Jonah and the Whale

[Warrenton]

Have you studied and analyzed the original Hebrew texts and understood the literary forms most common in the days that that text was written?

There are no original texts of the Old or New Testament.

The best we have are old copies.

 

[petrel]

I find it fascinating that there are people that defend a literal view of a whale and at the same time take the words of Saints as evidence for this belief when it can be shown that the whale was not even a whale.

Did this story happen? I do not know.
I do know my salvation does not hinge upon acceptance of the literal view.
If it did, we are all in trouble since the actual meaning of the words is in question.

That being said, I have little doubt that science will eventually discover a way that this story could have happened that fits what is written in scripture reasonably well.
After all, how many things within the bible has science already found to be literal truth where people initially thought allegory?

Where is our faith? It is a miracle. Do you think that science will ever find evidence which will support the story? Of course not. Science does not even recognise the possibility of miracles. That is why we need faith to believe the scriptures. If we have no faith then of course we are going to doubt.
Your salvation absolutely hinges upon your faith. To disbelieve because of a lack of faith is a weakening of our eternal security. If we continue in disbelief then over the years we will start to doubt more and more of the scriptures and our faith becomes steadily weaker. Just like sin. Our salvation may not hinge upon the committing of a venial sin, but nevertheless venial sin weakens the structure of holiness and opens us up to grave sin or even apostasy.
Therefore lack of faith and the harbouring of doubts such as you have expressed saying “I do not know” is a weakness of faith which must be addressed. Yet you do not see it as even being a problem or of any concern whatsoever. This is of course a tactic of the enemy. If we don’t even recognise a weakness in our faith then of course we will never address the problem. Having gained this foothold the enemy then widens the chink in our armour and seeks out the heart and the marrow to slay us with a major attack on our faith.
How many men have grown up believing Jonah and Whale at bedtime as children and have died as old men disbelieving all that they had been taught in their childhood? Let us all receive the scriptures and the Kingdom of God like little children.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Petrel,

As to the Popes calling the creation accounts “myth” (in the ancient sense of the word), the pertinent quote from John Paul II can be found towards the beginning of “Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body.” The source for Pope Benedict/Cardinal Ratzinger is in a book of his specifically on the creation accounts, I don’t recall the title.

You are aware that Augustine was one of the first Church Fathers to rely solely on the Latin Vulgate (a version which has since been corrected because of errors discovered in the translation) for his commentaries on the Scriptures. This, of course, does not make all of his speculations wrong, but, coupled with the fact that he was as human as the rest of us, it does make his interpretations prone to error themselves. In fact, at the end of his life he wrote several volumes of Retractions, making an honest attempt to correct some of his more erroneous theological speculations.

I have a great deal of respect for the Church Fathers and Doctors, and I turn to their writings frequently for inspiration and enrichment. However, the fact that they are saints, Fathers, and/or Doctors does not mean that they are above error. They are still human after all.

It is not fair of you to question the faith of my professors who taught me Scripture. I can assure you that each one of them was/is extremely faithful to the Church, Tradition, and the Magisterium. They are also steeped in the writings of the Councils, Church Fathers, and Church Doctors. Heck, they’ve read a good number of them in the original languages, thus better grasping the nuances of the texts than I can. That is why I trust them.

As to your claim that the early Church unanimously embraced a literal/historical understanding of each individual book of the Scriptures, it is simply unfounded. Debates over such things were as heated then as they are today. In fact, the great exegetical and catechetical schools of Antioch and Alexandria were very hotly split over the issue. Alexandria wanted to promote the allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures and minimize their historical significance, whereas Antioch wanted to minimize any allegorical interpretation for a more historical understanding… actually that’s wrong, Antioch wasn’t so concerned with a literal historical understanding as it was with a “historical” understanding itself (this “historical” understanding being roughly equivalent to today’s attempt to understand the historical and literary context of the Scriptures in order to more fully understand what the texts are actually trying to communicate). This “historical” understanding does not presuppose that all of the texts of Scripture are trying to convey literal history (especially history as we perceive it today). Rather, it looks at a text and attempts to understand what the author/Author of the text is trying to tell us by examining the linguistic, historical, and literary context of that time. Without understanding how people communicated when those texts were written, we run the risk of misinterpreting what the author/Author’s intent was in setting the text in paper and ink.

