Jonah and the "Whale"
Brett Palmer, © 2009
CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. The Apologists
III. A (Great) Fish by Any Other Name
IV. The "Great Fish"
V. "Could a man survive in a fish's belly?"
VI. Conclusion
VII. Notes
VIII. Sources
Children and adults alike have delighted for centuries over the story of a man who was swallowed by a monstrous fish. The imagination staggers at the idea of a human falling through the jaws of some enormous sea creature, living in the beast's belly for three days and nights only to be spit up on shore by the monster, unharmed. The story comes from the Bible, from the Old Testament book of Jonah. In the story, God calls a man, Jonah, to preach at the capitol of a hated enemy. The city was Nineveh, of the Assyrian Empire. But Jonah is reluctant. Instead of heeding God's command, he steals away on a ship headed for Spain--traveling in the opposite direction of where he is suppose to go! God stops the ship with a great storm and with it, terrifies the innocent sailors aboard. The sailors are certain that the storm is the fault of someone onboard the vessel. After casting lots they discover that Jonah is the cause of their peril. They realize that Jonah's god is most powerful and are reluctant to throw the troublemaker overboard, even though Jonah has told them doing so will quiet the tempest and save their lives. Finally, after begging God for forgiveness, the sailors do indeed toss Jonah overboard where the Lord has arranged a "great fish" to swallow him up. It is while in this fish that Jonah realizes the power of God and offers up a prayer of thanksgiving. God then causes the fish to spit Jonah back onto dry land where he travels to Nineveh, fulfilling the Lord's request.
In the modern age, the story has been dismissed by most as a fable or parable. Few seriously believe that this story is a historic recollection of an actual event. For example, Kenneth Kitchen does not mention Jonah in any context in his book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Yet, for Christian fundamentalists who depend on their belief that the Bible is historically and scientifically accurate from the very first words of Genesis to the closing lines of Revelation, the story tells of an actual man being swallowed by a very real fish, surviving in the belly of this beast for "three days and three nights," only to realize the power and majesty of God and fulfill his duty to preach in the very historical town of Nineveh. To doubt this story's historicity is to doubt not only the integrity of the Bible, but the trustworthiness of God and even of Jesus Christ himself.
Any explanation of a historical event that must postulate the intervention of a supernatural being is utterly useless to anyone desiring a scientific approach to a subject. Science does not deal with the supernatural by definition. Therefore, it is admirable when a Christian apologist is found who does not want to simply say there is no natural explanation for a given biblical event --that in order for a particular phenomenon to have occurred as described in the Bible it must have done so by supernatural means. It is good when such apologists want to take a reasoned and scientific approach to the claims made in the Bible. The two articles I will look at for this discussion make the claim that they are trying to make a reasoned (i.e. "scientific" or "plausible") explanation for the Jonah story. We will see if they can achieve this admirable goal.
The first article I want to consider comes from the Institute for Creation (ICR) website. This organization's Mission Statement proclaims that they examine the Bible's accuracy through scientific research which is exactly what we need if we're going to take seriously the claim that a man was swallowed whole by a mighty sea creature and lived to tell the tale. ICR's Mission Statement reads in full:
ICR equips believers with evidence of the Bible's accuracy and authority through scientific research, educational programs, and media presentations, all conducted within a thoroughly biblical framework.
The site's article under examination dealing with the Jonah story was written by Dr. John D. Morris, Ph.D. Dr. Morris is not a mere player on the ICR team, but is the son of Henry M. Morris, one of the founders of the Institute for Creation and its former president. After the senior Morris's death in 2006, Dr. John Morris became president of ICR. In his article, "Did Jonah Really Get Swallowed by a Whale?" Dr. Morris states,
As always, there are answers to the questions if we are willing to study and believe.
From the start, I was disappointed by Dr. Morris's approach to the subject. His ICR Mission Statement promised "scientific research" and one of the first things Dr. Morris calls his readers to do is to "believe." It may not matter what kind of "evidence" he brings forward, so long as a person is "willing to…believe" it supports his argument. No one presenting scientific research ever says that their data is available to others who are simply "willing to…believe." It's disheartening to learn so early in Dr. Morris's article that his intention to argue for the historicity of the Jonah story is not that the story has a "ring of truth" to it, or that there is necessarily nothing extraordinary about the claims in Jonah that contradict modern science. But at least we can be grateful that Dr. Morris admits right away that his main reason for defending the story of Jonah is because to do otherwise would be to compromise his literalist beliefs. Dr. Morris frankly admits,
First, let me say that the historicity of this account is vital to the Christian. Believing it is not an option, for Jesus Christ Himself believed it and made it a model for the doctrine of His resurrection. "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40).
