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.
This isn’t true. We know sperm whales can swallow giant squid, practically without even chewing.
But that is not a natural reading; “To describe how I’m going to be dead for three days and then raised to life, I’m going to use the example of someone who wasn’t dead at all, and who was never raised”.
But this is question begging.
I find it very odd that you treat Jonah one way and treat the Genesis flood account a completely different way. Chapter after chapter describing the Genesis flood in considerable detail, in a narrative genre, and you claim it was never intended to be history in the first place. What is the evidence for this claim? Where is the evidence that the original audience would have understood it was never intended to be history in the first place? I read it as narrative which is intended to be history, and that is substantiated by the physical evidence corroborating that history.
Even though Jonah says he died. But for some reason you think it’s natural to read the mult-chapter Genesis flood account as if it was never intended to describe historical events.
This does not surprise me, since on more than one occasion previously you have demonstrated no knowledge of facts, or arguments, or interpretations, which are widely known to many other people. This is most surprising given your extraordinarily varied career; according to your claims you have been a theologian with decades of teaching experience, a gifted scientist who was on track to be the next Richard Dawkins, and a philosopher with a host of scholarly publications. I am sure we’ll eventually hear how you were also a fireman, a doctor, and an astronaut.
In this case the interpretation that Jonah died and was raised dates to at least the nineteenth century scholar Bullinger. You can find a host of references to this interpretation in popular and more scholarly works, from Bullinger “Companion Bible” (1909-1922), and Lockyer “All the Miracles of the Bible” (1961), to Campbell “The Power of Myth” (1981), and Dake Annotated Reference Bible (1996). Here are some quotations.
It has been proposed that Jonah actually died during the three days of his imprisonment, in order to be a true type of Christ.
Gerald B. Stanton, “The Prophet Jonah and His Message,” Bibliotheca Sacra 108 (1951): 364.
That Jonah died will become obvious if this verse is broken down carefully.
Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, The Messianic Bible Study Collection (vol. 79; Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 1983), 12.
There is also the possibility that Jonah died in the belly of the fish, and that God brought him back to life after three days. This would not be inconsistent with the teaching of Scripture, seeing that at least eight other resuscitations are recorded. However, this is not indicative in the narrative and Jonah could have survived.
Josh McDowell and Don Douglas Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions (Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers, 1993).
Concerning the first question, whether Jonah actually died, scholars are predictably divided into two camps: those that say that he did die and those who say that he did not.
Edward E. Hindson and Woodrow Michael Kroll, eds., KJV Bible Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994), 1727.
The mention of the belly of Sheol in verse 2 has led some to believe that Jonah actually died in the fish and was resurrected.
William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments (ed. Arthur Farstad; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 1128.
Some have thought that Jonah actually died and experienced a resurrection here, but the text is not clear about that.
Marni Shideler McKenzie, Prophets of Israel (vol. 1; Dickson, TN: Explorer’s Bible Study, 2004), 7.
Some Bible scholars believe that Jonah remained alive in the fish while others believe that he died. The author of this commentary takes the latter view.
Roy E. Gingrich, The Books of Amos, Obadiah and Jonah (Memphis, TN: Riverside Printing, 2004), 37.
Some use the logic that Jonah died inside the sea monster and God raised him back to life.
James E. Rosscup, An Exposition on Prayer in the Bible: Igniting the Fuel to Flame Our Communication with God (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2008), 1355.
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Some find it easy to interpret the fish as a representation of SHEOL … without actually needing to have the FISH be real!
So… to the degree that a person ACCEPTS this interpretation, it provides a good model for how we can take an equally miraculous story (Adam & Eve) and give it an interpretation that doesn’t require a specific “first man” and “first woman”!
The point of my very brief post is to use
“Jonah in a Fish/Sheol” as a template for re-interpreting the Adam/Eve story more figuratively.
Eddie, re: this:
“So what are the textual grounds for denying the miraculous elements in Jonah, and calling the whole story a parable … Are there crucial literary differences which justify treating the two accounts differently? I haven’t seen those literary differences shown.”
