Jonah and the Whale

[petrel]

Yes, I do.
I can readily point to the various miracles in Exodus and the fact that science has found evidence for what is written to back my contention in this.
I assure you my faith is firmly where it should be.
My church does not require the faith you are describing.

Please do not take personal ownership of the Church which is the same one that I belong to. By using this phraseology you are implying that we are going to different churches. You could have used the expression “Our Church”.

Please indicate the specific documents within the Catechism that specify my faith must be what you claim it to be.
Agreed. IF our faith must be a blind acceptance of what is written in that book, but thus far no one has provided any evidence at all that specifies my faith must comply with your interpretation of events.

I have already provided many quotes from Church Fathers. What would you hear from me that you would listen to?

The very Saints that you have quoted from indicate that a child-like acceptance of the written word is not all there is or all that should be strived for.
How can one expect to defend the faith without a deeper understanding of the written word then a mere child-like acceptance provides?

I never said that it is not all that should be strived for. Where did I say that? My point is that we must never lose that child-like acceptance, and that all our learning is built upon this foundation of childlike faith and trust in the scriptures. As soon as we start getting clever after the fashion of the world we start to question what we were told at bedtime by Grandma and start thinking that our professors know better than Grandma.

Because professors are learned and clever and can detect the subtle nuances of the original Hebrew text and the style of the literary genre whereas Grandma is just simplistic and child-like, unlearned with no letters after her name.

What incredible intellectual vanity that is

This is what our Lord meant when he praised God saying.
Matt 11:25 “At that time Jesus answered and said: I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to the little ones”

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

One point I didn’t see in the long discussion… maybe I missed it… but taking the scripture story of Jonah at face value simply means interpreting it as it is written, not necessarily implying the historical veracity or accuracy of the story. There are many levels to scripture interpretation; look up the Jewish method of “midrash”.

There’s a key difference between a literal interpretation, and a literalist interpretation. The former simply means reading the story at face value: Jonah disobeyed God, Jonah was punished by a large fish. Whether the fish is symbolic or real is immaterial to the story. Going beyond that of course the story prefigures the story of Christ’s passion. On the other hand Christ didn’t disobey His Father. As you dig into it, it gets more nuanced.

But the literal view, does not imply you have to believe the scientific and historical accuracy of being swallowed by a fish.

In my own case, I was driven away from evangelical fundamentalism (by evangelical fundamentalist friends) because of scriptural literalism. I was driven back to my Church, our Church precisely because she didn’t require it (plus a bunch of other reasons, but the allowing of critical thought was probably the major one… Gregorian chant was probably a strong second ). If I were forced to suspend critical thought, and not be allowed room to believe many stories in the Bible as symbolic or allegorical, I probably would not be able to remain in the Church.

Wisely, the Church doesn’t require it of me, nor does she require of the faithful to not believe the story of Jonah as literalistic. She recognizes that she must accommodate many paths to salvation, for people of widely varying intellectual ability, education level, personal issues, etc. She has her scholars to work on the fundamentals and explain them to us.

But to suggest that, apart from what is de fide, she requires all of us to fit in the same neat box would be to feed disunity, not unity, as it would probably incite many to leave. “Us and them” isn’t the motto for Catholics, “believe as I do or else…” is a recipe for disaster; alas we see too much of this already with labeling Catholics as traditionalist and liberals. The Church is instead a body of people on a path to salvation; many of those paths do lead to perdition, but many very differing paths also lead to a unity: Truth and the Beatific Vision.

Thank you for the clarification on literal and literalistic. It was much needed in this discussion.

From everything that I’ve read, the literal sense of the Scriptures traditionally meant what the Scriptures say at face value. It didn’t imply the historical facticity of everything contained in the Scriptures. It was/is just an attempt to understand what the Scriptures are actually trying to say.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Perhaps you do not correctly recall the Popes calling the creation account a myth either. This is why I hunt out citations, first of all to assure myself that the individual actually said what I think or have been told he said, and secondly to enable those who are reading to verify it also and to satisfy themselves that the words have not been taken out of context.

I am not suggesting that they are divinely inspired or beyond error in the way that scripture is, but when we establish a general consensus of teaching from the patristic fathers then we are building a picture of Sacred Tradition. And Sacred Tradition has all the authority of Sacred Scripture. You however are refusing to submit to this tradition. Every time I provide a quote from a church father you ignore it saying “they were in error”. You then even claim that the scriptures which they were reading were defective because they were not in the original languages. So what makes you so sure that your interpretation is better than St. Augustines who you claim is in error? What makes you put yourself above the Saint and Doctor on this point? You are a Hebrew Scholar are you? Or you reckon that modern translaters of Hebrew into English have a better idea than the translaters of the Septuagint who translated Hebrew into Greek in 300 BC. And the ancient Church which used the Septuagint got it all so wrong in concluding that it was a literal story of true events.

