A disappointing homily on Jonah

[Nita]

… After coming to land, Jonah may well have gone back home, and Scripture doesn’t tell us where that is.

I need to correct the above statement I made in an earlier post. Scripture does tell us where Jonah was from.
2 Kings 14:25 He (Jeroboam II) restored the border of Israel…, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which He spoke by His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-he’pher.
Gath-he’pher is just north of Nazareth.

Nita

 

[Nita]

It is perfectly reasonable for anyone (including Jesus) to refer to a well known story (fictional or not) as an example when they are teaching. The fictional nature of the story has nothing to do with its use a teaching tool and referring to it as an example while teaching in no way makes a statement as to its fictional/historical nature.

If I tell my child that if he doesn’t stick to the task, he might end up losing like the hare did when racing the tortoise, I am not telling him that there was a real race between the two animals nor am I telling a lie. Rather, I am using a familiar fictional story to make a teaching point.

I don’t think anyone is questioning that fictional stories can have value and can be referred to and used in teaching. (I believe there are some in the talmuds/mishnas.)

Jonah was a real person, a real prophet of the Lord. Fleeing, being swallowed by a fish, being spit out on shore, does nothing to enhance or clarify the major message God sent Jonah to announce - that in forty days God would destroy Nineveh. (Or the message concerning repentance that can be learned as the events unfolded in Nineveh.) At least it doesn’t for me. If it does for you, would you explain how? What do you think the purpose would have been for adding the fictional portion?

The Jews included the book in the “Prophets” portion of Scripture. That would be a strange place to include a fictional story, as tho it were factual, about a prophet without somewhere noting that it was fictional.

 

[jcrichton]

Another consideration is that 3 days in Jewish terminology was not 72 hrs. as we think today. Just as Jesus was in the tomb for perhaps 38 hrs. and yet was reckoned as 3 days, so too could Jonah’s intestine adventure.

…ever watch those shows about domestic animals on tv?.. ever seen the dog that gets to eat only when its trainer/owner signals that it can?

We do not know what “swallowed by a fish” actually meant:

• taken in its mouth and moved to its stomach
• taken in its mouth and kept there
• taken in its mouth, moved to its stomach and suffer the digestive processes…

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

I don’t think there’s any reason to put Priest in quotes. The man is indeed a priest, ordained by God. This particular incident doesn’t change that.

I his title in quotations because some Catholic Priests and Nuns are embracing the world and eroding the Body of Christ: they do not give up the Catholic title and the obligations that come with it but they promote anti-Catholic doctrines… I suspect that it begins with such manuevering as in the OP case: when they successfully (find no challange) take an inch, reaching for that mile is just a matter of time!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

Maybe the priest should not have said that the story was “impossible” but it is certainly very acceptable to interpret this story as fiction used as a vehicle for revelation. That is clearly what the literary form of the story indicates is a correct view.

…so Jesus should have stated ‘as in the fiction of Jonah…?’

Ever heard of stones morphing into people? Is there any passage in Scriptures that tells us that that actually happened? …yet, we find St. John the Baptist telling the Pharisees and Sadducees:

And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. (St. Matthew 3:9)

How tall a tale must that be!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

That would be so much easier to believe, if it wasn’t for the fact the Jesus himself referred to this story more than once, and compared it to real events. Just as the people of Nineveh really did repent, so too would they rise up at the last judgment and condemn the generation in the time of Jesus. Just as the sign of Jonah was his 3 days in the belly of the fish, so too would the body of Jesus be shut up in the tomb for 3 days. I also have trouble with the idea that 2000 and more years of continuous tradition and belief is all suddenly overturned, because now we have science and textual criticism. I can understand the need for science and textual criticism for interpreting difficult places in Scripture, but NOT in order to make Scripture acceptable to science.

…do they still use that ole expression… Here, Here (or is it Hear, Hear)?

:clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[patrick457]

…do they still use that ole expression… Here, Here (or is it Hear, Hear)?

:clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

Maran atha!

Angel

It’s “hear, hear” (an abbreviation of both “hear ye” and “hear him”); “here, here” sounds like a parent calling a kid who’s making his/her first baby steps.

As others have already pointed out, a huge aquatic creature (“the great fish” says the Scriptures) swallowing an adult man, no doubt assisted by Divine intervention, is just a piece of cake compared to God incarnating and ‘pitching His tent among us’ or dying and rising again or turning bread and wine into His body and blood. If you would dismiss the smaller stuff, why not go and say the bigger ones are impossible as well?