Finally, there were numerous Church Fathers who made the effort to learn both Hebrew and Greek in order to more fully understand what the text itself was saying. They even went so far as to study the history of the periods during which the Scriptures were written so that they could better understand the literary genre of the writings by understanding the historical and cultural milieu which gave birth to those writings. St. Jerome is but one among many. To my knowledge, St. Augustine is not. Augustine admirably attempted to wed the Scriptures with philosophy - a thing which had been attempted innumerable times in the past. He was not so much a Scripture scholar as a philosopher. His academic training was in philosophy after all.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

There are no original texts of the Old or New Testament.

The best we have are old copies.

True, but at least some of those old copies are in the original languages. But even if this lessens our respect for the Hebrew and Greek editions of the Bible, it should lessen our view of the Latin Vulgate even more, in that the Vulgate is a translation of a translation, that/those translation(s) (Greek and/or Hebrew) being (potentially faulty) copies.

There comes a point when we just have to trust that the divine Author of the Scriptures has in fact preserved them in the purity.

 

[Warrenton]

I agree that the whale is pretty much beaten to death…

I thought so too, until reading the things contained in this post!

Jesus performed almost all of his teaching using fictional stories.

But it is a matter of tradition which teachings were set out in parables. This is totally different than writing a completely fictional book, and putting someone’s name on it that never existed, and passing it off as fact.

To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to “literary forms.” For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse.

This is not dogma. This is a suggested method for scripture analysis.

The authors are also given full reign to express the truths of revelation in the form of their choosing as human authors:

The structure of this argument is odd. Vatican 2 appears to be cited for the proposition that it confers poetic license upon the prophets. This is beyond silly. The prophets confered tradition and scripture to the men of Vatican 2 and to us. A Church council can no more dictate terms to the prophets than it can direct providence. The prophets recorded their prophecies, and the chronicle writers the chronicles, under the direct guidance of the Holy Ghost. The Jews of old declared the prophecies true, and the Church adopted them. The canon is closed. It cannot be reopened by the expedient method of “reinterpration” that what was fact is now fiction.

Additionally, we are required to consider what a contemporary reader would understand:

No diaries have survived from Jonah’s day, except of course Jonah’s book. It stands to reason that we cannot know what the people who heard Jonah in life thought, apart that they realized his exteme holiness.

T

he story of Jonah is full of signs that the contemporary reader would not have taken as history.

Talk about fiction. Stating that one can imagine exactly how “contemporary” readers would have understood Jonah is laughable. From this remove, the only thing we can understand is that they thought the events happened, and that is why they recognized the book as inspired.

Its author had come to the realization that God loved other nations. To teach such an insight would be considered nothing short of treason to God and country. How was he to confront his people with this radical insight? The author of the book of Jonah solved this problem by composing a humorous fictional narrative as a means of teaching his audience a profound but frightening religious truth. Evidence in the setting, the plot, and the tone indicates that the intent of the author is not to report history.

This makes no sense if one thinks it through. The premise is that the Jews of yore were too narrow minded and stupid to accept a prophecy when preached to them. Therefore, the author had to charm them with a funny story. And, lo and behold, yokels that they were, they fell for it and even put the amusing little anecdote in the collections of inspired writings. That would be a more unusual miracle than if Jonah had actually been swallowed by the whale!

For the same reasons, the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke are mostly fiction - they exactly match the same stories about other significant people of the time and clearly have the formal literary form known as Infancy Narrative.

Mostly fiction?

Alright. Let’s reason this out together. We ought not believe in Jonah, because it’s outrageous. We ought not believe in Genesis, because “science” has “disproved” it. We ought not believe that Christ was born of a virgin, or in a stable, or during the reign of Herod, or that a census was underway, or that angels sang to shepherds, or, one supposes, in three wise men or shining stars.

All these stories are the fictions of narrow minded, bigoted, “primitives” who, when they were’nt making up nonsensical tales were scratching lice and slaying strangers.

It is said, “literalists” have strange views. Yet here things get really interesting – we should absolutely, positively believe the Church they started is, and has remained, infallible to this very day! Why, it is so true we can even quote one of its recent councils to prove that Jonah never existed!

 

[Warrenton]

True, but at least some of those old copies are in the original languages.

Surely, you are not suggesting that Hebrew texts have something like “insert laugh track here” in Jonah, or in Genesis?

Either the scriptures can be translated or, as Mohammed always maintained, they cannot.