They certainly are not if they teach that Jonah was not a literally true story. They have departed from the Scripture and Sacred Tradition as I have extensively shown unanimously regards the story as literally true. We are not talking about nuances of the text, we are talking about the bold entirety of the text and of all the accounts of patristic fathers about the text. Statements by Tobit, Jesus Christ as well all indicating that it was a literal true events.
St Robert Bellarmine (Notice that word Saint) and Doctor (Of which there are only 33 in all of church history) stated that to believe that Jacob did not have twelve sons was a departure from the faith. If so then we can clearly infer that he would have equally inferred that he would have regarded a denial of the literal events of Jonah as also being a departure from the faith.
St. Robert Bellarmine

Petrel, please be careful. You are putting words in my mouth. I never said Augustine was wrong. I did say that it is possible for him to be wrong on this point, among others. He himself admitted he was wrong on a large number of points, as evidenced by the voluminous “Retractions” that he wrote towards the end of his life. Also, he did not read from the Septuagint, as the earlier Fathers did, he read from the Vulgate; a translation that was found faulty and later corrected (after Augustine’s time).

I have not dismissed the quotes that you have provided. I have simply said that they don’t sufficiently prove that the Fathers and Doctors took a literalist (thanks OraLabora for the distinction) approach to the Scriptures. For the early Church, the literal sense of Scripture simply meant what the text said, not the historical facticity of the event contained in the text.

Also, you have not provided sufficient quotes to “prove” that a literalist interpretation of Jonah and the whale was the universal interpretation of the Patristic period. What you have quoted have been homilies and treatise on the Resurrection that point back to the story of Jonah as a sign/type of the three-day entombment and third-day Resurrection. A type doesn’t have to be literally historical in order to point to its anti-type.

Your inference that since Robert Bellarmine (saint and Doctor) believed that Jacob literally had twelve sons then we can presume he also believed the story of Jonah and the whale was literally true is shaky at best. I believe in the historical fact of Jesus Christ, and the historical facticity of the accounts of his life as contained in the New Testament, but that doesn’t infer that I also believe Jonah was literally swallowed up by a whale (even though I do).

Of course we are not talking about the nuances of the text itself, as you rightly pointed out. What we are talking about is what the human author - and through him, the Divine - intended to convey to us in writing down this story. Did he intend to write literal historical fact? If so, what was the predominant mode of writing history at that time (In order to answer that you must first answer roughly when the text was written down)? If he did not intend to convey literal historical fact, then what was intended? What style of writing did he employ? These are all very difficult questions to answer. I don’t pretend to be able to, and neither do the majority of the bishops and Popes throughout history. That’s why the Church has always given a special role to theologians (yes, even lay theologians).

As to the pertinent texts from John Paul II and Pope Benedict, John Paul II’s quote can be found towards the beginning of the book I cited above, better known as the “Theology of the Body.” Cardinal Ratzinger’s book is called “In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of Creation and the Fall.” Sadly my copy is either buried on my bookshelf, or it’s now in the possession of a friend. But he does admit that the account of creation and the Fall was not intended to convey literal historical fact, but something greater.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Notice how you are muddying the waters here. I never said that. I never departed from speaking about the book of Jonah. You on the other hand seem to think that if it could be shown that any book of the Bible was shown to not be literal/historical that therefore every book of the Bible could be regarded as not being literal/historical.

I am not muddying the waters. You yourself have said that if we start to doubt the historical facticity of any one thing in the Bible, then our faith is doomed to fall apart. I have also never implied that if any one book can be proven not to be historical, then all the books can be proven not to be historical. I have affirmed that each individual book of the Bible had separate human authors, each with his own purpose in writing. Some of them did indeed intend to convey historical events and facts, but not all of them did. The question that I ask, and that has divided scholars and theologians for some time, is whether or not the author of Jonah’s story intended to convey historical fact, or something else.

Very hotly split. That is overstating it I would say. If anything, I am an Alexandrian allegorist. They emphasises the allegorical interpretation of scripture in that they searched out hidden meanings of the scripture. However no Alexandrian allegorist took his allegory to the extreme of denying the real and actual historical event of history. St. Clement of Alexandria who was the chief of the alexandrian allegorists had this to say in Stromata Book 1.

It is certainly not an overstatement to say that Alexandria and Antioch were very hotly split over how to interpret the Scriptures. Their debates led to numerous breaks in communion with one another, each one happily resolved.

Notice that he gives the story of Jonah a specific time in which it occurred and lists it with an extensive number of other historical events. Are you intending to deny that all of these events also are allegories and have no basis in historical fact? Notice that he dates Jonah as a peer of Tobit which agrees with the scripture I previously mentioned from Tobit 14 which mentions Jonahs prophecy against Ninevah as a real and actual event.

No one is doubting that Jonah was a real person, sent by God to Nineva, etc. What is being called into question is whether or not the author meant “belly of a whale” in the way we think he does, or whether it was a possible euphemism for something else back then. When people are in trouble today we say they are “in deep s—.” That doesn’t mean that they are literally up to their eyeballs in dung. It is just another way of saying they are in trouble. Is it possible that “belly of a whale” could also have meant something else back then? Perhaps that Jonah was simply imprisoned? I don’t know. But I suppose such euphemisms are possible.

And which of these numerous Church Fathers who made an effort to learn Hebrew and study the historical and cultural mileu so that they could understand the nuances and literary genre of the writings and other such learned confuddlements EVER concluded that the story of Jonah WAS NOT a real and true historical event. NOT ONE. Not a single quote from a single Church Father who you believe is better qualified than St. Augustine on the subject has been provided by you or any of your supporters. NOT ONE.

