Gordy327
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"Anything you don't understand, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence. You simply turn your mind off and say God did it." --- Carl Sagan, Contact
For this part of the series, I will be examining the story of Jonah and the Whale (or is it a "big fish?"). On the surface, this story seems like it came directly from a children's fairy tale book. Popular culture portrays Jonah being swallowed by a whale. Some religious texts use the term "great fish" instead of whale. But the idea of being swallowed by a whale is one which has been a part of popular culture for decades, probably most notably, in the 1940 Walt Disney animated feature "Pinocchio." Other media has portrayed the scenario in different forms one way or another. But I'm going to look at the biblical version of being swallowed by whale and see if the evidence actually makes this tale plausible or not. So let's briefly look at the story as follows:
In the Book of Jonah, God orders Jonah to go to Nineveh (why does God always need a middleman to do his dirty work?) to preach to the people there and warn them that God is pissed off at them. Apparently God hates it when his mortals are having fun. But Jonah, feeling a little rebellious (and has no love for Nineveh to begin with) did the biblical version of flipping God off by not following God's instructions and instead sailed to Tarshish. Naturally, God becomes irate about it and overreacts as usual by creating a big storm at sea, which threatened the ship Jonah's was on and its crew. The crew become convinced it is not a natural storm (this was before meteorology became a science) and decided to toss Jonah overboard after drawing lots (and people say Carnival cruises are bad?). Afterwards, a "great fish" (other sources say "big fish" or "huge fish") appears and swallows Jonah whole, where Jonah spends 3 days and 3 nights in the whale/fish belly. During that time, the smell of fish becomes too much for Jonah to bear. So he prays and repents to God, after which the whale vomits Jonah out. After Jonah falls in line, he fulfills God's earlier command and travels to Nineveh.
So that's the gist of it. Now lets look at the circumstances surrounding the story and examine the evidence to determine if this story is hard to swallow (cue bad pun groans) or not.
1. Was it a whale or a "great fish?" : This is an important distinction to make, as whales and fish can be vastly different sizes. They must also be large enough to swallow an adult human male whole, without chewing him up. According to Jean Paul Morel, director of the French archaeological team at Carthage Byrsa, the average height of a male in biblical times was approximately 5' 6" tall, give or take 2 inches. Granted, there are other factors to consider for height. But to keep it simple, we'll use the 5" 6" as a baseline. Let's start by assuming it's an actual whale in the story. Most whales are generally incapable of swallowing a human and will not include humans in their diet.
---Continued---
For this part of the series, I will be examining the story of Jonah and the Whale (or is it a "big fish?"). On the surface, this story seems like it came directly from a children's fairy tale book. Popular culture portrays Jonah being swallowed by a whale. Some religious texts use the term "great fish" instead of whale. But the idea of being swallowed by a whale is one which has been a part of popular culture for decades, probably most notably, in the 1940 Walt Disney animated feature "Pinocchio." Other media has portrayed the scenario in different forms one way or another. But I'm going to look at the biblical version of being swallowed by whale and see if the evidence actually makes this tale plausible or not. So let's briefly look at the story as follows:
In the Book of Jonah, God orders Jonah to go to Nineveh (why does God always need a middleman to do his dirty work?) to preach to the people there and warn them that God is pissed off at them. Apparently God hates it when his mortals are having fun. But Jonah, feeling a little rebellious (and has no love for Nineveh to begin with) did the biblical version of flipping God off by not following God's instructions and instead sailed to Tarshish. Naturally, God becomes irate about it and overreacts as usual by creating a big storm at sea, which threatened the ship Jonah's was on and its crew. The crew become convinced it is not a natural storm (this was before meteorology became a science) and decided to toss Jonah overboard after drawing lots (and people say Carnival cruises are bad?). Afterwards, a "great fish" (other sources say "big fish" or "huge fish") appears and swallows Jonah whole, where Jonah spends 3 days and 3 nights in the whale/fish belly. During that time, the smell of fish becomes too much for Jonah to bear. So he prays and repents to God, after which the whale vomits Jonah out. After Jonah falls in line, he fulfills God's earlier command and travels to Nineveh.
So that's the gist of it. Now lets look at the circumstances surrounding the story and examine the evidence to determine if this story is hard to swallow (cue bad pun groans) or not.
1. Was it a whale or a "great fish?" : This is an important distinction to make, as whales and fish can be vastly different sizes. They must also be large enough to swallow an adult human male whole, without chewing him up. According to Jean Paul Morel, director of the French archaeological team at Carthage Byrsa, the average height of a male in biblical times was approximately 5' 6" tall, give or take 2 inches. Granted, there are other factors to consider for height. But to keep it simple, we'll use the 5" 6" as a baseline. Let's start by assuming it's an actual whale in the story. Most whales are generally incapable of swallowing a human and will not include humans in their diet.
---Continued---