Perhaps Dr. Morris meant to say that "merely believing it is not an option." But he didn't. Dr. Morris is clearly arguing that regardless of the astounding claims of the Jonah story, regardless of the scientific evidence (or lack thereof) regarding the survival of a human being in "great fish" or a whale, regardless of the contextual criticism that may allow one to read the story of Jonah as allegory, Christians (or, at least, Dr. Morris's definition of Christians) do not have an option to merely believe the story of Jonah is historically true because the New Testament reports that "Jesus Christ Himself believed it and made it a model for the doctrine of His resurrection." Thus, Dr. Morris and those like him are forced to find a "rational" or "plausible" explanation for the tale while reminding themselves that regardless of where their studies lead them, they must always "believe". The issue for Dr. Morris is not whether or not good scientific evidence exists that supports the story of Jonah (because, as an apologist, he'll use whatever scant "evidence" he can dig up and hand wave over the gaps), it is the fact that if the story is false, Jesus was mistaken about his own belief in the historicity of the story and, as a particular type of Christian, Dr. Morris can't have that as an option.
Another Christian apologist, whose work I will examine along with Dr. Morris's, starts with a promise to examine the scientific plausibility of the Jonah story. "Scott" (as he identifies himself) on his website Jesus, Dinosaurs and More, states in his article "The Scientific accuracy of Jonah…A whale of a tale ",
This page will examine the Scientific [sic] plausibility of the Book of "Jonah".
Yet, like Dr. Morris, he virtually abandons his promise before he even gets started. He writes,
Though these documented cases shed some light on the story's credibility, the Biblical account is a miraculous one. And we must remember to Trust [sic] the Bible first and foremost, even if no other evidence supporting it exists.
Science holds itself to demonstrable evidence. When Christian apologists make claims about their Bible that they say are scientific, naturally they should be held to the same standards to which science is held. They remove themselves from serious contention by making claims as Dr. Morris and Scott have that "miraculous" stories in the Bible are to be believed, "even if no other evidence" exists to support them.
Like Dr. Morris, Scott makes an admission late in his article that his motives for defending the historicity of the Jonah story are far from merely scientific. He states,
The historical accuracy of Jonah is important for it foreshadows Christ's own death and resurrection. Christ would not associate the most important event in history (his being raised from the dead) with a mere fairy tale.
Regardless of these excuses, both these men go on in their articles to try and demonstrate how the story of Jonah could have happened historically in an attempt to rescue it from the scientific ridicule the tale has suffered in modern times.
A (Great) Fish By Any Other Name
Above, both ICR's Dr. Morris and Scott of "Jesus, Dinosaurs and More", mention that the Jonah story is referenced by Jesus in the New Testament. One of the problems some people encounter when studying the story of Jonah is in fact found in Jesus' use of it in the gospel of Matthew. In the book of Jonah, the animal that swallows the prophet is called "a great fish" in most major Bible translations. [1] In Matthew, however, major translations cannot decide whether to have Jesus call the creature a whale, a sea monster, or a great or large fish.[2] Some people who enjoy making life miserable for Christian literalists at whatever cost like to point out this problem, choosing a translation of Matthew that renders the animal a "whale" and highlighting this apparent contradiction as proof that the Bible is not infallible and that it indeed contains errors. On the surface, this argument seems true. Phylogenetic classification tells us that fish and whales are only related far distantly evolutionarily. In grade school most of us learned the basics of such classification and that fish are fish and whales are mammals. If we were to restrict ourselves to just the King James Version of the Bible, here's what we would read:
Jonah 1:17
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Matthew 12:40
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
A fish is a fish and a whale is a mammal. Reading the passages from Jonah and Matthew from the KJV certainly lends credence to the argument that the Bible does contain, if not a contradiction, at least a rather embarrassing discrepancy. However, many Christian apologists rightly look at the Hebrew and Greek words translated in the KJV "fish" and "whale" and have found a way to dismiss this particular criticism.