Which is it to be?

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Petrel,

I do not wish to imply that I think your childlike faith, well… childish. Childlike faith is an admirable thing. I’ve personally struggled throughout my spiritual life to maintain a childlike faith in our Heavenly Father. Being the father of two children - one of whom is special-needs - and currently unemployed, I continue to struggle to maintain a childlike faith and trust in our Father, knowing that some way, somehow He will provide for us.

But do not equate childlike and simplistic. We are meant to question our Faith. We are meant to have difficulties with it and to struggle with it. We are even meant to have intellectual difficulties with our Faith. John Henry Cardinal Newman once said, “A thousand difficulties do not make a single doubt.”

The fact is that the Church does not require us to believe in a literal historical understanding of the story of Jonah and the whale. It does require us to examine the text in order to grasp the historical and cultural milieu that gave birth to the text, the genre/literary style in which it was written, the audience to whom it was written, etc. and then to draw conclusions about the text based on that information.

A strict literal historical adherence to the text is no less than biblical fundamentalism, an error that has been condemned by the Church.

The Church recognizes that there are some texts in the Bible that are, in fact, historical (i.e. the Gospels at the very least). But the Church also recognizes that there are texts in the Bible that are not historical because the author never intended to convey historical fact (at least the way we understand it today).

Approaching the Scriptures in childlike humility does not mean that we take everything they say at face value. Rather, it means examining the texts to see what their author/Author is actually trying to tell us, and then accepting that. I remember in a couple of classes I took (one on Lectio Divina, the other as an introduction to the New Testament), both taught by the same professor, our professor told us about when he was out of work for six months. He spent that time in prayerfully contemplating the Scriptures. This prayerful contemplation was modeled on Lectio Divina - an ancient monastic method for praying the Scriptures - so it naturally involved a great deal of study as well. He said that this period of prayer, contemplation and study was one of the most challenging times of his life because he had to let go of many erroneous preconceptions he had of the Scriptures. For a truly humble person, study and education doesn’t lead to arrogance, it leads to deeper humility.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Surely, you are not suggesting that Hebrew texts have something like “insert laugh track here” in Jonah, or in Genesis?

Either the scriptures can be translated or, as Mohammed always maintained, they cannot.

Which is it to be?

They can certainly be translated. But it must also be admitted that a great deal is lost in translation. If this were not the case, then there wouldn’t be such instance controversy over the translation of the Latin Mass into English. Nor would there be the necessity of constant revisions of said translation. This is why the Popes, at least since Pius XII in his “Divino Afflante Spiritu” have declared that Scripture scholars must learn the original languages of the Scriptures in order to better understand what the authors of the Scriptures were actually trying to tell us.

Translation is rarely a word-for-word process. It would almost be more accurate to call translation “interpretation.”

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Someone mentioned the narratives of Jesus’ birth being “mostly fiction.” This is a great illustration. The two accounts of Jesus’ ancestors, contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, notably do not match one another. Since it is impossible for both to be correct if we impose a modern understanding of genealogy on those accounts, then we must conclude that at least one of those accounts is false, if not both.

The fact is, the Jewish people in Jesus’ day and in his cultural context had a different way of speaking about relatives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc. than we do today. It is possible for both texts to be correct if we understand what the authors were trying to tell us, how they viewed genealogies, who they were writing to, etc.

 

[Timothysis]

The fact is, the Jewish people in Jesus’ day and in his cultural context had a different way of speaking about relatives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc. than we do today. It is possible for both texts to be correct if we understand what the authors were trying to tell us, how they viewed genealogies, who they were writing to, etc.

This is the whole crux of the issue that our friends here refuse to admit; they will not apply the books of the bible to the culture from which they arose, instead trying to force them into a 20th (or 21st) century American understanding of history. The fact of the matter, though, is that the Church and her ministers have never done such a thing. It is clear enough when one examines the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. But for some reason, it gives comfort to some to believe that the world and all of its wonders were created in 6 24-hour days, or that Jonah was literally swallowed by a whale. Since the Church allows such points of view, then they are free to hold them but they eventually come off sounding more like an evangelical fundamentalist than a knowledgeable catholic.

It makes me think of the movie Sergeant York, when hillbilly Alvin resists going off to fight in World War I because “the books agin killin’.”