 

[jcrichton]

It is perfectly reasonable for anyone (including Jesus) to refer to a well known story (fictional or not) as an example when they are teaching. The fictional nature of the story has nothing to do with its use a teaching tool and referring to it as an example while teaching in no way makes a statement as to its fictional/historical nature.

If I tell my child that if he doesn’t stick to the task, he might end up losing like the hare did when racing the tortoise, I am not telling him that there was a real race between the two animals nor am I telling a lie. Rather, I am using a familiar fictional story to make a teaching point.

You are free to believe as the spirit leads you but there is no “Dogma of Jonah” and there is no reason to believe it is a historical event. An analysis of the story reveals how unlikely it would be for any ancient Jewish readers to have thought it to be other than fiction.

…but wouldn’t your child have to have a point of reference? If you simply make up a story about values which your child do not know/understand, how good with your training method be when your child would be left in the dark?

…just look at Jesus’ parable about Lazarus and the wealthy (rich) man… some people believe that when people die they go to the bossom of Abraham and that Heaven/Paradise is found right next to hell–these are very exact values which a reasonable person can understand were merely used as a teaching tool.

Conversely, just because there are sciences lost to us does not mean that it is automatically given that space aliens created the great pyramids, the giant heads, the supper designs that can only be viewed from a high altitude, or Stonehenge.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

I need to correct the above statement I made in an earlier post. Scripture does tell us where Jonah was from.
2 Kings 14:25 He (Jeroboam II) restored the border of Israel…, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which He spoke by His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-he’pher.
Gath-he’pher is just north of Nazareth.

Nita

Hi, Nita!

Excellent post!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

It’s “hear, hear” (an abbreviation of both “hear ye” and “hear him”); “here, here” sounds like a parent calling a kid who’s making his/her first baby steps.

Thanks for the imput–I’ve only heard the expression in a couple of those old movies (black and white) so I was never keen to what it really meant!

As others have already pointed out, a huge aquatic creature (“the great fish” says the Scriptures) swallowing an adult man, no doubt assisted by Divine intervention, is just a piece of cake compared to God incarnating and ‘pitching His tent among us’ or dying and rising again or turning bread and wine into His body and blood. If you would dismiss the smaller stuff, why not go and say the bigger ones are impossible as well?

I fully concur! It seems to me that some Believers just seem to go out of their way to be politically, grammatically or literary correct while simultaneously displacing the Word of God–it seems that it is more important to be found wise and enlightened by those who reject Yahweh God than to be thought as a fool for Christ!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Devare]

I attended Mass today during my lunch break. The First Reading today was from Jonah. Just as the Gospel was concluded, I was hoping to myself that the priest would not dismiss the book of Jonah as a fable.

He did. The first words out of his mouth were something like: “I hope I don’t disappoint any of you, but the book of Jonah isn’t true; it’s simply impossible.”

I had the same problem with the book of Exodus at my Catholic Church/School. The teacher dismissed Exodus as a “mythical tale” with “good morals.” I don’t agree.

I asked one of the theologians at my school, and he said many Catholics dismiss the Old Testament as fables. Apparently, Martin Luther (who I despise with a passion) thought the same thing, he said the book of Jonah could have “used improvement.” Jonah is perfectly possible - Bible uses lots of probability and explains events to occur thereon.

 

[patrick457]

I had the same problem with the book of Exodus at my Catholic Church/School. The teacher dismissed Exodus as a “mythical tale” with “good morals.” I don’t agree.

I asked one of the theologians at my school, and he said many Catholics dismiss the Old Testament as fables.

Just how “many” is “many”, that is the question…

 

[prophetica]

I attended Mass today during my lunch break. The First Reading today was from Jonah. Just as the Gospel was concluded, I was hoping to myself that the priest would not dismiss the book of Jonah as a fable.

He did. The first words out of his mouth were something like: “I hope I don’t disappoint any of you, but the book of Jonah isn’t true; it’s simply impossible.”

He said he had “done the math” a year or so ago and figured out that for a whale to have swum from near Spain (which is where Tarshish is believed to be) to near Nineveh (in modern day Iraq), the whale would need to swim at speeds over 200 MPH for three straight days. (Besides, he said, how would Jonah survive? How wouldn’t he be digested?) His math argument is based on the assumptions that the boat Jonah was on was traveling around the bottom of Africa and that the boat was most of the way there.

I’d like to examine this argument and its assumptions.

The shortest journey from the southwestern part of Spain, around Africa, and up through the Red Sea to the southern tip of Israel is approximately 12,000 miles. (The journey is about the same if we end in the Persian Gulf, for easier access to Nineveh, which was on the Tigris.) That distance can be traveled in 72 hours at a constant speed of about 170 MPH. Still pretty ambitious for a sea-monster, although if it were expending all its energy to make the journey, perhaps it could not spare any time for digestion! (That’s a joke.)

