JONAH DEBATE Debate in Investigator about the story of Jonah comprised eighteen items:
![]() Investigator
No. 35 March 1994
JONAH: A WHALE OF A TALE? (Investigator
35, 1994
March) SUMMARY A central message of Jonah is that God judges people by their actions/deeds/repentance and not by where they were born. This method of judgment is the model for humans (e.g. Jonah) to follow. When people line up with their nation or ethnic group irrespective of wrong or right, and practice for example "ethnic cleansing", they prove themselves skeptics of Scripture. The account of Jonah in the fish's "belly" is intended by the Bible writers to be 1iteral. The switch
to
Monotheism
in Nineveh (Assyrian
capital) has a historical basis. INTRODUCTION According to
the Bible
Jonah was swallowed
by a fish, survived, and then went to the capital city of one of the
bloodiest
empires of ancient times, announced imminent destruction, and the
population
turned to worshipping one God. The city was spared from destruction,
which
greatly annoyed Jonah. The story ends with God saying to Jonah: Some skeptics call it "a fishy story" and others "a whale of a tale." What about it, could the events of the book of Jonah be historical? A century ago
many
critics sought the origin
of Jonah and the fish in Greek and Assyrian mythology. The Greeks, for
example, told of a girl named Andromeda who was rescued from a sea
monster
by a fellow named Perseus. Another girl, a Trojan princess named
Hesione
was rescued from a different sea monster by Hercules. (Cheyne &
Black
1914) Nowadays such comparisons of Jonah with non-Jewish mythology have
been discarded. Nevertheless, most scholars still do not accept the
Jonah
story as historical fact.
Australasian
Post, December 3, 1988:
ALLEGORY – NO; MORAL POINTS – YES A common
approach is to
view the story of
Jonah as an allegory or "midrash" – a fiction which teaches a moral
lesson.
Jonah, in this approach, might have represented the narrow minded Jews
whose concept of God was as a Jewish God. One lesson from God's mercy,
in the story, to the Assyrians is the universal Fatherhood of God. From
such universal Fatherhood it would follow that God regards and
treats
all peoples not just Jews, impartially - even the Assyrians of Nineveh.
This moral lesson is therefore similar to that of the "Good Samaritan"
in the New Testament, which teaches among other things that to
distinguish
people along moral lines – by their good
or
evil conduct – is more important than the
distinction of nationality.
Jews at the
time of
Jesus viewed Jonah as
history. For example Jesus once said: For as
Jonah
was three
days and three nights
in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and
three
nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will arise in the
judgement with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the
preaching of Jonah. (Matthew 12:40-41
That the Jonah account was intended as history rather than allegory is the more obvious conclusion. Jonah is classed among the "Prophets" and all the other prophets of the Bible are presented in the Bible as literal persons. Furthermore, Jonah is named, his father is named, the town where they lived is named (2 Kings 14:25) and the period in which they lived is given. In other words the times places and characters are not vague and unspecified as they are in, say, the parables spoken by Jesus. The degree of detail associated with Jonah would anywhere in the Bible indicate that the writer is presenting alleged history and not parable or allegory. The main intent behind the book might still be to give a moral lesson – but it's a moral lesson based on events which are offered as real. Let's consider then whether most of the report can, sensibly, be taken as literal history.BIG THROATED CREATURES Nineteenth century critics often argued that whales have too small a gullet to admit a human. Whales are divided into two main groups–baleen whale and toothed whales. Baleen whales have numerous horny plates suspended from the upper jaw which are used for straining out tiny sea creatures. The biggest baleen whale is the Blue Whale which weighs as much as 25 elephants. Blue Whales, however, have a small gullet and rarely swallow anything larger than a penguin. The largest of the toothed whales is the Sperm Whale. This grows to 25 metres. The diet of Sperm Whales includes large objects such as giant squids. Bullen (1923) wrote: "and a shark fifteen feet in length has been found in the stomach of a cachelot [= Sperm Whale]." (p. 125) Pinney
(1964) quoted
the Director of
a Museum of Natural history: "Many people
asked me
if the Bible story
of Jonah is true. Could a man be swallowed by a whale? So I pushed my
body
partly down the throat of a dead sixty foot sperm whale. I could just
squeeze
through. A fat man couldn't have made it."