In his article "The Scientific accuracy of Jonah…A whale of a tale," Scott acknowledges that this skeptical argument exists. He writes,
Some people claim that there is a contradiction in the Bible because the Old Testament calls the creature that swallowed Jonah a "Great fish", while the New Testament calls it a "whale".
He contends, however, "This is not a contradiction." He explains,
Matthew 12:40 says that the creature is a whale, but the original Greek from which it was translated calls it a "sea monster". The alleged contradiction is nothing more than a different word chosen for the English translation.
And so he is correct, as the various other scholarly translations of the Bible --like the NAS, NIV and NRSV-- attest. The Hebrew word translated as "fish" in Jonah is dag, and dag means quite literally, a "fish." Its usage elsewhere makes this clear. For example,
Nehemiah 13:16 Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish [dag] and all kinds of merchandise and sold them on the sabbath to the people of Judah, and in Jerusalem.
Ecclesiastes 9:12 For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish [dag] taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them.
However, notice that dag is preceded by a qualifier, "great," in Jonah 1:17. The Hebrew is gadowl and means, "great" as in "large," or "in number," or "in intensity." The meaning then, in the context of Jonah 1:17, is clear. The book of Jonah is describing a "large fish" of indeterminate species.
Turning to the Greek in Matthew, the word translated in the KJV (as well as RSV and ASV) for "whale" in the English is ketos and can mean "a sea monster, whale, or huge fish." See, for example, the NRSV for the same passage from Matthew,
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster [ketos], so for thee days and there nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.
Or the NIV,
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Given the possible meanings of ketos, one certainly could see that no real contradiction exists between the story's versions in the books of Jonah and Matthew.
Dr. Morris came to a similar conclusion,
What kind of animal swallowed Jonah? In the passage above, the Greek word translated "whale" actually means a huge fish or sea monster. In the passage in Jonah (1:17; 2:1,10), the Hebrew word was the normal word for "fish," but here the word is modified by the word great.
With the question of what swallowed Jonah settled, it would seem, Dr. Morris cannot help but leave well enough alone. He must embarrass himself as well embarrass the claim that the Bible is 100% scientifically accurate by trying to explain how the Bible differs in its classification of animals from the technique used by modern biologists. He must do this because Matthew's Greek ketos could refer to any large creature that swims in the sea. He feels he must acknowledge that the Bible classifies animals differently than do modern biologists. He writes,
Our modern taxonomic system places whales among the mammals, sharks, among the fish and plesiosaurs among the reptiles, but, the Bible uses a different system. "All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds." ( I Corinthians 15:39).
Evidently any living thing other than the creeping things (Psalm 104:25) in the seas is placed in the category of "fishes".
This sort of "classification" hurts Christian apologists with sympathies for biblical creationism, though. There are fundamental differences between whales, sharks, plankton, and plesiosaurs and this is clear to anyone who spends any amount of time at all studying these various creatures. Species classification is very basic to the human need to categorize and far predates Linnaeus [3] and Darwin. If the biblical authors, under influence of a omniscient deity, could not understand that the "flesh" of men and beasts (mammals) is actually not very different --fundamentally speaking--from whales and dolphins who nonetheless make the sea their home, and that whale "flesh" is markedly different from fish "flesh", then this merely reveals the culture's biological ignorance which produced these scriptures. Some cultures, no more literate or sophisticated than the ancient Hebrews, and not under divine guidance if you allow the apologists to make their claim, apparently understand instinctively "modern" taxonomic classification and might not have made this same error as did the "divinely inspired" biblical authors. As noted in Jerry A. Coyne's excellent book, Why Evolution is True,
In 1928, a young German zoologist named Ernst Mayr set off for the wilds of Dutch New Guinea to collect plants and animals…[he] brought back many specimens new to science, including twenty-six species of birds and thirty-eight species of orchids.
When [Mayr] totaled up the names that the natives of New Guinea's Arfak Mountains applied to local birds, he found that they recognized 136 different types. Western zoologists, using traditional methods of taxonomy, recognized 137 species. In other words, both locals and scientists had distinguished the very same species of birds living in the wild. This concordance between two cultural groups with very different backgrounds convinced Mayr, as it should convince us, that the discontinuities of nature are not arbitrary, but an objective fact. (pp. 168-169)
What Coyne means by "the discontinuities of nature" is the observable fact that when "you look at animals and plants, each individual almost always falls into one of many discrete groups." (ibid) And, if the natives of New Guinea could do this with birds, what prevented the Hebrews from doing it with sea life, especially if they had God's guiding hand? The answer, no doubt, is rather obvious: 1.) the Hebrews did not enjoy a divinity's guiding hand, regardless of what apologist claim, and 2.) they were not a sea-faring people and so had only very limited knowledge of life in the oceans. Chances are, if the Hebrews had been more devoted to a life that brought them into intimate contact with the sea, they would likely have observed differences between whales and dolphins and their neighbors the sharks and other fishes. They would have developed different names for these creatures so that such a fundamental error as lumping mammals and fish together as similar animals merely by their choice of habitat would have been avoided.