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Tim,

Personally I find it much easier to accept the Scriptures in their entirety at face value, imposing my own 20/21st Century, post-Enlightenment understanding of history onto the texts. What takes real faith, for me, is to recognize that the Scriptures were not written in that context. I have to come out, or rather be pulled out of my little box in order to really understand what the authors/Author are trying to tell me. This forces me to let go of my misconceptions that keep me comfortable. It really is much easier to think about the Scriptures as a divine book, without reference to the human element, in much the same way as it is to think of the Church as a purely divine institution, without reference to the very real humanness of it.

 

[Warrenton]

But it must also be admitted that a great deal is lost in translation. If this were not the case, then there wouldn’t be such instance controversy over the translation of the Latin Mass into English.

I’m not sure the analagy is apt. Traditionalists see the problem with the new mass not chiefly in the translation, but in the rubrics themselves.

Moreover, if we use the new mass as a template, then the traditionalist will reply that modern people are simply incapable of proper translation. Why? Because they are inadequately spiritually formed for the task.

But this is academic. Let us return to Jonah. I have yet to read anything regarding the translation itself that leads us to believe the story is some kind of joke, rather than prophecy. I have read various hypothoses regarding the bigotry of ancient Jews, of their assumed inability to accept hard messages without fictionalizing them, of what the believed was funny. None of that sources in translation. Moreover, I am curious why none of the Fathers, who lived either at the end of the classical period or shortly thereafter, indicate Jonah is merely a funny tale.

In short, the whole argument boils down to “ancient Jews would not have taken a tale like Jonah seriously.” This statement, standing alone, may either be correct or incorrect. If it is correct, however, it is correct based on evidence of the ancient Jewish mindset. It would not be provable based on translation. If we agree on at least this much, my question is: what ancient sources claim Jonah is not factual? If there are any, we ought to be discussing them.

 

[Warrenton]

This is the whole crux of the issue that our friends here refuse to admit; they will not apply the books of the bible to the culture from which they arose, instead trying to force them into a 20th (or 21st) century American understanding of history. "

The Fathers wrote and preached extensively about Jonah. Christ preached about Jonah. Jonah spoke about his own experiences (assuming we agree there was a Jonah to preach). Not one of the foregoing sources indicate that the account is fiction. If I am wrong about Jonah, I am not wrong as an American, but rather as a Greek from around 400 AD.

Further, those who hold the view that Jonah, or the Gospels, are not factually accurate, hold modern 21st century views. The re-examination and the search to find a new interpretation rests on their discomfort with the traditional understanding. They do not want their agnostic friends to laugh at their “primitive” views. So, they strain to find a “rational” interpretation of scripture, whose common denominator appears to be the exicising of miracles.

In this regard, their conclusions are all one way: the lessening of the physical manifestation of the power of the Lord on human affairs. Here is a prophecy about their so-called scholarship: we will wait in vain for the day when they claim scripture overlooked a miracle, or downplayed a miracle.

And the second prophecy is like unto the first: as with the watchman in the psalm, they labor in vain to watch the city: their agnostic friends are still laughing at them, every time they go to mass or abstain from the pleasures the world doth surely hold!

It is clear enough when one examines the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation.

Here it is again, the curious expedient of trying to use a 20th century council to establish something about a prophecy that occured circa 800 BC! Pray tell, how can anything change the past, especially after nearly 3000 years? Which of us believes in specious miracles, and takes jokes literally?!?

But for some reason, it gives comfort to some to believe that the world and all of its wonders were created in 6 24-hour days, or that Jonah was literally swallowed by a whale. Since the Church allows such points of view, then they are free to hold them but they eventually come off sounding more like an evangelical fundamentalist than a knowledgeable catholic.

Presumably, most miracles occur for our “comfort”? If not to strengthen belief, why were they performed? Why, indeed, would a writer ever claim they were performed, even if they never happened, if not to induce some sort of conviction in the mind of the reader or listener?

Additionally, the person who believes literally that which is factual perceives the working out of prophecy on history. Jonah is significant because his prophecies relate to the life of Christ. The Gospels fulfill the prophecies foretold of the messiah. Genesis relates how God created the world, and how sin entered into it.

The modern attempts to deny the truth of history lead to hopeless confusion: if there were no Adam and Eve, or if they were not people, or if there were no tree of knowledge, what does anyone propose was responsible for the fall? Does anyone seriously advance the notion that some proto-human creature, apelike in appearance, living in Ulduvai Gorge, had a moral knowledge capable of offending an omnicient diety such that the entire lamentable story of mankind is justified?

