Jonah Story Literal or not?

[TheLittleLady]

We do not know.

I have a blown glass whale with a little human figure praying inside. I know that I have had my “in the belly of the beast” times when that figure reminded me to keep praying.

I believe that Jonah was a real person, a prophet who went through a very difficult trial. His vigor for preaching repentance was renewed through surviving this trial, yet, after that success he again succomed to depression.

Christ knew that we needed such a lesson, so, He told the well known story of Jonah to enforce His point. The lesson is true, even if it is not literal.

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

You may state that you do not believe in the veracity to these OT accounts. Unless you were there, it is just your personal opinion.

I think you have misquoted me when meaning to quote another

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

Shakespeare’s Henry V was a cool guy and probably existed and it probably all happened just like that.

Could you expand on this as it relates to the OP’s question , what is the correlation between Henry V and Jonah or the Kings of Ancient Israel

 

[ProdglArchitect]

mr_silly:

we might consider the OT reports of the sun standing still for hours and of the sun actually moving back several hours. Modernists would insist that these events are not remotely possible.

In this instance, at least, the modernists would be right. If the earth had suddenly stopped rotating on its axis, nobody would have survived to tell the tale.

I agree that it’s not physically possible, but that does not exclude the potential of miraculous intervention.

Everything is under God’s control and He is capable of suspending the laws of physics if He so chooses, so there’s absolutely no reason He couldn’t stop the Earth in it’s track while preserving everything from damage on account of the sudden stop.

I’m not saying He definitely did that, I have no issue with either side of the debate, but to say that it is impossible to God is antithetical to Christian belief, as there’s nothing inherently contradictory about it.

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

You may want to consider the reality that these stories appeared literally centuries after the time periods in which they’re fabled to take place.

Daniel. Jonah. Many others.

The importance is the moral. Not the historicity, which they always come up short on.

If we have something pinning a narrative down to a time frame , for example like this one where we know the time frame of a kings reign, birth and death, we can be pretty confident which century and half of the century an event occured.
The main one being a prophet running away from God, and a city repenting when that prophet finally went about his business

Read Kings, its a great who’s who scroll, and how kings met their demise or took over as King. Even states who was a good or bad king.
Is the entire book of Jonah literal, it boils down to the whale fish and that incident between God, Jonah, a plant and a hungry worm, and a hot dry deadly east wind which occurs even today and is nasty.

 

[Nickos]

It is a medieval shroud created. Not the actual one. Heck there are even debates were his tomb was. The shroud is scientifically proven to be created at the medieval period

 

[Hume]

I’m reasonably confident that the tomb is in/under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Can’t be sure, but the oldest traditions are subject to less drift. The place has been destroyed several times, so at any rate the tomb isn’t the same as it was in ad 29 or so.

 

[Nickos]

I agree as well. But i wont lose my sleep debating that

 

[John_Martin]

Turns out, Sperm Whales do have a reported history of swallowing people and, while it’s unlikely anyone would survive all that long, 3 days (and nights) but be at the outer edge of survivability (or it could just be allegorical because, after all, it’s not like Jonah had his phone on him).

Jonah died, with a prayer at his last breath as he was swallowed.
He was dead for three days when the fish vomited him up by the shore where he washed ashore.
Then he was commanded by God, “Arise”, same word as is used for the little girl (“cum”, “ק֛וּם”) when Jesus raised her to life after she died.
It is literal, he did not miraculously stay alive in the fish three days, but was “buried at sea in the fish” for three days, dead.
The “miracle” is that he was told by God to rise, alive, even though dead.

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

Jonah did not die, he was busy composing his poem while in the belly of the fish. He was busy struggling with his conscience.

The word

cum”, “ק֛וּם”)

meant get up, get off your backside and go UP to Ninevah, do what God has asked you, now you wasted all that time trying to running away,
going down to a seaport to catch a ship, going down into the ship, down into its hold, down into the ocean via a fish.

get up! in comparison to go down. There is a huge word smithing going on throughout Jonah between go up, and go down, sinking down deeper and deeper right down eventually to the bottom of the ocean in a fish, in comparison to going up to Ninevah and then up to sit on a hill overlooking Ninevah. Hopefully to watch God destroy it and its people.

 

[RobertAdams]

Much of the story should be understood as littoral.

 

[goout]

I take the first sentence in the Bible to be an absolute truth, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth”.

If God can create the universe; then every other miracle is almost insignificant by comparison. If God can create life from no life; he should also have the ability to keep Jonah alive in a whale for three days, this seems like child’s play.

God can also communicate saving Truth in whatever inspired manner God wishes. If that includes things like poetry, metaphor, and allegory for human beings to understand, then that is God’s prerogative.

 

[whatistrue]

Much of the story should be understood as littoral.

Nothing to say but

 

[goout]

Question for anyone interested in thinking about it:

Is there a difference between “literal” and “factual”?

 

[Anesti33]

First we should establish definitions:
Catechism of the Catholic Church:

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.” 83

 

[goout]

First we should establish definitions:
Catechism of the Catholic Church:

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.” 83

bingo. Literal.
How does that contrast with factual?

 

[RobertAdams]

Depends on your role as a speaker, writer, reader:

It’s raining cats and dogs.

“It’s literally raining cats and dogs” - not factual (and not literal)

“Poster RobertAdams literally just typed 'it’s raining cat’s and dogs” - factual that it was literal but not that it rained cats and dogs.

 

[goout]

Depends on your role as a speaker, writer, reader:

It’s raining cats and dogs.

“It’s literally raining cats and dogs” - not factual (and not literal)

“Poster RobertAdams literally just typed 'it’s raining cat’s and dogs” - factual that it was literal but not that it rained cats and dogs.

Every sentence in the bible has a primary literal sense.
How does that contrast with the concept of being factual?

 

[Hume]

Zing!

10 char

 

[goout]

If something didn’t literally happen it is not factual.

That’s not quite the question.
The question concerns the primary literal sense of scripture as the Church speaks about in the CCC, and it’s relation to “factual”.