The reason no one has provided a quote is that no one Father has commented directly on the story of Jonah, at least among the Father’s you’ve provided. They were all commenting on the Resurrection of Christ, indicating the story of Jonah as a type of the Resurrection. Again, a type does not have to be literally historical in order for the anti-type to fulfill it.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

One final thing, Petrel. You keep deriding modern Biblical scholars and dismissing them as though they are all ultra-liberal leftists who want to deny that anything in the Bible is actually historical. You keep off-handedly deriding “the wisdom of men” as though human wisdom and education are bad things. But God gave us our intellects for a reason. How can it be a bad thing when we use our God-given intellects to search the Scriptures in order to hear His voice?

I hope you are also aware that each one of the Church Fathers you have quoted were highly educated men. St. Augustine himself was the ancient equivalent of a Ph.D. in philosophy. St. Jerome could be considered the first Ph.D. in Biblical Studies or Linguistics. St. John Chrysostom was well-schooled in philosophy and could be considered to have a Ph.D. in theology. Again, these were very highly educated men who used their education and intellectual gifts in God’s service. And no, they did not always agree with one another on how to interpret the Scriptures. That’s simply historical fact.

St. Thomas Aquinas (notice the word Saint), himself a doctor of the Church, was considered somewhat liberal in his time, and it took a couple of centuries before his writings were recognized as completely orthodox.

Similarly we are now finding that the writings of other ancient Fathers which were once thought to be heterodox are in fact orthodox when properly understood - and this nearly two millennia after the fact.

I do admit that education can lead to intellectual pride, and that for some it has at best led to a watering down of the Faith. But that is certainly not true of all Bible scholars today, and most certainly not true of my former professors.

 

[vz71]

Please do not take personal ownership of the Church which is the same one that I belong to. By using this phraseology you are implying that we are going to different churches. You could have used the expression “Our Church”.

I could have, but the literal interpretation you claim is necessary is foreign to me as well as my church.

I have already provided many quotes from Church Fathers. What would you hear from me that you would listen to?

An infallible declaration of the Church.

As soon as we start getting clever after the fashion of the world we start to question what we were told at bedtime by Grandma and start thinking that our professors know better than Grandma.
Because professors are learned and clever and can detect the subtle nuances of the original Hebrew text and the style of the literary genre whereas Grandma is just simplistic and child-like, unlearned with no letters after her name.
What incredible intellectual vanity that is

Indeed it is an incredible vanity to pigeonhole education in such a manner.
It is not a bad thing to learn more about scripture.

 

[Ohana]

Thank you all for your comments. They are illuminating and will give me ample background for discussing this with my young teen grandson. Problem will be to distill this down into “teen” language! As in "Yo, Jonah:! Just kidding. Seriously, thank you for your help.

 

[petrel]

No one is doubting that Jonah was a real person, sent by God to Nineva, etc. What is being called into question is whether or not the author meant “belly of a whale” in the way we think he does, or whether it was a possible euphemism for something else back then. When people are in trouble today we say they are “in deep s—.” That doesn’t mean that they are literally up to their eyeballs in dung. It is just another way of saying they are in trouble. Is it possible that “belly of a whale” could also have meant something else back then? Perhaps that Jonah was simply imprisoned? I don’t know. But I suppose such euphemisms are possible.

Maybe, perhaps, calling things into question, I suppose, I don’t know, Is it possible.
Obviously I see that you have the courage of your convictions with regards to this scripture.
This is where the man of faith differs from the unbeliever. The man of faith knows absolutely and for sure. There are no if’s, but’s or maybe’s.
This is why the scripture says “Faith is the evidence of things unseen”.
So on what grounds do you admit that Jonah was a real person and yet doubt so many of the details of the story? How do you decide, or how does anyone decide which elements of the story to believe and which elements to disbelieve? How can anyone assume to have enough authority to subject the scriptures to their scrutiny to decide which bits to believe and which to reject as being allegorical.

It is an utter fancy to assume that the expression belly of a whale is merely an euphenism.
And when the scripture says “The LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah”. What is that an euphenism for? And what is “From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God” a euphenism for. And this “And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land” is a euphenism for what?

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Maybe, perhaps, calling things into question, I suppose, I don’t know, Is it possible.
Obviously I see that you have the courage of your convictions with regards to this scripture.
This is where the man of faith differs from the unbeliever. The man of faith knows absolutely and for sure. There are no if’s, but’s or maybe’s.
This is why the scripture says “Faith is the evidence of things unseen”.
So on what grounds do you admit that Jonah was a real person and yet doubt so many of the details of the story? How do you decide, or how does anyone decide which elements of the story to believe and which elements to disbelieve? How can anyone assume to have enough authority to subject the scriptures to their scrutiny to decide which bits to believe and which to reject as being allegorical.

It is an utter fancy to assume that the expression belly of a whale is merely an euphenism.
And when the scripture says “The LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah”. What is that an euphenism for? And what is “From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God” a euphenism for. And this “And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land” is a euphenism for what?

