• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Impossibility of Jonah

BUDDY

BUDDY

User of Aspercreme
Okay, someone try to explan this to me. I have been devoting a lot if time and effort into my study of the Bible, trying to get some things to make sense to me. I have had a lot of roadblocks in this cause, which I took on about three months ago. In my study of the Jonah story, how in the world could this have happened? Besides the fact that there is no fish that is large enough to swallow a man whole, there are some distance problems when you consider simple geography.

1) Nineveh is on the Tigris River, which flows southeast into the Persian Gulf.
2) Jonah left from Joppa, which is on the Mediterranean Sea.
3) The Suez Canal did not exist at the time (Duh!)
4) This fish would have had to swim from the Mediterranean Sea, around Africa, up the Persian Gulf, swim almost all the way up the Tigris River (hope the saltwater fish likes fresh water) and spit up Jonah on the shore

I am left with only a few choices. Either this fish could swim over 100 miles per hour, could fly, or this story is not based in any way on actual events, and was made up. But then you have to ask for what purpose, and I can't find an answer to that either.
 
BUDDY

BUDDY

User of Aspercreme
I used to believe that too guys. I loved that feeling, of being able to just say, "God did it, and I believe it." For some reason, that just doesn't seem to be enough for me anymore. No offense to you guys. I wish I could be like that again, but lately I need answers for everything.:(
 
Bishka

Bishka

Veteran Member
BUDDY said:
I used to believe that too guys. I loved that feeling, of being able to just say, "God did it, and I believe it." For some reason, that just doesn't seem to be enough for me anymore. No offense to you guys. I wish I could be like that again, but lately I need answers for everything.:(
Click to expand...

:) I remember when I felt that way when I was a teenager. I felt that it needed to be explained to me, but what I found out is God just does things for His own reasons sometimes, we may not know that reason for a long time and we just gotta trust in Him.
 
dawny0826

dawny0826

Mother Heathen
BUDDY said:
I used to believe that too guys. I loved that feeling, of being able to just say, "God did it, and I believe it." For some reason, that just doesn't seem to be enough for me anymore. No offense to you guys. I wish I could be like that again, but lately I need answers for everything.:(
Click to expand...

BUDDY, I think we all go through this.

And my intentions aren't to disrespect you or anything...only you know where you are right now in your relationship with Christ.

I'd say...pray on it. And try to accept that there's a lot that we're not going to understand. There's a great deal of mystery to God alone...not to mention all that is within the Bible.

FAITH...it's believing in and Trusting in what you can't see and you don't understand.

Besides, if you don't get Jonah...does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?

If you GET Christ...than in my opinion...you've got it!

I think Satan enjoys it when we mull over the minute details and begin to doubt. That's really all he has, anyway...the ability to send us along detours.

No offense to you at all. This happens to me all of the time...I'll read something that confuses me and seems so big and so impossible and then it hits me...you know...I'm putting so much time and energy into something so small...I'm missing the big picture...
 
Smoke

Smoke

Done here.
BUDDY said:
1) Nineveh is on the Tigris River, which flows southeast into the Persian Gulf.
2) Jonah left from Joppa, which is on the Mediterranean Sea.
3) The Suez Canal did not exist at the time (Duh!)
4) This fish would have had to swim from the Mediterranean Sea, around Africa, up the Persian Gulf, swim almost all the way up the Tigris River (hope the saltwater fish likes fresh water) and spit up Jonah on the shore

I am left with only a few choices. Either this fish could swim over 100 miles per hour, could fly, or this story is not based in any way on actual events, and was made up. But then you have to ask for what purpose, and I can't find an answer to that either.
Click to expand...
As you can imagine, I don't think for a second that the story of Jonah is literally true. But in all fairness, the text doesn't say the fish spit him out at Nineveh; after it spit him out, he still had to go there.

There are other problems with the story, though.
 
Linus

Linus

Well-Known Member
BUDDY said:
I am left with only a few choices. Either this fish could swim over 100 miles per hour, could fly, or this story is not based in any way on actual events, and was made up. But then you have to ask for what purpose, and I can't find an answer to that either.
Click to expand...

It doesn't say that Jonah was realeased right next to Ninehvah. It simply says tht he was spit up onto dry land, then went to Ninevah. So, it seems to me that the animal could have spit him back up near Joppa, and Jonah could have walked from there.

Jonah 2:10And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land
Jonah 3: 1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days.

It isn't necessary to conclude that the fish brought Jonah straight to (or even near)Ninevah.
 
michel

michel

Administrator Emeritus
Staff member
dawny0826 said:
BUDDY, I think we all go through this.

And my intentions aren't to disrespect you or anything...only you know where you are right now in your relationship with Christ.

I'd say...pray on it. And try to accept that there's a lot that we're not going to understand. There's a great deal of mystery to God alone...not to mention all that is within the Bible.

FAITH...it's believing in and Trusting in what you can't see and you don't understand.

Besides, if you don't get Jonah...does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?

If you GET Christ...than in my opinion...you've got it!

I think Satan enjoys it when we mull over the minute details and begin to doubt. That's really all he has, anyway...the ability to send us along detours.

No offense to you at all. This happens to me all of the time...I'll read something that confuses me and seems so big and so impossible and then it hits me...you know...I'm putting so much time and energy into something so small...I'm missing the big picture...
Click to expand...


If you GET Christ...than in my opinion...you've got it!
Click to expand...

That is the way I see it. I have been wrestling with various aspects of Christianity (Biblically related), which Frankly don't seem to make sense.

What you say about "forget the minutiae" and concentrate on the bigger picture is exactly what I need to do; and I am trying (My wife woulld agree with that, I am sure:D )........well, that's what she says..........

