Bob Crowley;5542807:
If you think I am going to leave this contradiction of the NT alone by accusing the Tanach for reporting the case of Jonas, you are mistaken. We Jews are a little more intelligent than you think to get upset at your Jonny-come-lately discovery that the book of Jonas is a parable. All that story of Jonas happened during a vision of the Prophet. Everything is possible in a vision or dream. That’s why I told Lapell to forget about Jonas and explain the blunder of Matthew 12:40 to specify three days and three nights within 24 hours.
The context of the passage refers to the demand by the Scribes and Pharisees who demanded a sign. Christ replied that only an evil generation demands a sign, and that the only sign it would be given was His death and resurrection, of which the episode of Jonah was a type. I doubt if the people of the time would have been so interested in a literal 3 days and 3 nights - they’d have realised that was not the thrust of the message.
But you’re so legalistic with your 20th century mindset, I doubt whether you’d be able to accept the thrust of the message, which was not a literal 3 days and 3 nights, any more than the oft repeated “40 days” in the Jewish Scriptures always meant a literal 40 days.
From the Collegeville Bible Commentary (Catholic)
(Matthew) “12:38-42 The sign of Jonah (see Luke 11:29-32). Despite the miracles that Jesus had already worked, the scribes and Pharisees ask for more signs. The exasperated Jesus promises them only the sign of Jonah. The basic meaning of the sign of Jonah seems to involve the preaching of repentance to non-Jews and its acceptance by them. When the Old Testament prophet Jonah preached conversion of heart to the people of Nineveh, they acted on Jonah’s preaching and repented (v.41) The queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem to hear the wisdom of Solomon (see 1 Kgs 10:1-6), and she was duly impressed by him (v. 42). Jesus surpasses Jonah and Solomon and so the scribes and Pharisees have good reason to repent. In verse 40, Matthew has given a second interpretation of the sign of Johah: The three days spent by the prophet Jonah inside the fish (see Jonah 2) were a type of foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and his resurrection.”
It’s an illustration by “type” which is how Scripture should be taught.
Secondly we don’t know what the 3 days of Jonah were either. They could well have been Friday to Sunday.