Bullen wrote: "when dying, the cachelot always ejected the contents of his stomach…" (p.69) On one occasion Bullen saw ejected material which included: "a massive fragment of cuttle fish - tentacle or arm - as thick as a stout man's body…" (p. 69) Bullen
continued: "contrary to
the usual
notion of a whale's
being unable to swallow a herring, here was a kind of whale that could
swallow–well , a block four or five feet square apparently; who lived
upon
creatures as large as himself,
if one might judge of their bulk by the sample to hand; but being unable, from only possessing teeth in one jaw, to masticate his food, was compelled to tear it in sizeable pieces, bolt it whole, and leave his digestive apparatus to do the rest." (p. 70) Bullen
described how
he himself came
close to being swallowed when a whale smashed the whaleboat throwing
the
whalers into the sea. (pp. 101-102)
From p. 105
of The
Cruise of the
Cachelot:
From: E B
Pusey (1886) The
Minor Prophets
Another
creature large
enough to swallow
a man is the voracious White Shark Carcharius vulgaris which grows to
ten
metres. This shark often swallows its meal without chewing and it
occurs
in the Mediterranean Sea – where Jonah allegedly was swallowed. The
Sperm
Whale occurs there too and anciently there was a Phoenician whaling
industry
based at the port of Joppa where Jonah embarked on the ship.
Nineteenth century scholar E B Pusey (1886) cited examples of people found, dead in the stomachs of White Sharks. In one instance a stomach contained a reindeer without horns. In another was a horse. In 1939 a White Shark was caught which contained two smaller sharks – two metres long each – in its stomach. (Whitley 1940; Backus & Lineaweaver 1970) In February
1891
apprentice sailor James
Bartley 1870 -1909) of the whaling ship Star of the East, was swallowed
by a whale near the Falkland Islands. The whale was killed with
harpoons
and Bartley was taken out alive after 15 hours in the stomach: [Omitted here is a xeroxed page from A Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 1 1902, Edited by J Hastings et al, Published by T & T Clark, p. 750.] As already
stated, dying
Sperm Whales often
vomit out the contents of their stomach. Regarding the "fish"
which swallowed Jonah the story reads:
"it vomited
out Jonah
upon dry land." (2:10)
A
reasonable
speculation – if the story
is true – would be that the "fish" which swallowed Jonah was a Sperm
Whale
which later became stranded in shallow water. STRESSFUL ACCOMMODATION The blood
temperature of
a whale is about
the same as a human's blood – 37 degrees centigrade. Inside the stomach
it
might be several degrees warmer. In addition there is the problem of
digestive
juices–would they have killed Jonah and digested him? A scientific
answer
seems unavailable. Would digestive juices with their digestive enzymes,
for example, cease to flow if the whale were near death? Possibly the
acidity
of the stomach juices would also be unpleasant unless their secretion
were
also inhibited.
Acidity is measured on the pH scale which varies from 0 to 14. For example: Concentrated nitric acid 0 Orange 3.5Gastric secretion 1 Tomato 4 Lemon juice 2 Saliva 6 Stomach juice 2 Pure Water 7 Coca cola 3 Intestinal secretion 7.5 Vinegar 3 Sea Water 8 It
shouldn't be too
hard to do an experiment
of placing a hand or finger in lemon juice, cola, or vinegar for
varying
intervals and seeing if any damage occurs.
Would there be breathable air in the stomach? Macloskie
(1942) argued
that the whale has
to expel superfluous water from its mouth after receiving food. In the
process a creature trapped in the mouth might reach the laryngeal pouch
below the larynx. The pouch is big enough to hold a human who would, in
addition, use the whale's own air supply and have no worries about
digestive
juices. The Bible phrase "belly of the fish" should not count against
this
hypothesis since ancient peoples did not distinguish as many internal
organs
as we do today. In other words the entire front (=ventral surface) of a
fish or whale might be referred to as the "belly".
Nowadays whales are classified as mammals. However, the phrase "great fish" would have been accurate enough and more understandable for a, mainly, rural audience which didn't differentiate many sea creatures. For a brief period a person could survive in a whale's stomach. In Jonah's case the account says "three days and three nights". Some commentators argue that this means 72 hours. Others argue that the Jews counted part of a day or night as one day. If Jonah, for example, was swallowed an hour before sunrise then the previous night and the previous day-time would be included in the calculation. Jonah's total time in the "fish" would then be as little as approximately 30 hours. This would still be twice as long as James Bartley. Bartley came out bleached to a ghastly white and his skin never fully recovered from this condition. Jonah was
extremely
stressed by his experience.
He was near death. (2:6-7) Inside the "fish" Jonah prayed. (See chapter
2) The words of the prayer were in the past tense. From this some
commentators
conclude that a future writer composed the prayer and the whole story
is
mythical. Another explanation for the use of the past tense is that
Jonah
was quoting the Psalms – which Jews and Christians often do during
prayer.
Jonah selected Psalms which had phrases appropriate to his experience.
These were 120:1; 130:3; 42:7; 31:22; 69:1-2; 30: 3; 142: 2-3; 18:6;
31:6;
50:14.
