Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Jonah

[Newbie]

Jonah's fish. Let's talk about it. No such fish exists. How did Jonah breathe? What did he eat and drink? Where did he pee/poop? Nothing about the story is believable.

[jimwalton]

The word used in Jonah 1.17 is "large fish" and could be used of any sea creature. The great white shark is common in the Mediterranean, and has a very large throat. If that were the "great fish," it would be unusual, though possible, that Jonah didn't get chewed. Case studies from historical writings about men being swallowed by fish and surviving are less than convincing. There is no other fish, other than the Great White, natively known to the Mediterranean with a gullet size large enough to accommodate a human.

There is the possibility of a whale shark, which has easily enough gullet size to get a man in his mouth. They average about 32' long, and its mouth is 5' wide. They are not normally found in the Mediterranean, but has been known on occasion to wander outside its normal area. That's a possibility.

Regardless of gullet sizes, whales, sharks, species native to the Mediterranean, etc., the event is clearly portrayed in the text as a special act of God, and so there is nothing about the story that makes us expect there is anything regular or ordinary about the fish. It could have been a miraculous creation for Jonah. God often uses normal things in other-than-normal ways, however, and so many options are possible. Since the Mediterranean is salt water, the same as the ocean, it could easily have been another sea creature (as I have mentioned), as it is well known that sometimes creatures veer far away from their normal courses.

As far as how long he was in there, the 3 days and 3 nights has been interpreted as being figurative, and it may be, but there is no other example in the OT where 3 days can be shown to be figurative. We do know, however, that numbers are often treated numerologically in the Bible and not always necessarily literally. It's hard to know what is the case here.

[Sure Breeze]

I'll even give you a blue whale and triple its size, the rest still makes no sense. Why would you say the parts that make no sense (breathing, drinking, eating, waste) are figurative but the rest is literal? What if you're ignorant and don't know that people can't live inside of "sea creatures", would you say it's a metaphor still?

[jimwalton]

I'm not saying that the breathing, drinking, eating and pooping are figurative. Nor do I think it's a metaphor. I'll also agree that the story of Jonah is a tough one, historically. But I did give some remote possibilities. On top of those I'll add that in ancient rabbinic literature, when stories of remarkable sea survivals were common around town, Jonah’s lodging in the fish’s belly was deemed a factual, but also miraculous, event.

Of more importance is the phrase "3 days and 3 nights." Often it was not an expression that was meant literally. In 2 Kings 20.8, it means "a brief period of time." In 1 Samuel 30.12-15, "3 days and 3 nights" is an expression used to convey having travelled over a long distance. So it's possible, given the nature of the Hebrew language and their idioms, that the fish gulped him in, swam to the shore and barfed him out, an ordeal he described, as anyone might in his culture, as "three days and three nights." Now, he may have soiled his tunic or peed his shorts, but the issues of your concerns may not have been issues at all for the event to have actually happened.