he was not dead inside the fish. Jesus did not make a speech while inside the grave. The two events are not identical.
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Like the miracle of Noah’s Ark, the miracle of Jonah either takes a BUNCH of miracles or its mostly figurative.
The source below thinks the fish has to be a Great White shark, rather than a sperm whale… But we can have BOTH figurative AND miraculous… Jonah is swallowed by SHEOL in the metaphor of a giant fish …
Strange and Mysterious Stuff from the Bible
By Stephen M. Miller
Page 165
“Ocean critter experts say the only swimmer large enough
to swallow man is a great white shark. Even the largest known
whale - the blue whale, which doesn’t usually swim in the
Mediterranean Sea - can swallow an object only about the
diameter of a dinner plate. Still, most Christians read the story
as a matter of fact…[arguing] the God of creation could have
made [a bigger fish].”
That’s a pretty feeble refutation. If the big fish is a metaphor for Sheol, are you going to argue that a soul cannot pray to God from sheol?
“In the Zohar (Wayaḳhel) it is related that the fish died as soon as Jonah entered, but was revived after three days. When Jonah was thrown into the sea his soul immediately left his body and soared up to God’s throne, where it was judged and sent back. As soon as it touched the mouth of the fish on its way back to the body, the fish died, but was later restored to life. The fish’s name is given in “Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah” as (i.e., “cetos” = “whale”). The fate of Jonah is allegorized in the Zohar (Wayaḳhel) as illustrative of the soul’s relation to the body and to death. In the assumption that Jonah is identical with the Messiah, the son of Joseph, the influence of Christian thought is discernible (comp. Matt. xii. 39-41).”
Why is nobody trashing those participants who are trying to figure out the species of whale that are naturally able to swallow whole prophets?
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Feeble, hum. I state what is in the text and you quote a Kabbalah book of mysticism. Hum… If the Book of Jonah is a metaphor, which I do believe, then it should not be interpreted by adding mysticism.
Can a soul pray from Sheol? Sure.
However, is the fish a metaphor of Sheol or did he express the situation in a metaphor using Sheol as a the most likely outcome?
Jonah first states that God cast him into the sea even though humans actually did the deed. The passage is a metaphor of being cast out of God’s good graces.
He then describes the scene of raging sea, bottom of mountains, and sea weed. If he died, could he have seen and felt this happening to his body? Does a disembodied soul experience events like a living person? Instead, his near death experience continues the metaphor to praise God for an unbelievable salvation.
What is missing is a statement of a soul actually going to or being resurrected from Sheol. All he states is a thanks to God for being not dead.