Of course
Jonah would
have written these
things down later and not while in the "belly of the fish". MOUNTAINS An
interesting
sidepoint
is that Jonah says: at the roots of the mountains." (2:5) Geologist
Harold L.
Levin wrote: "Eighteenth-century
scientists had little
knowledge of the topography of the ocean floors. They lived at a
time when depth measurements were made by letting down a lead weight on the end of a rope. Not only was this method time consuming, but in the open ocean it was virtually impossible to prevent error from lateral drifting of the weight, or the ship, or both. As a result of these problems, only a limited number of soundings were made except in bays and offshore areas where such information was vital for safe navigation. Oceanographers interpreted the few measurements available as indicating that the ocean floors were monotonous flat plains. With the advent of continuous topographic profiles from echo-sounding devices, it was shown that the ocean floors are as irregular as the surface of the continents. Beneath the waves lay canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon, and mountain systems more magnificent than the Rockies." (Levin 1981 p. 320) I don't imagine that Jonah saw the "roots of the mountains" in the Mediterranean Sea by peeking out of the mouth of the fish. Perhaps he guessed; perhaps he was "inspired". At any rate he got it right.
ASSYRIAN MONOTHEISM Critics sometimes argue that the alleged repentance of the people of Nineveh capital of the Assyrian Empire would have been a bigger miracle than Jonah surviving being swallowed by a "fish". Assyria was one of the most barbaric of ancient empires. People of captured cities were routinely burned alive, skinned alive, or had ears, noses, hands or feet chopped off. Jonah was already a prophet during the reign of King Jeroboam of Israel. (2 Kings 14:23) Jeroboam reigned 787 to 747 BC. This places Jonah after Shalmanezer III of Assyria who during his blood-stained reign, 859 - 824 BC, led 32 war campaigns. It also puts Jonah before the equally bloody Tiglath Pileser III who ruled 745-727 BC. Jonah therefore lived when a number of comparatively weak kings ruled Assyria. Furthermore, for about 50 years during the first half of the 8th century BC, Nineveh was repeatedly torn by civil unrest, palace intrigues, religious strife and even civil war. The book of Jonah confirms that Jonah arrived at Nineveh during a period of internal strife and violence. (See chapter 3:6-9) Among the gods of Nineveh were Ninua the goddess of waters, Oannes a god with the head and body of a fish attached to the top of a human head, Dagon god of the sea, and Anu the highest or chief god. We therefore have a setting in which the population of Nineveh might have listened to Jonah and turned to – at least superficially – the God Jonah proclaimed. Consider: News of Jonah's survival in the "fish" precedes his arrival. Different religious factions attribute Jonah's survival to Anu, Ninua, Oannes or Dagon. Jonah arrives–possibly with a ghastly bleached, appearance (like Bartley). The King hears of great crowds listening to Jonah preaching and sees this as a means of ending civil strife and religious division and reunifying the city and the empire. The King and high officials therefore set the example, respond to Jonah, and publicly express remorse for the violence in the city. (See Jonah 3:6-9) So far no Assyrian record about Jonah has been found. However, there did at least once occur a swing toward Monotheism. King Adad Nirari III ruled 810-782 BC. During the first five years of his reign his mother, Queen Semiramis, was co-regent and did the governing because her son was too young. Adad Nirari's effective rule therefore began about 806 BC. It was about this time that the swing toward Monotheism took place. If Jonah was involved in this then the response to his preaching was probably superficial since history records little or nothing more about it. The
circumference of the
walls of Nineveh
around 800 BC was about three kilometres. This increased to 12
kilometres
about 700 BC. The statement that Nineveh was ‘three days' journey in
breadth"
(Jonah 3:3) has therefore been criticised as another reason for
thinking
the whole story mythical. Possibly, however, the "three days' journey
in
breadth" includes the villages and farmlands beyond the walls and also
the outer fortifications involving three rivers and a mountain chain.
We
could also speculate that the phrases "three day's journey" and "a
day's
journey" had a meaning in Nineveh which we are unaware of. CONCLUSIONS My attempt to take the story of Jonah literally and assess whether it could have happened has led to indefinite conclusions. Certainly credibility is stretched. However, the events are not wholly impossible even if we leave out notions of miraculous intervention by God which of course a scientific search has to do. We should not, however, forget the moral lesson of Jonah. This lesson is that God is the God of all peoples and he judges impartially. Therefore our moral judgements should likewise be along moral lines – based on what the person does – and not along tribal or national lines. The basis for judging a person is his behavior and not his place of birth. Therefore God
in the
story of Jonah is shown
as suspending the destruction of Nineveh because the people repented
The last book of the Bible similarly puts it plainly that what counts is what we do and not where we were born: "And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done." (Revelation 20:12-13)Every time there is a war or race riot or inter-family squabble with all participants lining up according to nation, ethnic group or family irrespective of who's morally right and who's morally wrong the lessons of Jonah (and Revelation 20) are being ignored. Ancient Joppa
- the port
where Jonah boarded
the ship which led him to the "great fish" - had the skeleton of a
12-metre
whale on display in one of its temples. In 58 BC Marcus Scaurus, a
Roman
official, transferred the skeleton to Rome. This incident gets a
mention
in the writings of the Roman writer Pliny (23 - 79 AD). It is not known
when or how the skeleton got to Joppa. Is there perhaps a connection
with
the "whale of a tale" about Jonah?