So, what Dr. Morris does here is point out the very ignorant classification system used by the ancient Hebrews in regard to some of the animals of nature. This, of course, doesn't win apologists like him any points in trying to point out the remarkable scientific inerrancy of the Bible by appealing to its "accuracy and authority through scientific research." When it becomes too obvious to deny, apologists seem to have no problem admitting that the Bible is a product held hostage by the ignorance of its time of composition; and, somehow, that is not a strike against their claims of 100% biblical inerrancy. Apologists are, if nothing else, an oblivious bunch.
If Dr. Morris had kept his mouth shut about the primitive biblical taxonomical system we wouldn't need to get over our collective chuckling to notice that his fundamental argument still stands: there is no clear contradiction between the creature mentioned in Matthew and the one described in the book of Jonah. What we have capturing Jonah in its gut is either a very large fish or, according to that primitive biblical taxonomical classification system, a whale. If we can allow the Bible to have its primitive --and incorrect--classification system and ignore the obvious error that fish and whales are not "the same flesh" even though they inhabit a similar ecological environment, the next question that follows is, of course, exactly what kind of sea creature could possibly have swallowed a man? What did the biblical authors have in mind?
If what swallowed Jonah was a "great fish" we should ask is there is a fish that exists, or did exist in Jonah's day, that could have swallowed a man whole. In other words, does there, or did there, exist a fish in the sea somewhere between Palestine and Spain that had a mouth large enough to take in the body of a man without having to chew him to pieces first to get him down into the animal's gut? Both Scott and Dr. Morris have a few ideas. Scott writes,
It could be an extinct marine reptile or any one of the thousands of species of marine life that has gone extinct in the last few thousand years. It may have even been a fish..
You may think to yourself: "but fish don't get that big". If you believe that, you should visit more museums. - I recall staring in amazement at the Ann Arbor Museum of Natural History as I stood next to a fossil skull of a fish named dunkleosteus.
He then provides a picture of the fossilized skull of this creature and it really is quite impressive.[4] Scott continues,
This skull was about three and a half feet tall. Its body length would be incredible. This huge fish would be a fright to anyone who saw it. It's [sic] mouth hung open and it was more than big enough to swallow me.
The largest Dunkleosteus skull is about four feet high.
I am not saying that this was for sure the fish that swallowed Jonah. I am merely saying that fish like this did exist.
Although Scott is not claiming Dunkleosteus is an exact match for the "great fish" of the Jonah story, he has nonetheless made the suggestion. Since he has, we ought to take a look at some facts regarding this very large and very strange creature.
According to an article about Dunkleosteus on the American Museum of Natural History website,
Picture yourself submerged in an ancient sea, 400 million years ago. Above, a large shape appears, gliding powerfully through the water. Its head and trunk are covered with bony plates of armor, and the great, jagged jaws are like a primitive slicing machine, roughly made but clearly effective.
This is Dunkleosteus, one of the first jawed vertebrates, and one of the largest of the armored fishes called placoderms. The fossil record indicates that this fish was an aggressive predator. Some placoderm fossils contain evidence of gouges and scrapes and cuts in the surface of the large bones, matching fairly well to the serrated edges of Dunkleosteus jaw bones; others show that puncture wounds go right through the bones.
The serrated, razor-sharp edges of bones in Dunkleosteus' jaws served as cutting edges. As they rubbed against each other, the opposing jaw blades were like self-sharpening shears. These bones grew continually, regenerating as they were worn down by usage.
Dunkleosteus was undoubtedly a powerful swimmer, much like today's large sharks. Its twenty-foot-long, muscular body ended in a shark-like tail. Its features are clearly those of a predator, and there were plenty of fish to feed on in the Devonian seas. Its prey may well have included primitive sharks, which did not achieve great size and diversity until Dunkleosteus and the other placoderms had disappeared from the oceans.