But the Scriptures do not say how far along in the journey the boat was nor that the whale brought Jonah to Nineveh.
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. … And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. (Jonah 1:3-4; 2:10)We do not know where in the voyage Jonah was thrown overboard nor where the whale finally deposited him.

But we do know where Joppa was. Joppa was not a city on the Red Sea, but on the Mediterranean Sea! Jonah went from Geth-hepher to Joppa, a port city, to flee to Tarshish. Joppa is to the south of Geth-hepher, and Tarshish is to the west. Nineveh is to the north and east of Israel. The trip to Tarshish was over water; the journey to Nineveh would be over land. Jonah stowed away with a crowd; Jonah was called to go to Nineveh alone. Jonah’s acts were a sign of direct contradiction to the will of God.

jonah.bmk.ee/img/map.jpg

If Tarshish, then, was in southwestern Spain, there would be no need to travel around Africa, but rather between Africa and Europe; the journey from Joppa (near modern Tel Aviv) would have been around 2600 miles. That journey could be made in 72 hours going less than 40 MPH. Again, this assumes the crisis on the boat occurred near Tarshish and that the whale brought Jonah back to Joppa.

Let’s assume that the whale did deposit Jonah on the coast of Israel, whether at Joppa or further north near Gath-hepher (about 60 miles north-northeast of Joppa, near Nazareth) where Jonah was originally from. Then, perhaps — if the Scripture can be believed — Jonah was cast into the sea shortly into the journey, somewhere still to the east of Greece. That’s the scenario imagined below:

christianimagelibrary.com/image-bin/Public/014/01/014_01_0115_TH-Atlas_prev.jpg

So what’s the point of all this?

Why cast unneeded doubt on Sacred Scripture? What is more believable, that a man could survive in the belly of a whale for three days… or that a virgin could conceive and bear a child by the Holy Spirit, a child who is fully man and fully God, a child who would heal the sick, raise the dead, walk on water, turn water into wine, multiply bread and fish, and eventually die on a cross and be raised to new life on the third day, walk through closed doors, disappear from sight, and ascend into heaven and take his place at the right hand of God the Father Almighty?

I can believe both.

Amen. And one could see that because this Prophet was sent that Babylon was used in later generations; instead; to conquer and Judge Israel because of just such an event as this where they had repented throughout the Kingdom. For God sends Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah to declare Nebucadnezzar’s Empire was coming.

By the way, Saul of Tarsus (in turkey and not in the province of Judea) renamed Paul was said by some to this day to have made the journey to Spain called by the name of the son of Javan Tarshish or the Northern peoples diaspora.

The fulfillment of the Prophecy of Jonah is found at the cross and Jesus declares how slow or dull some are to believe all that is written there.

Iron sharpens, Iron for part of the empire was to be as iron and part was to be as clay.

Nostradamus Prophesied that steel would be invented, too.

10 toes, 10 worldwide leaders will come who have a covenant along with the false beast from the earth prophet to implement the mark of the number of his name.

 

[juliamajor]

Amen. And one could see that because this Prophet was sent that Babylon was used in later generations; instead; to conquer and Judge Israel because of just such an event as this where they had repented throughout the Kingdom. For God sends Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah to declare Nebucadnezzar’s Empire was coming.

By the way, Saul of Tarsus (in turkey and not in the province of Judea) renamed Paul was said by some to this day to have made the journey to Spain called by the name of the son of Javan Tarshish or the Northern peoples diaspora.

The fulfillment of the Prophecy of Jonah is found at the cross and Jesus declares how slow or dull some are to believe all that is written there.

Iron sharpens, Iron for part of the empire was to be as iron and part was to be as clay.

Nostradamus Prophesied that steel would be invented, too.

10 toes, 10 worldwide leaders will come who have a covenant along with the false beast from the earth prophet to implement the mark of the number of his name.

I don’t mean to be rude but what the heck are you talking about?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

But he is not arguing literary modals; he stated that it is imposible for the circumstances to have happened as revealed by Scriptures

Where is that said by that priest ?​

If OTOH the circumstances are those of a fiction - it is quite possible for a fiction to contain impossibilities, no ? It is entirely possible for a fiction to be found in the Bible - some examples:

• Balaam’s talking jenny
• the talking plants of Judges 9
• the trees that clap their hands in Psalm 114 (I think)
• the sea-serpent ot Isaiah 27.1
• the parables of Jesus
• the narrative machinery of parts of Daniel & Revelation

Why should a tall story like the Book of Jonah not be a fishy tale using familiar narrative ingredients to make a point about God’s mercy, even without being a narrative of fact, such as one finds in much of Jeremiah or Isaiah ?