REFERENCES Backus R H & Lineaweaver T H 1970 The Natural History of Sharks, pp. 111, 113 Blond G 1954 The Great Whale Game, Weidenfeld & Nicolson London Bonomi J 1857 Nineveh And Its Palace, E G Bohn London Bullen F T 1923/1944 The Cruise or the Cachelot, J Murray London Cheyne T T & Black J S 1914 Encyclopedia Biblica, New Edition in One Volume, Adam & Charles Black Britain p. 1963 Clarke J 1971 Man is the Prey, Panther Science Britain p. 91 Hagelund W A 1987 Whalers No More, Harbour Publishing Canada p. 177 Hart-Davies D E 1931 Jonah: Prophet and Patriot, Thynne & Co. London Hastings J et al (Editors) 1902 A Dictlonary of the Bible, Volume 1, T & T Clark Britain Levin B L 1981 Contemporary Physical Geography, CBS College Publishing p. 320 Macloskie C 1942 How to test the Story of Jonah, Bibliotheca Sacra, Volume 72 p. 336 ff Nelson T 1982 Nelson's Complete Book of Bible Maps & Charts, Thomas Nelson Publishers, USA p.257 Pinney R 1964 The Animals in the Bible, Chilton Books, USA pp.128, 153 Pussy, E 1886 The Minor Prophets, Waiter Smith, Britain pp. 257-258 Schultze H P c.1965 Jonah and the Whale Wilson A J 1927 October The Sign of the Prophet Jonah, Princeton Theological Review, Volume 25 p. 636 Wilson A J 1928 October The Authenticity of Jonah, Princeton Theological Review, Volume 26 JONAH
IS FICTIONAL
B J Kotwall (Investigator 37, 1994 July) The author of JONAH: A WHALE OF A TALE (Investigator March 1994) attempted to justify that the book of Jonah in the Old Testament is historical. My research, however, shows that the Book of Jonah is clearly fictional. The fictional aspect of the book is mainly demonstrated in its anachronisms and its highly fanciful supernatural events. The book could be described as a written sermon in story form based on Jeremiah 18:8. This is alluded to in Jonah 3:10. The name of the prophet comes from 2 Kings 14 25, and Jonah's wish for death is modelled on that of Elijah. (1 Kings 19:4-8) The story of the great fish which can swallow a man alive and vomit him out still alive (Jonah 1:17; 2:10) could have been drawn from folklore or legend and is to be found in classical literature. In the Heracleid, Hercules was swallowed by a whale and at precisely the same place Joppa, and he too remained in the whale's belly for three days. In Persian folklore Jamshyd the hero was swallowed by a sea monster that later vomited him out safely on shore. There is a Greek myth in which Arion, the musician, was thrown overboard for causing a storm, but was saved by a dolphin. In the Samadeva Bhatta of India Saktadeva was swallowed by a fish and later stepped out unharmed when it was opened. Vishnu the Avatar is shown rising from the mouth of a fish. Jonah's father is called Amittai (Jonah 1:1) which is a derivation of Amriti the Hindu "water of life". The name Jonah was also common in ancient races. The Persians had Jawnah, the Basques Jawna, the Chaldeans Ionn or Jonn. Nineveh is treated as "that great city" (Jonah 1:2; 4:11) the capital of the Assyria Empire. It was indeed a great city when Judah, under Manasseh, was an Assyrian tributary. However, the real Jonah was active around 780 BC at which time Nineveh was in decay. The use of the past tense (Jonah 3:3) indicates that the book was written long after 612 BC when Nineveh was destroyed. A city of 120,000 infants implies a total population of over a million – far too large for Nineveh. In Hebrew idiom "persons who do not know their right hand from their left" (Jonah 4:11) refers to small children. (The Moffatt Translation of The Bible; The Companion Bible p. 690; Dictionary of the Bible John L Mckenzie p. 451) Assyrian and Biblical records leave no room for a conversion of Nineveh to worship Yahweh. The repentance of all of Nineveh from the king downwards, in sackcloth and fasting, is nowhere recorded in secular history. To say that the conversion was "superficial" or "temporary" completely negates the point of the story which is a didactic fiction or parable. The title "king of Nineveh" (Jonah 3:6) does not appear in Assyrian or Biblical records. It is always "king of Ashur". Sperm whales, which apparently could swallow a man whole, are not found in the Mediterranean. (Asimov's Guide to the Bible p. 647) The story of the gourd (Jonah 4:6-7) springing up at an unnaturally fast rate and then being eaten up by a worm the next day is supernatural. In William
Neil's One
Volume Bible Commentary
we read: "(Jonah)
is an
extremely readable and vivid
story, but unfortunately like much else in the Old Testament it is
often
sadly misunderstood. For Jonah is not a story about a whale. The
incident
where the prophet is swallowed by a great fish is not even the most
spectacular
part in this short narrative. Much effort has been expended by those
who
miss the point of the book, to demonstrate either that such an
occurrence
is physically impossible, or on the other hand that whales have been
found
with gullets large enough to accommodate a man. How amused the ancient
writer of Jonah would have been at this attempt to discredit the Bible,
or to confound the skeptics, by applying the yardstick of zoological
science
to a tale which is neither scientific nor even historical but a parable
like the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son." (p. 294)
JONAH: NOT FICTIONAL
Anonymous (Investigator
37, 1994
July)
I will address Mr Kotwall's points progressively. A story
or
report is not false just
because it includes unusual, even supernatural events. We need to test
as much of the report as is testable and then decide.