A couple of features in this article stand out that need to be addressed if we are to take seriously Scott's claim that Dunkleosteus may be a contender for the "great fish" that swallowed Jonah. First, note the description of the type of fish this creature was and the nature of its jaw. The jaw was "jagged," "like a primitive slicing machine." Note that the "serrated, razor-sharp edges of bones in Dunkleosteus' jaws served as cutting edges. As they rubbed against each other, the opposing jaw blades were like self-sharpening shears." This was not a creature that, had it gotten its jaws around Jonah, would have swallowed him whole. Dunkleosteus would have ground the man to pieces, like a Flintstone's chewable. [5]
In addition, note the date these powerful creatures roamed the seas: 400 million years ago. Not only were there no human empires spanning the Middle East at that time, there was no Middle East as we know it today nor even any creature remotely resembling a human being. In fact, the only land animals in the age of Dunkleosteus were primitive insects and early amphibians and arthropods. This was also the age which witnessed the evolution of the first vertebrates (and you have to get a backbone first before you can grow arms and legs and create an empire!). The Neo-Assyrian Empire to which Jonah was to travel endured from 934 BCE until the destruction of Nineveh in 609 BCE. Even allowing this wide date for the entire empire (Jonah is likely to have traveled to Nineveh, if we momentarily grant historical reliability to his tale, sometime around 760 BCE [6]), there is no way to fit a fish that roamed the seas nearly 400 million years ago to still be in the waters off Palestine in time to catch Jonah as he was thrown from the boat! Not only that, the seas of Dunkleosteus' day were not the same seas we know today.[7]
Scott, however, has an explanation for this discrepancy. Another visitor to his site made a similar observation. This individual wrote,
"All evidence for Dunkleosteus is that it lived during the Devonian period, which would then make humans over 300 million years old (if, as you claim they lived with this fish)."
Dan Erickson, exhibit preparator, University of Michigan
To which Scott replied,
I believe that God created the whole world only a few thousand years ago. I believe that the dating methods are flawed (see my page on Carbon dating). Dunkleosteus, I believe lived in this same time frame, but went extinct shortly after the flood. - I believe man lived with every creature we find fossilized.
There are a lot of things we could find wrong in Scott's reply, but one that stands out as contradicting what Scott himself has already argued, is the assertion that Scott's Dunkleosteus "went extinct shortly after [Noah's] flood." I'm not sure what Scott's definition of "shortly" is, but Noah's journey --if we use strict, Young Earth Creationist calculations [8]--was taken in 2349 BCE while Jonah's adventure didn't occur until the mid-700s, BCE. I may not be a creationist of any sort but I don't think a reasonable person would call a nearly 1600--year span "short" by any means of measurement. Again, apologists are a creative bunch, if nothing else. But, regardless of Scott's inability to remember what he writes from one sentence to the next, recall that he claimed his article examines the "scientific plausibility of the book of Jonah". How, then, can we take seriously a reply to a scientific question that begins with "I believe that God…"?
In similar fashion, Dr. Morris claims,
… there are several species of whale and of sharks alive today with gullets large enough to swallow a man whole. Among extinct animals like the plesiosaurs, the same could be said, and perhaps this was a heretofore unknown fish of large size. The point is, the story is not impossible.
Recall that Dr. Morris is operating from the ridiculously broad biblical taxonomical system which lumps everything that lives in the sea together and calls them "fish" (with the exception of "creeping things" which, presumably, includes crabs and lobsters). For Dr. Morris, any sea creature large enough that could gulp down a man is a candidate for the "great fish" of the Jonah story as long as that thing didn't have legs. And that creature could have existed at any time in earth's history because, like Scott, Dr. Morris believes in a six- to ten-thousand year old earth.
Despite Dr. Morris's all-encompassing list of possible candidates for the "great fish" of Jonah, he explains that, in the end, a scientific explanation isn't required! He writes,
However, most importantly, the Bible says that "the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah" (Jonah 1:17). Clearly this event was miraculous and not a naturalistic phenomenon. Thus we don't have to give it an explanation limited by modern experience or knowledge.