Are you saying that I (or anyone else) am not a man of faith because I call into question the historical facticity of books in the Bible that were never meant to convey history in the first place? This is not a baited question. I’m sincerely curious because I cannot imagine one of my brothers or sisters in Christ making such an uncharitable presumption.

Faith does not have to be blind and unquestioning. The Church, in her Tradition, has always taught that we ought to question our Faith, to “search the Scriptures,” to seek understanding. “Fides quarens intellectum” is a famous saying from Augustine. Although often translated as “Faith seeking understanding” it carries the sense of intellectual searching and questioning. There is nothing wrong with questioning. And when we question the Scriptures and search deeply into them, we find that the meaning is often deeper and more profound that what is contained on the surface.

The reason I would suggest studying some modern biblical scholars is not because I believe they are greater than the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church. The Fathers and Doctors obviously have some immense insight into the meaning of the Scriptures. But since the times of the various Fathers and Doctors you have been mentioning - in fact, in just the past couple of centuries - there have been numerous discoveries in the fields of archaeology, linguistics, literature, history, etc. that have led to great advances in understanding the Scriptures according to the sense in which they were originally written. You may pass this off as “the wisdom of men,” but the Church certainly doesn’t overlook such advances.

With regards to your other question about the story of Jonah, I’d say go to the commentaries and see what they have to say. Bear in mind the distinctions in biblical interoperation between the literal meaning and the spiritual meaning. The literal meaning can be, and often is, very difficult to decipher because the human authors of the Scriptures were writing at specific times, to specific people, within specific cultural contexts, in specific ways, that are unique to them and that in many cases no longer exist today. This is why there are people today and in the past who have devoted there lives to understanding the literal meaning of the Scriptures, and the Church has numerous institutes of higher education and numerous rules dedicated to studying this aspect of the Scriptures. Our own recent Popes, in their numerous writings, have often deferred to “the experts” in biblical studies in their own interpretations of the Scriptures. Just take a look at the footnotes and bibliography of Pope Benedict’s “Jesus of Nazareth” series or John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

Of course I’d never dismiss the writings of the Fathers and Doctors. But often their insights are aimed not so much at the literal sense of the Scriptures as at the spiritual senses. In this they are often more insightful than modern biblical scholars (with the exception, perhaps of Dr. Scott Hahn, who has remarkable insight that is consistent with the Patristic tradition of spiritual exegesis). But in discerning the literal sense of the Scriptures, again, modern biblical exegesis has made great advances even beyond what the Church Fathers and Doctors have had to say, for the simple fact that we have more resources available to us thanks to the various recent archaeological discoveries that have been made.

 

[petrel]

Are you saying that I (or anyone else) am not a man of faith because I call into question the historical facticity of books in the Bible that were never meant to convey history in the first place? This is not a baited question. I’m sincerely curious because I cannot imagine one of my brothers or sisters in Christ making such an uncharitable presumption.

Of course not. Sorry if my style of writing led you to infer that. I certainly regard you as a brother in the faith. What I was pointing out was your equivocation about the story of Jonah with all your if’s, maybe’s and perhaps’s was typical of a man who lacks faith. I was implying that you lack faith in the story of Jonah as related in Sacred Scripture and as interpreted by Sacred Tradition.

Also your premise that the Book of Jonah was never intended to be read as a history is utterly false. That is your own circular reasoning at play. You have concluded that it was not intended as a history in order to open the door to rejecting it as a history. Please provide evidence of any kind to show that the Book of Jonah is not intended to convey history.

Faith does not have to be blind and unquestioning. The Church, in her Tradition, has always taught that we ought to question our Faith, to “search the Scriptures,” to seek understanding.

Please provide evidence that the Church teaches us to question our faith. The Catechism states.
Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated, doubt can lead to spiritual blindness” (CCC #2088).

“Fides quarens intellectum” is a famous saying from Augustine. Although often translated as “Faith seeking understanding” it carries the sense of intellectual searching and questioning. There is nothing wrong with questioning. And when we question the Scriptures and search deeply into them, we find that the meaning is often deeper and more profound that what is contained on the surface.

So you see reason as your authority for overthrowing what you knew by faith as a young boy. Augustine never intended that usage of his words. Like all the fathers he regarded his faith to be utterly supported by reason. Hence his insistence that the book of Jonah was a real and literal story. Are you suggesting that Augustine lacked reason or a blind faith about Jonah because he aggressively insisted that it was a true historical event?
My reason affirms what I know from faith, however faith is a higher authority. Reason must support faith, otherwise we know for certain that our reason is flawed or is based on faulty information. Nor is faith corrected by new information or new ideas. Faith is not changeable and is a sure foundation which our lives can be built. This is what I was referring to you about all your if’s and maybe’s about the book of Jonah which you made in a previous post. Perhaps the foundation of a man’s life might be little disrupted by a loss of faith in the book of Jonah, but if these vacillations and doubts spread into other areas of his faith (as they very likely will) then the whole foundation of the man of faith is threatened.

