Who is your favorite Bible character(s)?

[una_ecclesia]

Hmm… I understood the story of Jonah not so much that Jonah survived in the whale, but rather that he actually died and then God brought him back from the dead. His prayer inside the fish sounds like he sees himself inside Sheol, and it ties in nicely with the reference Jesus makes to the “sign of Jonah” when he is talking about his own resurrection.

 

[Agathon]

I’m pretty sure the edict she and Mordecai created gave the Jews the right to defend themselves. If she didn’t, the Holocaust would have been several centuries earlier.

 

[adgloriam]

@Tis_Bearself

There is precedence regarding resuscitation in Scripture and it gets mentioned explicitly by name - the case of prophet Elias and the son of the widow. The sign of Jonah to the Ninivites was of repentance and penitence - you can however tie those to Eschatology being given it’s final realization.

Also, the reference to ‘Tarsis’ gives room for speculation as to how far the Phoenician ships could actually reach (some even place it on the Indian Ocean while there are plenty of accounts thousands of years later that boats sailing the red sea where nothing more than rafts.) To the best of knowledge the Phoenicians reach short beyond “the feet of Hercules” aka Gibraltar then held to be the edge/end of the world. Personally, I can see Phoenician stone quarry’s form my window. So this is where they extended to their farthest reach.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

There is precedence regarding resuscitation in Scripture and it gets mentioned explicitly by name - the case of prophet Elias and the son of the widow. The sign of Jonah to the Ninivites was of repentance and penitence - you can however tie those to Eschatology being given it’s final realization.

Yes, I see that interpretation.

Please remember, all, that we are talking about “favorite Bible characters” and I am mentioning one I liked as a child. Kids of 5 do not sit around contemplating “eschatology”.

With respect to the previous poster above who said Jonah died in the whale and this was a foreshadowing of raising from the dead in the NT: I have never seen the Jonah story presented to children as “Jonah dies in the whale and is brought back to life”. It was very clearly presented in my children’s book and every other time I heard the story when young as him staying alive (and annoyed) inside the whale.

It is possible that it is taught to adults sometimes as a “Jonah died in the whale” but I personally have not seen this in any adult Bible study either. The whale is seen more as God saving Jonah, and therefore life-giving, because otherwise he would have died/ was at the point of death in the sea, having been cast overboard.

 

[adgloriam]

and I am mentioning one I liked as a child.

Makes two of us.

 

[Autumn-Smoke]

I love all the “Righteous” Kings of Judah as described in the Old Testament.
The Kings who led their people in the ways of God and “did right in the sight of the Lord.”

Some of these were King Abijah, King Jotham, King Hezekiah who restored the Temple in Jerusalem to its former glory, started Passover celebrations in Jerusalem, and King Josiah who walked in the ways of his ancestor David, who destroyed all the idols in Judah, who continued with the Passover celebrations that Hezekiah initiated and discovered a new book of laws written by Moses, which moved him very much, so he intensified his efforts to bring his people back to God.