I don't know if it is a natural human instinct to try and disect things (one which has become more 'important' in recent years), but it does us no good..it takes our eye off the real Goal .............Christ's love.
 
E

Endless

Active Member
Like the two posters above - i agree with their explanation. The problem is when we assume we know what happened when actually the Bible doesn't say - like when you assume the fish vomitted Jonah at Ninevah, when it could not possibly have and then a contradiction is proclaimed - but is based on an assumption you made and therefore is of your own making. This happens all the time with me - you just gotta go back to the text and read what it actually says most of the time :)
 
robtex

robtex

Veteran Member
BUDDY said:
I used to believe that too guys. I loved that feeling, of being able to just say, "God did it, and I believe it." For some reason, that just doesn't seem to be enough for me anymore. No offense to you guys. I wish I could be like that again, but lately I need answers for everything.
Click to expand...

Buddy I am really proud of you on this post. You just reached an enlightment and I hope you grow from it. Regarding your original post: There are two types of Bible believers,

1) The bible is the inerrant word of God. = The events in the bible actually happened
2) The bible is the inspired word of God. = some of the events or all are metaphores and analogies on how to ethically and morally live life.

If you are in the number 2 category, and on this you may be realize the story could be an analogy and not an event. A deeper moral may be inscribed into the plot and the events are ficitionalized. Let me give you a parallel. When I was a kid my mother, who is from Germany, bought an english verison of the original brother's grimm fairy tales. If you are not aware disney really cut a lot of the gore out and the stories of the original book are really bloody in places. In the original cinderalla for instance, the mean sisters actually carve up their own feet to make them fit the shoe of cinderella. The moral I got from the story as a kid was that you can't change who you are to please someone. I didn't need to believe that events were actual but that the analogy was applicable. This is a way many read the Bible if they see it as the inspired word of God. Rather than trying to find the logicistics of a fish eating a man maybe there is a moral to the story and it may be glossed over if you are too preoccupied trying to discover how on earth a fish can do the things the bible says it did. Either way I love how open-minded you are in this thread and am really happy about your discovery.
 
jeffrey

jeffrey

†ßig Dog†
I believe it was an analogy also. A parallel between being in the belly for 3 days and Christ's 3 days below? Maybe. But really doubt it happened.
 
robtex

robtex

Veteran Member
jeffrey said:
I believe it was an analogy also. A parallel between being in the belly for 3 days and Christ's 3 days below? Maybe. But really doubt it happened.
Click to expand...

Two questions for the thead in general. If it is an analogy what is the analogy inferred from it? Also does that analogy hold more spirtual signifgance than the event had it been an actual true event or less and if so why did you answer the way you did?
 
BUDDY

BUDDY

User of Aspercreme
robtex said:
Two questions for the thead in general. If it is an analogy what is the analogy inferred from it? Also does that analogy hold more spirtual signifgance than the event had it been an actual true event or less and if so why did you answer the way you did?
Click to expand...
Exactly. There are plenty of Bible stories, to which you can point out a particular "moral". Plenty of Bible stories that are hard to follow, that teach a lesson. But, I can not see in the text a clear and concise Biblical message behind the fish swallowing episode. Although, I will admit an oversight to the fact that Jonah was spit out on dry land, not necessarily next door to Nineveh.
 
jeffrey

jeffrey

†ßig Dog†
robtex said:
Two questions for the thead in general. If it is an analogy what is the analogy inferred from it? Also does that analogy hold more spirtual signifgance than the event had it been an actual true event or less and if so why did you answer the way you did?
Click to expand...
An analogy if you disobey God. I answered the way I did because I believe man wrote the bible, made stuff up to fit a need at that time. I believe in God, but not the God that is depicted in the bible.
 
Karl R

Karl R

Active Member
BUDDY said:
There are plenty of Bible stories, to which you can point out a particular "moral". Plenty of Bible stories that are hard to follow, that teach a lesson. But, I can not see in the text a clear and concise Biblical message behind the fish swallowing episode.
Click to expand...
There are a couple that come to mind. First, if god tells you to go to Ninevah, the best plan is to head straight there. If you don't, god will make your travel arrangements, and god probably won't send you first class.

Okay, that's not the important message.

After Jonah told his message to the people of Ninevah, they repented and were spared god's wrath. Then Jonah got mad at god for not destroying Ninevah.

I've seen many christians who seem to take great pleasure in speculating about the eternal suffering of everyone who disagrees with them. The story of Jonah illustrates how far that attitude is from God's.
 
M

may

Well-Known Member
Could It Have Been a Shark?
Are there sharks large enough to swallow a person whole?
is the white shark found in the Mediterranean?
Jonah was possibly swallowed by a great white shark. The sperm whale is also a possibility, although the shark seems more likely. It is even possible that God used some huge sea creature that has never been found by science.

the great white shark is known to follow sailing ships for days on end, eating whatever is thrown overboard. Do you remember what happened to Jonah’s ship before the seamen were persuaded to throw him overboard?​


They tried to lighten the ship, didn’t they?​


"There came to be a great tempest on the sea . . . And they kept hurling out the articles that were in the ship to the sea, in order to lighten it."—Jonah 1:4, 5.​


Do you think that could have attracted the attention of some sharks? And that then one of them could have swallowed Jonah?​

It would have been a natural sequence of events.
i think i read some where that large numbers of fossilized shark teeth have been found near Malta in the Mediterranean, which would have been right on Jonah’s route from Joppa to Tarshish, assuming that Tarshish means Spain. So some sort of gigantic shark definitely lived in the Mediterranean in the distant past, and possibly in the recent past as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top