Shark Week: Did a Great White Swallow Jonah?


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In case you missed it, last night marked this year's commencement of Shark Week, a wildly popular, annual installation on the Discovery Channel all about—you guessed it—sharks. It features content ranging from the history of sharks to everybody's favorite—shark attack stories. If this video doesn't make you want to stay out of the water I don't know what will. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=HLoHZ9hajAQ Interestingly, there is one biblical story that, with the proper digging, may have the potential to land itself a primetime showing on this popular series. What could it be? Jonah and the Whale. Indeed, there is compelling evidence out there that Jonah wasn't swallowed by a whale or some other enormous fish, but was actually engulfed by a great white or some other kind of shark. Crazy, I know. While it would undoubtedly make his survival story sound even cooler, is this just fantastical folklore? Or, is there a legitimate case to be made that Jonah was swallowed by the great great great (x30) grandfather of Jaws himself? Let's take a look. A 'Great Fish' via ChurchofJesusChrist.org Many of us are aware...

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42 minutes ago, MrShorty said:

As one open to the idea that the story of Jonah might be inspired fiction and not something that really happened, this reminded me of this routine by Abbott and Costello where Bud kept interrupting Lou about inconsequential details of the story:

 

Indeed.  

As I understand it, there are some textual clues within the book of Jonah that suggest the authors didn’t intend for it to be taken literally.

That said, if God can keep a human alive in the stomach of a shark, He can certainly do it in the body of a whale.  To argue that a shark is scientifically more plausible than a whale, seems to me like straining at gnats after swallowing a camel.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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I believe that there are some things very difficult to explain in the story of Jonah.  First - I do not believe Jonah survived - I believe he died.  Second there is no creature that could have swallowed Jonah and swam to Nineveh in three days.  Even with our most modern water vehicles there is not one that fast.

I am of the mind that when Jonah was deposited near Nineveh his body was a dead rotting corpse.  Then, while people were watching, Jonah was raised from the dead by divine power.  That this event scared the people of Nineveh, including the King that when Jonah called the wicked to repentance that there was not one person that objected.  Has that ever happened before or since - that an entire city repents of great sins without even one objection????

Jesus had something interesting to say about this epoch.  I am of the mind that the whole story is prophetically more about the resurrection of Christ and the salvation of the wicked than it was about the prophet Jonah and a place called Nineveh.

 

The Traveler

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