Jonah's "wish
for death"
is not necessarily
modelled on Elijah. The Bible mentions many who wanted to die. None of
them need be seen as modelled on any other, unless this is specifically
stated.
Whether Jonah
is
connected in any way to
Hercules was debated last century and the idea was rejected. (See
centrespread
reproduction in Investigator 35.)
A name having
a meaning
or having counterparts
in other languages does not make a report with that name false.
Hundreds
of Bible names had meanings. David perhaps meant "Chieftain". Amittai,
the father of Jonah, meant "faithful" or "true".
Nineveh was a "great city" for centuries. Even during the half century of unrest and violence after 800 BC (compare Jonah 3 6-9) Nineveh was a major centre of Assyrian power. History
records a "swing
to Monotheism" in
Nineveh which I mentioned. This "swing" evidently petered out. It may
or
may not be the conversion of Nineveh recorded in Jonah. Perhaps the
people
were predisposed to religious change (in addition to reasons given in
INVESTIGATOR
35) by plagues in 765 BC and 759 BC plus by a solar eclipse in 763 BC.
The 120,000 of
Nineveh
were not children.
The Hebrew "adam" means "man" or "men". (Wigram 5th edition) The word
occurs
also in Jonah 3:7, 8 and about 600 times in the Old Testament. Usually
"adam" excludes children. (1 Kings 8:39; Psalm 45:2; 145:12) Sometimes
context indicates that women are included and then we can translate it
as "persons", "people", "human beings" or "adults" depending on the
context.
The phrase "do not know their right hand from their left" should then be taken in a moral and spiritual sense. The ratio of
children to
adults in Assyria
was about 5:8. (Garner 1976 September p.125) From 120,000 adults we
calculate
75,000 children giving a total population for Nineveh of 195,000.
Felix Jones
surveyed the
walls of Nineveh
in 1834. The inner circumference was 12km within which, he believed,
175,000
people could have lived.
35km south of Nineveh was Nimrud (=Calah). Nimrud has been excavated and its size shown to be 358 hectares. Its ancient population is estimated at 63,000 adults and 40,000 children. (Garner 1976 September) A British expedition in 1949 under M E L Mallowan estimated the total population of Nimrud, including children, at 86,000. (Lloyd 1984) Nineveh,
however, was
over twice as big,
750 hectares, although much space was devoted to temples, buildings and
monuments. Jonah's population figure, then, seems quite close to modern
estimates!
Regarding the "three days journey" (Jonah 3:3) Garner (1976 June) says: "the reference could well be to the administrative district of Nineveh, which measured some 50 to 100 kilometres across…" p. 60) The words
"king of
Nineveh" need not
be a problem. If the king dwelt in Nineveh at the time why not call him
"king of Nineveh"?