Dr. Morris follows in the footsteps of many creationists who have come before him. I would not be at all surprised if he lifted this dismissal subconsciously or deliberately straight from the lips of Inherit the Wind's creationist foil, Matthew Harrison Brady. Brady, in the fictionalized account of the Scopes Monkey Trial, was on the witness stand as an expert on the Bible. He was being examined by skeptic Henry Drummond who scoffed at the idea of a man being swallowed by a fish. Brady declared with assurance, "I believe in a god who can make a whale, and who can make a man, and make both do what he pleases." Dr. Morris, like Brady (based loosely on the very real creation apologist William Jennings Bryan from the trial), effectively removes speculation about the type of fish that swallowed Jonah from the realm of scientific inquiry and places it into the invisible hands of faith where "an explanation is [not] limited by modern experience or knowledge." Since that's where this speculation eventually ends, it never needed to be paraded around as a "scientific research" in the first place. Apologetic claims that stories from the Bible like Jonah's can be confirmed by science and history are a farce. Recall Dr. Morris had written that "the historicity of this account is vital to the Christian." History is in the realm of modern experience and knowledge. History, and science in particular, is governed by "naturalistic phenomenon." To state on the one hand that the historicity of the Jonah story is vital to the Christian experience and then to turn around and say that the event was "miraculous and not a naturalistic phenomenon," unbridled by an explanation "limited by modern experience and knowledge", is an unashamed copout and promises to research scientifically such claims are revealed to be nothing more than lies.
"Could a man survive in a fish's belly?"
Dr. Morris asks the above question in his article and it is a good one, if we have a shred of hope left that he and his apologist comrades will follow up on such a query scientifically. How could a man survive in the belly of any creature smothered in digestive juices and without any oxygen? Dr. Morris has already tried to shirk his original intent to provide his readers with a scientific and rational explanation for the Jonah story by claiming that the actual fish which swallowed Jonah may have been of supernatural origin, so it's rather puzzling why he would want to return to reasonable speculations in his article. However, if only for curiosity's sake, we should examine how Dr. Morris tries to have Jonah survive in the belly of the biblical "great fish." The first thing he does is take away the notion that Jonah was in the belly of the fish for a full three days and nights. Look at the relevant portion from Jonah 1:17b again,
and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Three full days and nights is a long time to be sloshing around inside the stomach of some sea creature, gasping for air, regardless of what it was. But Dr. Morris appears to want to help the credibility of the story by cutting down on the amount of time poor Jonah had to spend in that fish's gut. He writes,
The Hebrew idiom "three days and three nights" has been clearly shown both from Scripture and other sources to mean a period of time beginning on one day and ending on the day after the one following. It doesn't necessarily mean three full days and nights.
Frankly, I don't care how long Jonah was in the fish. It could have been part of one day, a full day and part of the following in keep with a Hebrew idiom. Doesn't really matter. What is important is the question that still remains: how could a man survive being eaten and landing in something as inhospitable as a monstrous fish's belly for any significant amount of time?
Even though Dr. Morris shaved the amount of time Jonah is traditionally believed to have spent in the great fish's gut, both he and Scott are a bit at a loss to explain --at least scientifically-- how a human being could have survived in the digestive system of another animal for any amount of time. Common sense is shattered when asked to believe that a man could survived in the belly of a fish. Before we can find out if a man could survive such an ordeal, we need to know what sort of creature swallowed him. If we know what sort of creature swallowed Jonah, we could examine its digestive system and see if --no matter outrageous the claim seems on the surface--could a man nonetheless have lived for any amount of time in its digestive tract. We already tried to examine a list of possible creatures that could have swallowed Jonah a moment ago, following Dr. Morris' and Scott's lead. But, even with their help, the list was inconclusive (if not outrageous in one case and too broad in the other). Of course, one of the first creatures as a possibility that leaps to mind is the whale. If we're going to be scientific, we cannot consider extinct creatures; at least not those that perished 400 million years before Jonah fell overboard from that ship. And marine reptiles are unlikely as well. I know of none that are large enough to swallow a man whole. Finally, we have merely a very large fish but which ones should we consider? Both Dr. Morris and Scott have admitted they are at a loss as to explain just exactly what kind of fish gulped down Jonah. They do claim, however, that regardless of what this man-eating creature may have been, there are certain contemporary tales of people being swallowed by sea creatures that help corroborate the Jonah story. Scott writes,
For those seeking extra-biblical evidence, there are many well documented accounts of men and animals being swallowed alive by whales.