–since Scriptures were Inspired by the Holy Spirit that “Priest” is judging the ability of the Holy Spirit!

Maran atha!

Angel

Why is fiction incapable of being inspired or unfit to be inspired ?​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Jonah: A plausibility study

1. Are there “great fish” large enough to swallow a man whole?

• Of course! Keep in mind that modern animal classification systems weren’t exactly in use at the time of Jonah. Any aquatic creature could be referred to as a “fish.” And we know that there are whales (blue and sperm) and even sharks (great white and whale sharks) that can swallow a man whole. The sperm whale grows to a length of up to 70 feet. Its esophagus is approximately 50 cm (20") wide and “sperm whales don’t have to chew their food - so Jonah could have been swallowed whole.” 2 Two marine scientists from Sea World in San Diego hypothesize that it was a great white shark that probably swallowed Jonah.2

1. Could someone survive three days and three nights in a whale’s belly?

• This is the difficult part of the question. There are fish species that surface from the sea and gulp down air into their lungs, like the lungfish for example. But there is no explanation for how air might have been transferred to the stomach.

1. What about the digestive juices?

• The Encarta Encyclopedia reports, “When whales swallow food, it travels through the esophagus to a multi-chambered stomach that resembles the stomachs of ruminant hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep and deer. In the first stomach chamber, a saclike extension of the esophagus, food is crushed. In the second chamber, digestive juices further break down food.” 3 If Jonah remained in this first chamber, he only needed to be worried about being crushed rather than digested! Sharks, however, have a much slower metabolism and a human body could last three days without deterioration.2

1. What about other stories?

• There are a number of stories that have been around for over 100 years about whales swallowing men whole. Perhaps the most famous is the story of James Bartley, a whaler on the vessel Star of the East, who reportedly was swallowed by a whale and survived. However, there are a number of questions as to the authenticity of this story, and it should not be used as a “proof” of any kind (just Google “James Bartley” and you’ll see what we mean).

The bottom line:

1. God needed to discipline a runaway prophet.
2. God did prepare a “great fish” aquatic creature.
3. God brought the runaway prophet and the “great fish” together for His glory and the salvation of a large city.

Would it not have been quicker to give Jonah a flying saucer ? If “God can do anything”, this would have been child’s play. Add a rip in the space-time continuum, and the help of the Man of Krypton, travelling at senses-shattering speed - & Jonah is in Nineveh before he can even breathe. Superman is the solution to a lot of Bible problems - except such as may involve green kryptonite, of course.​

To wonder which aquatic beast ingested Jonah is the equivalent of equipping an expedition to find the remains of King Kong’s ancestors - a fictional 50-foot monkey does not leave remains that a zoologist can study; not because Indiana Jones has got there first, but because a real zoologist has no way of enmcountering a purely fictional animal.

BTW - would Jonah not have had trouble composing a psalm while within his cetacean transport ? Yet the text has him doing so. Maybe the animal swallowed a desk & stylus & supply of ink before swallowing him - it is said to have been “prepared”. And would there not be problems with enzymes & “drool” & the like: the “great fish”'s, not Jonah’s. And how would he see to write ? Maybe he used animal fat from within his transport.

Finding a “big fish” is only one problem…

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

That would be so much easier to believe, if it wasn’t for the fact the Jesus himself referred to this story more than once, and compared it to real events. Just as the people of Nineveh really did repent, so too would they rise up at the last judgment and condemn the generation in the time of Jesus. Just as the sign of Jonah was his 3 days in the belly of the fish, so too would the body of Jesus be shut up in the tomb for 3 days. I also have trouble with the idea that 2000 and more years of continuous tradition and belief is all suddenly overturned, because now we have science and textual criticism. I can understand the need for science and textual criticism for interpreting difficult places in Scripture, but NOT in order to make Scripture acceptable to science.

The last judgement is not an historical event in the “obvious” sense - it’s “post-historical”, for lack of a better word; specifically, it is apocalyptic & eschatological. Consider the following:​

• 7.30 - Woke up
• 10.15 - went to factory
• 11.00 - factory flattened
• 12.00 - Second Coming of Jesus

An historical event is one which one can at least in principle put in one’s diary or timetable or a similar text. The first three events in that list are historical in that sense - unlike the last. The Resurrection is “not historical” either - it too is apocalyptic & eschatological. The LJ & the Resurrection are history-like in that they are “real events” in some sense, but they are not “history-book” events.