Regarding whales: In Animals of Bible Lands we read: Doubtless this was more true in ancient times before the slaughter of Sperm Whales in the Atlantic from the 1850s to the 1930s. The "gourd story" currently defies a natural explanation. Agreed. Regarding the quote from Neil: I demonstrated that the Jonah account was not intended as a parable (No. 35 p. 16) but as real events to illustrate moral principles. Whether the
ancient
writer "would have been
amused" is untestable since we can't ask him. However, the notion of
"testing"
claims people make is a biblical notion. (Daniel 1; Proverbs l8:l7;
20:25)
Finally,
don't
forget
the moral lessons
of "Jonah" which I presented previously. REFERENCES Garner, C
G
1976 June,
Nineveh, That Great
City, Buried History, A Quarterly Journal of Biblical Archaeology
Volume
12 No. 2 pp. 58-83 JONAH
IS
FICTIONAL PART 2 B J Kotwall (Investigator
40, 1995
January)
In Investigator No. 35 Anonymous argued that the Book of Jonah was intended as literal history written to advocate moral principles and that the events in the book really happened. My response in INSTIGATOR No. 37 showed that the book of Jonah is fictional to which Anonymous gave a 2-page reply. I will now treat briefly most of the points presented by Anonymous in No. 37. I would like to clarify that I never stated that the Book of Jonah is "false". There is a difference between "false" and "fictional". If I had said that the Book was "fictitious" then the "false" label would have been justified. (Bloomsbury Good Word Guide 1990 p. 115) Nineveh "was
an
exceedingly great city" (Jonah
3:3) when Judah was an Assyrian tributary. The past tense "was"
suggeststhe
account was written after Nineveh's destruction: "Historians
have no
record on tablets or
stelae of the conversion of the Ninevites en masse (3:5); nor has
archaeological
research revealed any Assyrian king called ‘the king of Nineveh' (3:6)
In the days of Sennacherib the circuit of Nineveh's walls measured c
8m.
(cf. 3:3) The narrative fails to tell what language Jonah used to make
his message intelligible to the Ninevites.
But the story belongs to a much later period than the reign of Jeroboam II. Nineveh was a ‘great city' (3:2), but it had been destroyed (612 B.C.) when the book of Jonah was written. This fact places the incidents in the narrative beyond the possible prophetic activities of Jonah son of Amittai. Aramaic words in the original text indicate its composition in the 5th or 4th century B.C… The date scope of this book seems to lie between 600 and 200 B.C." (Black's Bible Dictionary 1968 7th edition) I provided three
scholarly
references to show
that the 120,000 who "do not know their right hand from their left"
(Jonah
4) referred to children. More are available:
"We are
told
that it
was ‘three days' journey
in breadth. But we know from archaeological excavations thatthe circumference of the walls of the ancient city of Nineveh was approximately eight miles. This could certainly not contain a population with 120,000 children, in those days implying probably a total of 1,000,000 inhabitants. Even if we include the neighbouring cities of Calah, Rehoboth-Ir, and Resin (Gen. 10:11-12) as constituting an urban conglomeration, a traveller would surely have had to walk up and down every street and alley to fill up three days." (The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible Volume 2 1962) Anonymous
relies on
a Hebrew idiom to
claim that the "three days and three nights" of Jonah in the fish's
belly
was only about 30 hours.
The
Companion Bible
says: and Appendixes p. 170) The
following is
from The Interpreters
Dictionary of the Bible: the ‘king of London'. The phrase could hardly have been used if the Assyrian Empire had still been in existence." (p. 966) My source for sperm whales not being found in the Mediterranean was the prolific genius and scholar Issac Asimov in Asimov's Guide to the Bible (1981 edition p. 647). I am not aware of the scholarship of Animals of Bible Lands cited by Anonymous to show sperm whales sometimes reach the Palestine coast. As regards the
Book of
Jonah being intended
as history because of Jesus referring to Jonah in Matthew 12:38-41
(INVESTIGATOR
35 p. 16) consider: of literary or historical criticism, but were citing a familiar example somewhat as people today allude to Cinderella or the Prodigal Son." (New Catholic Encycyclopedia 1967 Volume 7 p. 1094) I
fully
agree that
there are great moral
lessons in the Book of Jonah. But my research does not allow me to
swallow
the whale! SWALLOW STORY B J Kotwall (Investigator
40, 1995
January) There is an
interesting
item in Funk &
Wagnalls Dictionary, of Folklore, Mythology and Legend (1950) titled Swallow
Story, which I quote in part: "A type of
folktale
based on the extraordinary
swallowings motif, appearing almost everywhere in the world,
end following several distinct patterns: 1) in which the hero is swallowed by one or more monsters but is disgorged or emerges in safety when the monster is killed; 2) in which a glutton swallows his own children, neighbors, etc., and is killed,the victims emerging alive; and 3) appearing through-out the ages in all parts of the world: etiololgical stories accounting for various natural phenomena, as the countless eclipse tales, the Paiute Indian story of how the sun swallows the stars (to explain their disappearance at dawn)… Among
the famous swallow
stories of the world
are the Greek myths of Cronus who swallowed his own children, and of
Zeus
who swallowed Metis, the story of Jonah swallowed by the whale, the
Teutonic
Odin swallowed by the wolf, etc."