Similarly, Dr. Morris claims,
Furthermore, there have been several reported cases of modern sailors or other individuals swallowed by such an animal, only to be recovered many hours later.
One thing you'll notice reading Dr. Morris's and Scott's articles is that while both claim there are other stories of "men and animals being swallowed alive by whales" and that these stories have been "reported" and are "well documented", neither apologist actually reproduces an example of one of these reports! All either do is recount a story in their own words. Notice that Scott writes that these "well documented accounts" tell of "men and animals being swallowed alive by whales" but he never said that any of these poor victims ever made it back out of the creature alive after having gone in that way! Consider next what Dr. Morris writes. He had already asserted that "three days and three nights" doesn't necessarily have to be read literally and that the amount of time elapsed for Jonah could have been only one full day and a portion of two others. Even so, his "several reported cases" are only of individuals swallowed and "recovered many hours later." That's right, he said "hours". It would be hard to stretch "many hours" into "three days and three nights" no matter how much time you can shave off the journey using that particular Hebrew idiom.
Both of these men have made assertions about "documented" evidence that supposedly proves that people can be swallowed whole by sea creatures and then recovered later alive without providing examples of that evidence for their readers to evaluate. What these men may be referring to are variations on a legend about a man, James Barley, who in the 19th century while whaling aboard the Star of the East, is said to have fallen overboard and supposedly swallowed alive by a whale only to be recovered later. Edward B. Davis, Associate Professor of Science and History at Messiah College in Grantham, PA, investigated this story and in the process of his research "received the crew agreement from the Star of the East for the voyage described [in the legend]. She had been a barque of 733 net tonnage, owned by Sir Roderick Cameron of London and registered in that port… and there is no James Bartley on the list, nor anyone of similar name, either for the entire voyage or any part thereof!" If you want to read Edward's full investigation (and how "well documented" the tale is for apologists to have used it for decades to support the Jonah story) see A Whale of a Tale: Fundamentalist Fish Stories. If James Barley is one of the "well documented" cases of a man surviving being swallowed by a sea creature Dr. Morris or Scott had in mind, they need to recheck their sources.
I've heard mention through other Christian apologetic sources of another account of a person, a certain Marshall Jenkins, of whom it's claimed, in 1771 was swallowed alive by a sperm whale but lived to tell the tale. Most of these apologetic sources were scant on information regarding this tale, and the most I could find was from a site called Christian Evidences. Here is what they report,
The Boston Post Boy, October 14, 1771, reported that an Edgartown (U.S.A.) whaling vessel struck a whale, and that after the whale had bitten one of the boats in two, it took Jenkins in its mouth and went under the water with him. After returning to the surface, the whale vomited him on to the wreckage of the broken boat, "much bruised but not seriously injured.
The source cited for this quote was Ambrose John Wilson from, "The Sign of the Prophet Jonah and Its Modern Confirmations," published in The Princeton Theological Review 25 (1927). A few things are suspicious about this story and the source of the quote. The actual story is from an article which does not contain a direct interview with the man who was the victim of this mishap. The story as it is related in the article actually came from the men aboard the ship and not from Mr. Jenkins. The original event is said to have occurred in 1771 while the publication reproducing the story, The Princeton Theological Review, was published in 1927. Might the story have grown from the time the occurrence until it was related in The Princeton Theological Review? Additionally, the story does not say if Jenkins was in the "belly" of the whale or if he had just spent time in the creature's mouth (the latter is clearly implied). The whale did not keep the hapless Jenkins for any real length of time, either. The story, as recounted above, says only that the creature "took Jenkins in its mouth and went under water with him. After returning to the surface, the whale vomited him on to the wreckage of the broken boat…" This is hardly the equivalent of being swallowed by a whale and spending three days and nights in its belly before being regurgitated to the land of the living.
There are also reports, some Christian apologetic sites offer, of non-human creatures having been swallowed whole by whales. For instance, Let Us Reason Ministries states,
Sperm whales have been known to swallow unusually large objects, including a fifteen-foot long shark! (for documentation see Frank T. Bullen, Cruise of the Cachalot Round the World After Sperm Whales, London: Smith, 1898).
While true, none of these swallowed creatures have ever been found alive!