 

[petrel]

The reason I would suggest studying some modern biblical scholars is not because I believe they are greater than the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church. The Fathers and Doctors obviously have some immense insight into the meaning of the Scriptures. But since the times of the various Fathers and Doctors you have been mentioning - in fact, in just the past couple of centuries - there have been numerous discoveries in the fields of archaeology, linguistics, literature, history, etc. that have led to great advances in understanding the Scriptures according to the sense in which they were originally written. You may pass this off as “the wisdom of men,” but the Church certainly doesn’t overlook such advances.

Nor do I, but as yet you have provided no evidence of any of these “numerous discoveries, linguistics, literature, history etc. etc.” which contradicts the Fathers. You have not even given me any citations to any of these so-called modern biblical scholars which I should read. What are these amazing discoveries which overthrow the established belief in the literal history of Jonah. So far you have provided NONE.

With regards to your other question about the story of Jonah, I’d say go to the commentaries and see what they have to say. Bear in mind the distinctions in biblical interoperation between the literal meaning and the spiritual meaning. The literal meaning can be, and often is, very difficult to decipher because the human authors of the Scriptures were writing at specific times, to specific people, within specific cultural contexts, in specific ways, that are unique to them and that in many cases no longer exist today. This is why there are people today and in the past who have devoted there lives to understanding the literal meaning of the Scriptures, and the Church has numerous institutes of higher education and numerous rules dedicated to studying this aspect of the Scriptures. Our own recent Popes, in their numerous writings, have often deferred to “the experts” in biblical studies in their own interpretations of the Scriptures. Just take a look at the footnotes and bibliography of Pope Benedict’s “Jesus of Nazareth” series or John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

What a lot of mumbo jumbo and evasion. You cannot answer my other questions so you fob me off to go and read commentaries, of which you do not even provide me references to. Nor have you provided any evidence that you yourself has read these commentaries. As I said before the church has a very important rule of biblical interpretation which states that we have no authority of any kind from any higher education which allows us to interpret the scriptures in any sense other than that which we received via Sacred Tradition. And as I have shown most clearly is that the Sacred Tradition is unanimous in regarding the story of Jonah as a literal and true event.

Are you really telling me that the literal meaning of the story of Jonah and the Whale is hard to decipher. Please tell me you are not and that I have misread. I read the story to my 12 year old and he immediately understood the story.

Of course I’d never dismiss the writings of the Fathers and Doctors. But often their insights are aimed not so much at the literal sense of the Scriptures as at the spiritual senses.

And often as in the case of Augustine in particular they were not always delivering lofty spiritual insights but were in fact directly defending the literal historicity of the story against the incredulity of the pagans.

In this they are often more insightful than modern biblical scholars (with the exception, perhaps of Dr. Scott Hahn, who has remarkable insight that is consistent with the Patristic tradition of spiritual exegesis). But in discerning the literal sense of the Scriptures, again, modern biblical exegesis has made great advances even beyond what the Church Fathers and Doctors have had to say, for the simple fact that we have more resources available to us thanks to the various recent archaeological discoveries that have been made.

Again. Please provide evidence of these archaelogical discoveries which overthrow the story of Jonah. Which are these “great advances” by modern exegetes which transcends the fathers in wisdom and insight? So far you have shown us none, and expect us to take what you say on faith.

 

[cornbread_r2]

[snip]

As I said before the church has a very important rule of biblical interpretation which states that we have no authority of any kind from any higher education which allows us to interpret the scriptures in any sense other than that which we received via Sacred Tradition. And as I have shown most clearly is that the Sacred Tradition is unanimous in regarding the story of Jonah as a literal and true event

[snip]

Can you cite a source for this very important rule that you reference?

According to this CAF article by Jimmy Akins the Church has officially interpreted only seven or so Bible verses and the story of Jonah isn’t among them.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

I was implying that you lack faith in the story of Jonah as related in Sacred Scripture and as interpreted by Sacred Tradition.

Also your premise that the Book of Jonah was never intended to be read as a history is utterly false. That is your own circular reasoning at play. You have concluded that it was not intended as a history in order to open the door to rejecting it as a history. Please provide evidence of any kind to show that the Book of Jonah is not intended to convey history.

Please provide evidence that the Church teaches us to question our faith. The Catechism states.
Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated, doubt can lead to spiritual blindness” (CCC #2088).

So you see reason as your authority for overthrowing what you knew by faith as a young boy. Augustine never intended that usage of his words. Like all the fathers he regarded his faith to be utterly supported by reason. Hence his insistence that the book of Jonah was a real and literal story. Are you suggesting that Augustine lacked reason or a blind faith about Jonah because he aggressively insisted that it was a true historical event?
My reason affirms what I know from faith, however faith is a higher authority. Reason must support faith, otherwise we know for certain that our reason is flawed or is based on faulty information. Nor is faith corrected by new information or new ideas. Faith is not changeable and is a sure foundation which our lives can be built. This is what I was referring to you about all your if’s and maybe’s about the book of Jonah which you made in a previous post. Perhaps the foundation of a man’s life might be little disrupted by a loss of faith in the book of Jonah, but if these vacillations and doubts spread into other areas of his faith (as they very likely will) then the whole foundation of the man of faith is threatened.

I don’t know how to do the multiple quotes thing, so I’m going to handle this paragraph by paragraph.