Perhaps you missed the URL I gave above, to my earlier comments on this subject in another thread here in the Biologos forums. See them at "Narrative Theology" approach to Scripture - #52 by dscottjorgenson …
Also see C.S. Lewis’ letter to Corbin Carnell, in Collected Letters Volume III The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy ... - C. S. Lewis - Google Books …
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Actually we were talking about Christ’s use of the passage; you said specifically “There is no reason why Jesus could not apply Jonah with a new meaning, for the local purpose of understanding his own coming death and resurrection”.
Quite possibly, since my reading of the text is not based on Jesus’ interpretation but on what the text in Jonah actually says. You have basically acknowledged that the only way to get around what the text in Jonah actually says is to call it poetic and say that this means it doesn’t need to be taken literally.
Since he is speaking in the past tense, not the present tense, he is speaking after the event, not during the event. It even says that the prayer was made at the end of the three days and three nights. It’s right there in the text. So he’s not speaking while dead, he’s speaking when he is alive again, and reflecting (in the past tense), about what happened in the past (using the past tense). If Jonah 1:17 “Jonah was in the stomach for the fish three days and three nights” isn’t enough of a hint, then the repeated use of past tense in Jonah’s prayer, followed immediately by “Then the Lord commanded the fish and it disgorged Jonah on dry land” is a bit of a giveaway.
As a general rule I don’t. There are perfectly good reasons for interpreting different Bible passages differently. You are not addressing what I wrote.
Actually when it comes to the flood his only argument is “The account uses chiasmus, chiasmus is used in poetry, therefore we can treat this as non-historical”. This is an extremely poor argument, which fails to take into account the fact that chiasmus is used in the Bible in historical accounts and narrative (chiasmus is not necessarily an indicator of non-historicity), and the fact that historical events are sometimes described in the Bible using poetry or song. So his point fails both coming and going. Would we really argue that since Deborah sang the Song of the Sea, this proves the crossing of the Red Sea was not a historical event? Would we really argue that since the women sang “Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands”, David never killed anyone? Would we really argue that since David wrote the Song of the Bow, Jonathan never existed, or at least did not die in battle? This is a complete non-sequitur.
Additionally, neither Dennis or you spend any time on the fact that the Genesis flood account matches both the historical, hydrological, and archaeological evidence, including the other ANE accounts of the Mesopotamian mega flood of around 2900 BCE.
This is straight out the Ken Ham playbook. But since I don’t deny Jonah’s historicity, and since I argue he was swallowed by a fish, this doesn’t apply to me. My view that he died has nothing to do with the Enlightenment, and everything to do with the actual text. Christ’s use of the passage is just icing. I find these words of yours particularly ironic given that you deny the historicity of entire slabs of Genesis 1-11, including the flood.
Please show all the crucial literal differences between the Jonah narrative and the flood narrative which justify writing off the historicity of the flood narrative.
I do preserve the gospel accounts regarding demons and their expulsion. I just interpret them differently to you because I have a greater depth of knowledge of the relevant Second Temple Period background. I have actually taken the time to do the necessary lexical and socio-historical heavy lifting which you haven’t done.
[quote=“Eddie, post:39, topic:5112”]
It’s interesting that you can’t find the idea that Jonah died and was resurrected in Christian literature earlier than Bullinger (19th century). And the notion seems to have become widespread only in quite recent years. How do you account for that?[/quote]
How do you know? I haven’t even looked any earlier than the nineteenth century. I don’t see that it’s relevant. Christians have been spectacularly wrong about various passages of the Bible over over 1,000 years on previous occasions, so that’s nothing new. The Catholic Church provides some absolutely hilarious examples.
You deny the historicity of the flood, and you ask me this? How do you account for the novelty of your interpretation? Were Christians incompetent readers of the flood narrative for 1900 years? Have they only recently figured out how to read it now you’ve come along and explained it all?
It’s good to see you agree with me on this point (finally).
Hey look! It’s a good conversation that got horribly off-topic while several people with too much spare time yell at each other! Imagine that!
Consider this a heavily sarcastic warning. You know who you are.
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