Anonymous (Investigator 40, 1995 January) In
INVESTIGATOR 35 I
concluded: "My attempt
to take the story of Jonah literally and assess whether it could have
happened
has led to indefinite conclusions."
I added
that
credibility
is stretched but
that most of the events might have occurred even without miraculous
intervention
by any God.
Mr Kotwall apparently wants to reduce my argument for a possibility or probability to an impossibility. If
something
fictitious
is presented as a
true report, then the claim that it is a true report is false. My first
article (No. 35) showed Jonah was intended as history – but history to
illustrate
moral principles.
Jesus stated: "The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgement with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah." (Matthew 12:41) This link to the doctrine of the resurrection demonstrates that Jonah was understood as history. Mr Kotwall's quoting of The New Catholic Encyclopedia to suggest the contrary is misplaced. The
question
then
remains: "Could the events
in the book of Jonah have happened?" That was discussed in INVESTIGATOR
35 and Mr Kotwall's counter arguments have done little more than
restate
his opposition while ignoring my evidence.
Mr
Kotwall's
point about
the "King of Nineveh"
being a wrong title (from Black's Bible Dictionary and The
Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible) received a tentative answer
in INVESTIGATOR 37. Funk & Wagnalls says: "In reality
the nobles
and courtiers with
whom he (the king) was surrounded, as well as the governors whom
he appointed to administer the conquered lands, often made decisions for him. Their ambitions and intrigues were a constant menace to the life of the Assyrian ruler. Palace revolts and revolutions were not uncommon, especially toward the end of the reign of a king, when the selection of a successor became a crucial issue." In addition to my explanation that the phrase "king of Nineveh" was not being used as a title but merely denoted where the King of Assyria stayed at the time, we also have the possibility that the "king of Nineveh" was not the King of Assyria but a governor in rebellion. The story of Jonah is set sometime in the 50-year period (c.800 BC to c.750 BC) when Assyria was in decline. Mr Kotwall's mistake is to seek definite answers from indefinite data.
The date
of
Jonah's
final composition is
a subsidiary question. The past tense in "Nineveh was an exceedingly
great
city", understood by some to suggest Nineveh no longer existed when
Jonah
was written, could instead imply that Nineveh was even greater at the
time
of writing than at the time of the events. Or perhaps both these
interpretations
of "was" are wrong and the correct explanation is that the entire Jonah
report was written in the past tense! Again Mr Kotwall has sought to
conclude
from indefinite evidence that Jonah, if taken as historical, is
certainly
wrong.
Aramaic words occur in other Old Testament books besides Jonah and are a separate issue. The
120,000
were not
children as I clearly
argued in No. 37. Quoting a series of mistaken "authorities" does not
alter
the obvious. I showed that "adam" means "men" or "adults" and in the
Bible
excludes children. A check of 13 Bible translations revealed two which
say "infants" or "children" but eleven which say "persons" "human
beings"
"people" etc. The "adam" of chapter 4 are the same "adam" who repented
in chapter 3.
I showed
in
INVESTIGATOR
37 that this accurate
understanding of the 120,000 agrees with modern estimates of Nineveh's
population.
The phrase
"three days
and three nights"
is taken literally by a minority who wish to argue that Jesus died on
Thursday
rather than on Friday. Most conclude the phrase was "idiomatic Hebrew"
(Schulze 1965), which meant "part of three natural days" (Poole 1963)
and
could be "32 to 34 hours". (Wedderspoon 1931) This would, however,
require
a separate debate.
My quote
"The
Sperm
Whale…comes into the
Mediterranean and is recorded from time to time off the Palestine
coast"
was from C S Cansdale (1970) – Animals of Bible Lands. Mr
Kotwall's
counter quote from Asimov is also correct in that only occasional stray
Sperm Whales enter the Mediterranean.
Tristram (c. 1880) wrote: "The ‘great fish' could not have been what we understand by a whale, from the small capacity of its throat. Whales though now extinct there, were in ancient times known in the Mediterranean." The idea of the Sperm Whale's small throat was a common 19th century objection which was refuted in the 20th century as shown in INVESTIGATOR 35. Did all of
Nineveh
repent and worship Jonah's
god? I discussed the probability of this in No. 35.