1. I do not lack faith in the story of Jonah as related by Scripture and interpreted by Tradition. As I have pointed out multiple times, the story of Jonah as related by Scripture isn’t necessarily history. Again, this has been the topic of much debate among biblical scholars (men and women who have dedicated their lives to studying the Scriptures). Some scholars do believe that it is indeed an historical treatise, others believe, based off of textual evidence, that the story is a parable. The Catholic Bible Dictionary points out that whether or not we believe the story to be historical or a parable, the interpretation is the same.

You quotes from the Fathers have not proven that they interpreted the story as being literal history. Those quotes have only proven that the Fathers saw the story, as related in the Scriptures, as a type/foreshadowing/prefiguring of the burial and Resurrection of Christ.

You have also provided NO quotes from the Church authorities that have indicated that this story must be interpreted as literal. The only quotes you have provided state that the Scriptures are to be interpreted in the sense and according to the Spirit in which they were written. You mistake the “sense” of Scripture to mean that every book in the Bible is an historical account. But that’s not what “sense” means.

1. You have skewed my words again. I have never said that the book of Jonah was not intended to be read as historical. I HAVE said, time and again, that I in fact believe it to be historical. What I have also said is that the Church does not REQUIRE us to believe that the story is literal history, and that believe it is not does not in any way damage one’s faith. Again I reference the Catholic Bible Dictionary - written by the eminent Dr. Scott Hahn and containing both a “nihil obstat” and an “imprimatur” (in other words, the approval of the Magisterium that nothing contained in the work is contrary to the Faith) - where, under the two sections on Jonah, it says that it is indeed possible for the story to be either literal history, or a parable. In either case the interpretation is the same.
2. You equate questioning with doubt. In fact the two are very different. I quoted this before, but it’s worth quoting again, “A thousand difficulties do not make a single doubt” (Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman). It is possible, and necessary, for us to question the Faith, not in doubt, but for the sake of coming to a deeper understanding of what it is we believe. Such truly humble questioning leads us into a deeper relationship with almighty God.

Since you are here confusing “questioning” with “doubting” your quote from the Catechism is irrelevant.

1. The words I quoted form St. Augustine certainly mean that we our to search our Faith in order to come to deeper understanding. Intellectual searching necessitates questioning (not doubting). And again, you have not demonstrated that Augustine insisted we must believe that the story of Jonah and the whale was literal history. All you have shown is that he believed the story to be a type of Christ.

Of course you are correct that the Faith is not corrected by new information. However, I understanding of certain Biblical events, or the Biblical literature itself, is subject to change based on new information. This does not necessitate a change in the Faith. Lucky for us the understanding of the story of Jonah as literal history is NOT an object of the Faith. Of course, according to our Faith, we are allowed to believe it is literal history; but we are not REQUIRED to believe it. So feel free to follow your grandmother on the matter, but don’t force the rest of us to since the Church herself doesn’t.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Nor do I, but as yet you have provided no evidence of any of these “numerous discoveries, linguistics, literature, history etc. etc.” which contradicts the Fathers. You have not even given me any citations to any of these so-called modern biblical scholars which I should read. What are these amazing discoveries which overthrow the established belief in the literal history of Jonah. So far you have provided NONE.

What a lot of mumbo jumbo and evasion. You cannot answer my other questions so you fob me off to go and read commentaries, of which you do not even provide me references to. Nor have you provided any evidence that you yourself has read these commentaries. As I said before the church has a very important rule of biblical interpretation which states that we have no authority of any kind from any higher education which allows us to interpret the scriptures in any sense other than that which we received via Sacred Tradition. And as I have shown most clearly is that the Sacred Tradition is unanimous in regarding the story of Jonah as a literal and true event.

Are you really telling me that the literal meaning of the story of Jonah and the Whale is hard to decipher. Please tell me you are not and that I have misread. I read the story to my 12 year old and he immediately understood the story.

And often as in the case of Augustine in particular they were not always delivering lofty spiritual insights but were in fact directly defending the literal historicity of the story against the incredulity of the pagans.

Again. Please provide evidence of these archaelogical discoveries which overthrow the story of Jonah. Which are these “great advances” by modern exegetes which transcends the fathers in wisdom and insight? So far you have shown us none, and expect us to take what you say on faith.

Petrel, I simply can’t argue this anymore. I feel as though we’re both just spinning our wheels in the mud. God bless you on your faith journey. May He draw you more deeply into his divine Light, and may you one day behold Him face to face.

Peace to you.

 

[petrel]

Can you cite a source for this very important rule that you reference?

According to this CAF article by Jimmy Akins the Church has officially interpreted only seven or so Bible verses and the story of Jonah isn’t among them.

Quite easily thankyou.
Council of Trent

“But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts [previous paragraph listed the books of the Bible including the deuterocanon], as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.

Contemn meens to express disapproval of. So it is invalid to not receive the Latin Vulgate and the traditional interpretations of the scripture and those who do so are anathema.

“Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod,–considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,–ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.”

For example the pretext of modern authors knowing better the nuances of the original languages than did those who translated the Latin Vulgate.

“Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,–in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, –wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,–whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,–hath held and doth hold; [Page 20] or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established.”

In other words we are not allowed to alter the sense of the scripture from what we have received.

Pope Leo XIII Providentissimus Deus

1. But he must not on that account consider that it is forbidden, when just cause exists, to push inquiry and exposition beyond what the Fathers have done; provided he carefully observes the rule so wisely laid down by St. Augustine-not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires;(40) a rule to which it is the more necessary to adhere strictly in these times, when the thirst for novelty and unrestrained freedom of thought make the danger of error most real and proximate. Neither should those passages be neglected which the Fathers have understood in an allegorical or figurative sense, more especially when such interpretation is justified by the literal, and when it rests on the authority of many.

 

[petrel]

Here is a terrific quote from Pope Pius XII Humani Generis

1. Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church’s vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual. By means of this new exegesis of the Old Testament, which today in the Church is a sealed book, would finally be thrown open to all the faithful. By this method, they say, all difficulties vanish, difficulties which hinder only those who adhere to the literal meaning of the Scriptures.

These are very sentiments of the new exegisis which have been advanced by you and others on this thread which the Pope is here correcting.

CCC 116

“The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.”

The very literal sense which you here in this thread want to cast doubt upon. If therefore you throw out the literal sense of the Scripture then in fact you are throwing out all the senses of the Scripture which are based on the literal. In short, you are throwing out the scripture.

The First Vatican Council

“In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret holy scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers” (On Revelation, April 24, 1870, chapter 2, no. 9).

Pope Leo XIII again

“the Holy Fathers, We say, are of supreme authority, whenever they all interpret in one and the same manner any text of the Bible, as pertaining to the doctrine of faith or morals; for their unanimity clearly evinces that such interpretation has come down from the Apostles as a matter of Catholic faith” (Providentissimus Deus, 1893, no. 14).

The First Vatican Council is here rejecting the advances of Science such as modern textual criticism and archaeology which threaten the established traditional beliefs of the scriptures.

“the Church, which together with the apostolic office of teaching, has received a charge to guard the deposit of faith, derives from God the right and duty of proscribing false science, lest any should be deceived by philosophy and vain deceit. Therefore all faithful Christians are not only forbidden to defend as legitimate conclusions of science such opinions as are known to be contrary to the doctrines of the faith, especially if they have been condemned by the Church, but are altogether bound to account them as errors which put on the fallacious appearance of truth.”

The story of Jonah is a deposit of the faith which needs to be guarded and protected from the onslaughts of modern exegesis which attempts to overthow what we have received.

Pope Leo XIII again

“But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden either to narrow its inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture or to admit that the sacred writer has erred…For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; and so far is it from being impossible that any error can coexist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church” (No. 20).

So when the Book of Jonah says that Jonah was swallowed by a great whale or great fish then you or someone else comes along and says that this is not true, it is just a didactic fiction, then you come face to face with Providentissimus Deus and are flat out accusing the scripture of erring. Let’s call a spade a spade. If you say that Jonah did not get swallowed by a great whale or fish, then you are denying the scripture which says he was.

Yet you hide from all of these statements by expecting the Popes to hold your hand and list every single event in scripture and dogmatically proclaim the literal sense of it as being true before you will believe. You are using Dr. James White tactic here. “Does the Catholic church have a definitive dogmatic interpretation on such and such scripture”. He does this because when the opponent answers NO he imagines that his opponents case is weakened in some way. Not so. The Scriptures are supreme and divine, they stand alone and do not need the Pope to dogmatically prove them to be so. So too is the Sacred Tradition, supreme and divine, standing alone without the need of the Pope to dogmatically prove them to be so.

So you deny, ignore, argue around the Word of God? If you or anyone in this forum, or the OP’s grandson, reject or contemn the ultimate authority of the Word of God, then of what use is appealling to the lesser authority of the Pope?

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

You misunderstand what ALL of those quotes mean by the literal sense. The literal sense is simply that sense which was intended by the authors. This is why exegetes HAVE to ask whether a book in the Bible is historical, prophetic, parable, myth, wisdom, etc. Obviously not all books in the Bible are history. How can the Psalms and the Book of Wisdom be history? You have yet to establish that the author of the Book of Jonah intended to convey history. What HE intends is the literal sense. (Again, I believe he did intend to convey history)

Vatican I condemned the use of modern exegetical techniques and the use of scientific discoveries in the attempt to determine the literal sense? Then why are such things now permitted BY THE CHURCH? (cf. Dei Verbum, Divino Afflante Spiritu, Interpretation of the Bible in the Church [from the Pontifical Biblical Commission]…).

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

So when the Book of Jonah says that Jonah was swallowed by a great whale or great fish then you or someone else comes along and says that this is not true, it is just a didactic fiction, then you come face to face with Providentissimus Deus and are flat out accusing the scripture of erring. Let’s call a spade a spade. If you say that Jonah did not get swallowed by a great whale or fish, then you are denying the scripture which says he was.