Such a so-called “educated Catholic” is one step away from an agnostic. It leads inevitably to the strange notion that salvation history is all in the telling of the tale: the moral is true, the tale is not. But anyone can see that this reduces the Lord to just a teller of tales, that truth is simply in the telling, not the doing. This view is not even simplistic. It is laughable in just the way a man sawing off the limb upon which he sits is laughable.

 

[vz71]

Where is our faith? It is a miracle. Do you think that science will ever find evidence which will support the story?

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.

Your salvation absolutely hinges upon your faith. To disbelieve because of a lack of faith is a weakening of our eternal security. If we continue in disbelief then over the years we will start to doubt more and more of the scriptures and our faith becomes steadily weaker. Just like sin. Our salvation may not hinge upon the committing of a venial sin, but nevertheless venial sin weakens the structure of holiness and opens us up to grave sin or even apostasy.
Therefore lack of faith and the harbouring of doubts such as you have expressed saying “I do not know” is a weakness of faith which must be addressed.

Please indicate the specific documents within the Catechism that specify my faith must be what you claim it to be.

Yet you do not see it as even being a problem or of any concern whatsoever. This is of course a tactic of the enemy. If we don’t even recognise a weakness in our faith then of course we will never address the problem. Having gained this foothold the enemy then widens the chink in our armour and seeks out the heart and the marrow to slay us with a major attack on our faith.

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.

How many men have grown up believing Jonah and Whale at bedtime as children and have died as old men disbelieving all that they had been taught in their childhood? Let us all receive the scriptures and the Kingdom of God like little children.

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?

 

[OraLabora]

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.

 

[petrel]

Petrel,

As to the Popes calling the creation accounts “myth” (in the ancient sense of the word), the pertinent quote from John Paul II can be found towards the beginning of “Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body.” The source for Pope Benedict/Cardinal Ratzinger is in a book of his specifically on the creation accounts, I don’t recall the title.

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.

You are aware that Augustine was one of the first Church Fathers to rely solely on the Latin Vulgate (a version which has since been corrected because of errors discovered in the translation) for his commentaries on the Scriptures. This, of course, does not make all of his speculations wrong, but, coupled with the fact that he was as human as the rest of us, it does make his interpretations prone to error themselves. In fact, at the end of his life he wrote several volumes of Retractions, making an honest attempt to correct some of his more erroneous theological speculations.

I have a great deal of respect for the Church Fathers and Doctors, and I turn to their writings frequently for inspiration and enrichment. However, the fact that they are saints, Fathers, and/or Doctors does not mean that they are above error. They are still human after all.

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.

It is not fair of you to question the faith of my professors who taught me Scripture. I can assure you that each one of them was/is extremely faithful to the Church, Tradition, and the Magisterium. They are also steeped in the writings of the Councils, Church Fathers, and Church Doctors. Heck, they’ve read a good number of them in the original languages, thus better grasping the nuances of the texts than I can. That is why I trust them.

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

Consider now, with your sense of prudence, whether the Church can tolerate giving Scripture a meaning contrary to the Holy Fathers and to all the Greek and Latin commentators. Nor can one answer that this is not a matter of faith, since if it is not a matter of faith “as regards the topic,” it is a matter of faith “as regards the speaker”; and so it would be heretical to say that Abraham did not have two children and Jacob twelve, as well as to say that Christ was not born of a virgin, because both are said by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophets and the apostles.

 

[petrel]

As to your claim that the early Church unanimously embraced a literal/historical understanding of each individual book of the Scriptures, it is simply unfounded.

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.

Debates over such things were as heated then as they are today. In fact, the great exegetical and catechetical schools of Antioch and Alexandria were very hotly split over the issue. Alexandria wanted to promote the allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures and minimize their historical significance, whereas Antioch wanted to minimize any allegorical interpretation for a more historical understanding… actually that’s wrong, Antioch wasn’t so concerned with a literal historical understanding as it was with a “historical” understanding itself (this “historical” understanding being roughly equivalent to today’s attempt to understand the historical and literary context of the Scriptures in order to more fully understand what the texts are actually trying to communicate). This “historical” understanding does not presuppose that all of the texts of Scripture are trying to convey literal history (especially history as we perceive it today). Rather, it looks at a text and attempts to understand what the author/Author of the text is trying to tell us by examining the linguistic, historical, and literary context of that time. Without understanding how people communicated when those texts were written, we run the risk of misinterpreting what the author/Author’s intent was in setting the text in paper and ink.