Which allows for the events compared to them to be like them, in not belonging in history. Since Jesus often uses the language of apocalyptic, & as apocalyptic is very important for the meaning & identity & mission of Jesus all over the NT, this allows the Book of Jonah to be significant because not historical in the “obvious” sense.

The point is, not to make the Book of Jonah “acceptable to science”, but to understand it properly. If anyone is concerned with science, it is those who want to vindicate the book as historical; & that is the only reason for mentioning science in reply. Finding a great fish does not prove the book is historical: it shows compatibility with the text, & it points to verisimilitude; but those can both be present in a non-historical narrative, in & out of the Bible.

 

[jcrichton]

Where is that said by that priest ?​

If OTOH the circumstances are those of a fiction - it is quite possible for a fiction to contain impossibilities, no ? It is entirely possible for a fiction to be found in the Bible - some examples:

• Balaam’s talking jenny
• the talking plants of Judges 9
• the trees that clap their hands in Psalm 114 (I think)
• the sea-serpent ot Isaiah 27.1
• the parables of Jesus
• the narrative machinery of parts of Daniel & Revelation

Why should a tall story like the Book of Jonah not be a fishy tale using familiar narrative ingredients to make a point about God’s mercy, even without being a narrative of fact, such as one finds in much of Jeremiah or Isaiah ?

Why is fiction incapable of being inspired or unfit to be inspired ?​

I think that you have missed the point. I am not saying that Scriptures do not contain fiction. I am saying that that particular “Priest” (based on what the OP stated) did not claim that the story of Jonah was a literary tool but that it was not possible for the incident to have happened:

I attended Mass today during my lunch break. The First Reading today was from Jonah. Just as the Gospel was concluded, I was hoping to myself that the priest would not dismiss the book of Jonah as a fable.

He did. The first words out of his mouth were something like: “I hope I don’t disappoint any of you, but the book of Jonah isn’t true; it’s simply impossible.”

He said he had “done the math” a year or so ago and figured out that for a whale to have swum from near Spain (which is where Tarshish is believed to be) to near Nineveh (in modern day Iraq), the whale would need to swim at speeds over 200 MPH for three straight days. (Besides, he said, how would Jonah survive? How wouldn’t he be digested?) His math argument is based on the assumptions that the boat Jonah was on was traveling around the bottom of Africa and that the boat was most of the way there.

One of the deepest parables found in Scriptures is about a fictional character named Lazarus (not to be confused with Martha’s and Mary’s brother); this particular parable depicts the simple and grandious, the temporal and the spiritual, and the revelation of Christ’s Resurrection and Israel’s (and humanity’s) rejection of Christ!

I have no problem with literary tools!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Gottle of Geer:

The point is, not to make the Book of Jonah “acceptable to science”, but to understand it properly. If anyone is concerned with science, it is those who want to vindicate the book as historical; & that is the only reason for mentioning science in reply. Finding a great fish does not prove the book is historical: it shows compatibility with the text, & it points to verisimilitude; but those can both be present in a non-historical narrative, in & out of the Bible.

My point was that the OP’s priest seemed to discount the story based on scientific laws. Your point seems to be that the story was not meant to be understood as an actual event. That is only a recent development, as I pointed out earlier, since Josephus, a Second Temple Jew, believed the story to be historical. In fact, the understanding of this story being historical seems to be uninterrupted from earliest recorded times. Now, as many, if not most, of the Biblical parables are self evident, and have that tradition, an abrupt shedding of those beliefs, by today’s new found standards of textual criticism, can sometimes seem at best suspicious and not always convincing.

But getting back to your point; no, there is no difficulty in taking the story as an inspired parable, if that aids your understanding, as the lessons contained within it remain the same. However, there is no need to force this new unproven (and unprovable) view down the throats of the faithful either. Their Faith should be supported and nurtured, not undermined. It is the insensitive abuse of the Faithful that is the real crime of the priest mentioned by the OP.

I am not suggesting that the story should be taught as being absolutely historical, I am only saying that the story should stand on its own merits, and on the natural response of the faithful.

 

[japhy]

The Resurrection is “not historical” either - it too is apocalyptic & eschatological. The LJ & the Resurrection are history-like in that they are “real events” in some sense, but they are not “history-book” events.

I prefer to use the language of the Church regarding the “historical quality” of the Resurrection.

The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bears witness. (CCC 639)

Given all these testimonies, Christ’s Resurrection cannot be interpreted as something outside the physical order, and it is impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical fact. (CCC 643)

Although the Resurrection was an historical event that could be verified by the sign of the empty tomb and by the reality of the apostles’ encounters with the risen Christ, still it remains at the very heart of the mystery of faith as something that transcends and surpasses history. (647)