Yet you hide from all of these statements by expecting the Popes to hold your hand and list every single event in scripture and dogmatically proclaim the literal sense of it as being true before you will believe. You are using Dr. James White tactic here. “Does the Catholic church have a definitive dogmatic interpretation on such and such scripture”. He does this because when the opponent answers NO he imagines that his opponents case is weakened in some way. Not so. The Scriptures are supreme and divine, they stand alone and do not need the Pope to dogmatically prove them to be so. So too is the Sacred Tradition, supreme and divine, standing alone without the need of the Pope to dogmatically prove them to be so.

So you deny, ignore, argue around the Word of God? If you or anyone in this forum, or the OP’s grandson, reject or contemn the ultimate authority of the Word of God, then of what use is appealling to the lesser authority of the Pope?

I have not accused the Scriptures of erring. Saying such is simply absurd. How can something be in error if it’s not actually affirming what you think it’s affirming? The error would be in the mind of the one receiving, not in the word written.

The bolded quote is the pinnacle of biblical fundamentalism. This has been condemned by the Church authorities (cf. “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” put out by the Pontifical Biblical Commission).

Sacred Tradition isn’t the sum quotes of a handful of saints (and you’ve only provided and handful, which I’ve shown don’t necessarily affirm what you want them to affirm). Tradition is living and in need of constant interpretation. That’s why we have the Magisterium (the Pope and Bishops in communion with one another). In recent time the Popes and Bishops have all give their approval to modern biblical exegesis. Like it or not, that’s the way it is.

 

[petrel]

You misunderstand what ALL of those quotes mean by the literal sense. The literal sense is simply that sense which was intended by the authors. This is why exegetes HAVE to ask whether a book in the Bible is historical, prophetic, parable, myth, wisdom, etc. Obviously not all books in the Bible are history. How can the Psalms and the Book of Wisdom be history? You have yet to establish that the author of the Book of Jonah intended to convey history. What HE intends is the literal sense. (Again, I believe he did intend to convey history)

Vatican I condemned the use of modern exegetical techniques and the use of scientific discoveries in the attempt to determine the literal sense? Then why are such things now permitted BY THE CHURCH? (cf. Dei Verbum, Divino Afflante Spiritu, Interpretation of the Bible in the Church [from the Pontifical Biblical Commission]…).

This is just another example of the tactics of the gainsayers. When confronted with evidence which irrefutably confounds their case, they refuse to yield and submit to that authority, but instead err further by actually altering the commonly understood terminology of language.
When faced with this kind of obstinance there is invariably only one remaining option, to cease dialogue.

 

[petrel]

I have not accused the Scriptures of erring.
Saying such is simply absurd. How can something be in error if it’s not actually affirming what you think it’s affirming? The error would be in the mind of the one receiving, not in the word written.

The scriptures say that Jonah was swallowed by a whale or great fish. If anybody denies that this happened then they are denying the scripture. It’s as simple as that.
Of course modern exegetes are too sophisticated to say that “the scripture errs” but the effect is the same. They deny the veracity of the scripture. They do not believe that what the scripture says happened actually happened.

The bolded quote is the pinnacle of biblical fundamentalism. This has been condemned by the Church authorities (cf. “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” put out by the Pontifical Biblical Commission).
Please demonstrate how the above mentioned article condemns the statement “The Scriptures are supreme and divine, they stand alone and do not need the Pope to dogmatically prove them to be so” .
Of course it is easy to label me a fundamentalist because I believe in the literal truth of the scriptures as real historical events. This is invalid. This makes St. Augustine a fundamentalist as well.
Let us use the fancy terminology from the Pontifical Biblical Commission for the sake of the argument. The Pontifical Commission states.

1. The Literal Sense
   It is not only legitimate, it is also absolutely necessary to seek to define the precise meaning of texts as
   produced by their authors–what is called the “literal” meaning. St. Thomas Aquinas had already affirmed the
   fundamental importance of this sense (S. Th. I, q. 1,a. 10, ad 1).

This is basically what I am saying. The literal sense is absolutely necessary. But this is the great deception which I am noticing. People who actually do not believe that the literal events being described in the book of Jonah believe that they are following the literal sense, and then they create another label “literalist” to those who do believe that the events actually happened. I utterly deny that this is the intent of the Biblical Commission.

The commission goes on to state

It is not sufficient to translate a text word for word in order to obtain its literal sense. One must understand the text according to the literary conventions of the time. When a text is metaphorical, its literal sense is not that which flows immediately from a word-to-word translation (e.g. “Let your loins be girt”: Lk. 12:35), but that which corresponds to the metaphorical use of these terms (“Be ready for action”). When it is a question of a story, the literal sense does not necessarily imply belief that the facts recounted actually took place, for a story need not belong to the genre of history but be instead a work of imaginative fiction.

I certainly admit that there is metaphorical language in the scriptures. Notice however that the Pontifical Commission does not include “Jonah in the belly of the whale” in one of its examples of metaphorical language. Also, surely the Pontifical Commission is not saying that any book of the Scripture is a work of imaginative fiction. If it is then I will have to utterly reject the Commission as an example of modernism run rampant in these latter days. What they must be alluding to is accounts such as the Story of the Good Samaritan which is a work of imaginitive fiction by our Lord designed to illustrate a higher spiritual principle. But really, you would have to a very silly literalist to insist that this was a real story.