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.

Jeremiah and Ambacum were still prophesying in the time of Zedekiah. In the fifth year of his reign Ezekiel prophesied at Babylon; after him Nahum, then Daniel. After him, again, Haggai and Zechariah prophesied in the time of Darius the First for two years; and then the angel among the twelve. After Haggai and Zechariah, Nehemiah, the chief cup-bearer of Artaxerxes, the son of Acheli the Israelite, built the city of Jerusalem and restored the temple. During the captivity lived Esther and Mordecai, whose book is still extant, as also that of the Maccabees. During this captivity Mishael, Ananias, and Azarias, refusing to worship the image, and being thrown into a furnace of fire, were saved by the appearance of an angel. At that time, on account of the serpent, Daniel was thrown into the den of lions; but being preserved through the providence of God by Ambacub, he is restored on the seventh day. At this period, too, occurred the sign of Jona; and Tobias, through the assistance of the angel Raphael, married Sarah, the demon having killed her seven first suitors; and after the marriage of Tobias, his father Tobit recovered his sight. At that time Zorobabel, having by his wisdom overcome his opponents, and obtained leave from Darius for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, returned with Esdras to his native land; and by him the redemption of the people and the revisal and restoration of the inspired oracles were effected; and the passover of deliverance celebrated, and marriage with aliens dissolved

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.

Finally, there were numerous Church Fathers who made the effort to learn both Hebrew and Greek in order to more fully understand what the text itself was saying. They even went so far as to study the history of the periods during which the Scriptures were written so that they could better understand the literary genre of the writings by understanding the historical and cultural milieu which gave birth to those writings. St. Jerome is but one among many. To my knowledge, St. Augustine is not. Augustine admirably attempted to wed the Scriptures with philosophy - a thing which had been attempted innumerable times in the past. He was not so much a Scripture scholar as a philosopher. His academic training was in philosophy after all.

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.

 

[petrel]

No diaries have survived from Jonah’s day, except of course Jonah’s book. It stands to reason that we cannot know what the people who heard Jonah in life thought, apart that they realized his exteme holiness.

This is not strictly the case. We have the divinely insipired Sacred writings of Tobit who was a contemporary of Jonah who wrote this.

The Book of Tobit 14:8 And now, my son, depart out of Nineve, because that those things which the prophet Jonas spake shall surely come to pass

Notice that Tobit divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit believed that Jonah was a real person, that he was giving real prophecies to a real city called Ninevah. Surely he would not warn his son to leave the city if he did not believe it was a real danger.

So if the book of Jonah is a fiction then the book of Tobit must also be a fiction or conspiracy designed to make a fictional story look true.

Notice that none of my opponents have even bothered to address this important bit of evidence which corroborates the literal account of Jonah. They do not address this because they cannot. Because it is irrefutable evidence of the historical reality of the story related in the Book of Jonah.

 

[petrel]

Pope St. Clement I, 7.5-7 (c. 95 AD): “Let us go through all generations, and learn that in generation and generation the Master has given a place of repentance to those willing to turn to Him. Noah preached repentance, and those who heard him were saved. Jonah preached repentance to the Ninevites; those who repented for their sins appeased God in praying, and received salvation, even though they were aliens [allotrioi] of God.”

Maybe nobody actually repented at all. Maybe the Ninevites did not actually appease God with their praying. If that is a legend and a myth then perhaps Noah was a legend and a myth and the Pope here. The first Pope after Peter got it all wrong in making us think that he was talking about a real example of people repenting.

 

[petrel]

“It was attrition which the Ninevites showed on the preaching of Jonah, and which led them to do penance, and ultimately to share in the divine mercy”

The Council of Trent speaking of penance and contrition uses the events of Jonah’s day as an evidence of the need for penance and contrition. If those events were a fiction then the Council’s argument is weakened because this is one of the most stunning examples of the power of penance in contrition in the Bible. In fact it is easy to agree that the miracle of Jonah and the Whale is outdone by the amazing example of repentance by the Ninevites who repented from the King down to the least of the servants.