At the very least, it should be apparent by now that "several reported cases" and "well documented accounts" of humans being swallowed by some sort of sea creature and surviving the ordeal unscathed are very hard to come by. And, they are nonexistent in the articles supplied by Dr. Morris and Scott. Thus, neither provided corroborative stories of human beings surviving an extended amount of time inside the digestive system of a large sea animal in their quest to be scientific and reasonable in their study of the Jonah tale. There is a big difference between being swallowed whole by an animal, spending time in its digestive juices, living to tell about it and simply being carried around in a whale's mouth for a few moments or to travel around inside the belly of a whale or shark only to be exhumed dead.
It should be rather clear from this examination of the story of Jonah that the tale of this man having been swallowed by some sort of sea creature is a fiction. Its features cannot be confirmed as having any historical or scientific foundations. Even Scott admits this much near the close of his article. He writes ultimately,
It does not matter if other recorded accounts exist [to corroborate the Jonah story] or not. They are irrelevant as the Bible says it happened and Jesus has shown us that we can trust God's word.
A good number of Christian apologists sooner or later resort to this kind circular reasoning to arrive at their premeditated conclusions. In the end, apologists trying to rationally study the Jonah story must turn away from the lack of scientific support and argue that the Jonah tale is true because Jesus mentions it in the New Testament and anything Jesus mentions must be true because the Bible says this is so. What is the source of the story, the apologist asks? The Bible, is the answer. Who says the story is true, next queries the apologist? Jesus, is the answer. Where do we have record of Jesus' sayings, ponders the apologist? The Bible, of course. In other words, even though Scott takes us through an elaborate study of the story of Jonah, we never really left where we'd started: the Bible.
Wanting to have it both ways, Dr. Morris concludes his article in a slightly different fashion than does Scott. His conclusion, however, is the same: The Jonah story is true, historically, even if we have to invoke a miracle from God to make it happen. He states,
But again, this story involves the miraculous. It may be that Jonah actually died and was resurrected by God. This is implied in his description of his experience especially Jonah 2:2. Of course, resurrection is "impossible" but it clearly happened on several occasions in Scripture requiring miraculous input. To deny the possibility of miracles, especially those miracles specifically mentioned in Scripture, is to deny the existence of God, and this is not an option for a Christian.
Wanting to retain some credibility, however, he notes,
The point is nothing about the story is totally impossible: There are "fish" large enough to swallow a man; men have been known to survive inside a "fish";
But he can't help being trapped by the constraints of his faith, and his apologetic winds up in exactly the same place as did Scott's:
…the Bible says it really happened; Christ said Jonah's experience was an analogy of His own death and resurrection; and God is alive and capable of this feat.
And this is where most apologetics end. They take a long journey, display a few trinkets and baubles along the way as distractions, but ultimately, if one were to look outside the apologetic tour bus they'd find out they'd never left the point at which the trip started. Apologists are a creative bunch, but not very intellectually stimulating or satisfying. I often wish, when reading their work, that they'd just admit the Bible is full of weird and wondrous tales and that they'd be doing this great work of literature a disservice by trying to soil it with the examinations of science and reason. Why look for St. George's dragon somewhere in Libya or the Island of Circe somewhere in the Mediterranean? Enjoy these tales for what they are instead of for what they are not. Alas, apologists are not that creative.
1. The NAS, ASV, ESV, NKJV, KJV, NIV and RSV all translate the Hebrew "great fish." The NRSV translates the words "large fish". Return to text
2. The NAS and NRSV translate the passage in Matthew as "sea monster." The ASV, KJV and RSV have "whale". The ESV and NKJV have "great fish" while the NIV has "huge fish." Return to text
3. See Linnaean Taxonomy Return to text
4. While Scott's photo of Dunkleosteus's fossil head is impressive, click HERE for an artist's conception of what the creature may have looked like prowling the oceans of the Late Devonian, some 370 million years ago. Return to text
5. For a fun, but educational, fictionalized "documentary" about Dunkleosteus, watch the BBC production of Walking With Dinosaurs: Sea Monsters. As of March 12, 2009, YouTube is hosting a pair of episodes featuring Dunkleosteus HERE and HERE . Return to text
6. See, for example, Old Testament Survey by William Sanford La Sor, et. al, p.384. Return to text
7. See HERE for a map of the world at the time of the Devonian. Return to text
8. See Answers In Genesis: Timeline Return to text
Coyne, Jerry A. (2009) Why Evolution Is True. Viking
LaSor, William Sanford, et.al (1996) Old Testament Survey: The message, form, and background of the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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