References Anonymous
Jonah: A Whale
of a Tale!? INVESTIGATOR No. 35 JONAH IS FICTIONAL PART 3 B J Kotwall (Investigator
40, 1995
January)
My quotation from The New Catholic Encyclopedia which questions that Jonah was intended as history, although Jesus referred to Jonah (Matthew 12:38-41), is called "misplaced" by Anonymous. Misplaced by whom and in what way? I thought I was spot on! I am not sure what the Funk and Wagnalls quotation is supposed to prove. It appears irrelevant to the context. On what basis does Anonymous conjecture that "the king of Nineveh" was not the King but a governor in rebellion? What scholarly support or evidence is there for presuming that "Nineveh was even greater at the time of writing (the book of Jonah) than at the time of the events?" Regarding the Aramaic words and phrases Dr. L H Brockington, who was senior lecturer in Aramaic and Syriac at Oxford University, says: "The language (of Book of Jonah) is also indicative of a late date, having several words and phrases that belong more to Aramaic than to Hebrew." (Peak's Commentary on the Bible 1967 p. 627) That the 120,000 referred to children is deduced by scholars from Hebrew idiom as I have already clearly demonstrated. Most translations endeavour to be faithful to the original language, and it is acceptable, even correct, to translate as "persons", "humans", etc, the Hebrew word here involved. But scholars of Hebrew are able to recognize an idiom when they come across it in the Scriptures and this is often clarified in reliable Commentaries, Dictionaries, and related works on the Bible. I have not
found any
Bible translation which
renders the "three days and three nights" of Jonah 1:17 as "30 hours"
or
as "part of three natural days" as Anonymous maintains.
Anonymous
casually
dismisses Moffat's
Translation, The Companion Bible, and the Dictionary of
the
Bible by J L Mckenzie, as "mistaken authorities"!
Peak's Commentary speaks of Moffat's Translation (and that of Weymouth and Goodspeed) as: "While free with idiomatic renderings, their essential accuracy is guaranteed by the scholarly competence of the translators." (p. 27) Another prestigious publication New 20th Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1991) edited by J D Douglas says about Moffat: "His translation of the whole Bible highly acclaimed, widely used, and is still quoted in learned commentaries." (p. 505) The
Companion Bible
is a world-famous
publication and has been a useful and comprehensive tool as in the
hands
of Bible readers and scholars for many years.
Mckenzie's
Dictionary
received rave reviews
when it was published. For example: Accuracy
and
sound
judgment as a Biblical
theologian. Time Magazine.
A triumph of scholarship, lucidity, and high editorial discipline. Commonweal One of the most up-to-date and reliable dictionaries...magnificent scholarship, ample in learning… Factual on every page. Religious Education Simply amazing…an honest and outspoken scholar. Journal of Biblical Literature. Monumental. Bible Today Finally
the
following seems appropriate: "there are
Christians
today who take the
Bible literally, believing the earth was created in six days, Elijah
was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, Jonah was swallowed by a whale, and Jesus physical body arose from a tomb. For these believers, Christian myths are true stories not to be questioned but to be taken as literal fact. But the vast majority of thinking people are not easily satisfied with this simplistic approach. For them myth contains much that goes against common every day experience, science and reason. We knew that earth was not created days, people do not fly to heaven in a fiery chariot, whales do not swallow people and later dislodge them, and the dead do not come out of their tombs alive." (Encyclopedia of World Mythology & Legend 1988 A S Mercatante p. 14) Anonymous (Investigator 40, 1995 January)
The
Companion Bible
is, as Mr Kotwall
says, "world famous". If quoting it is enough to prove a point why
doesn't
he quote p. 1247 where it is argued that Jonah is literal valid
history?
The marginal comments and appendixes of The Companion Bible
include
many errors. In INVESTIGATOR 20, for example, I discussed the failed
prophecy
in Appendix 531.
Scholars do not write only what everyone knows to be true. In a large publication such as a Bible translation or a Bible dictionary the scholar will include many educated guesses when deciding on points which are inconclusive and many such opinions will later turn out mistaken. Existence of "rave reviews" does not mean the raving reviewers checked and confirmed every statement involving an educated opinion. If they did then we could avoid the work of the scholar and go straight to the more informed work of the raving reviewer. When
anyone
supplies
information which a
scholar did not consider when giving an opinion then the new
information
should be considered and scholarly opinion set aside if necessary.
In what
way
was Mr
Kotwall's quote from The
New Catholic Encyclopedia "misplaced"? Because a quote containing
faulty
logic does not help his case. Jesus in Matthew 12 says the "men of
Nineveh"
will rise in the resurrection with Jesus' generation and the Queen of
Sheba.
The doctrine of the resurrection is not about God making alive
fictitious
persons such as Tarzan, Cinderella and Frankenstein but of restoring
persons
who once lived. For Jesus to include the men who Jonah converted means
he and his listeners considered the book of Jonah to be about real
events
and real people and not an allegory. (The Bible does include allegory
but
no one book is entirely allegorical!)
Josephus
(Antiquities
Book 9 chapter 10)
repeats the story of Jonah, also not as an allegory but as history (or
alleged history).
The Funk
&
Wagnalls
quote shows that
Assyria had struggles over kingship, and governors often acted for the
king. The Jonah setting is a period of decline (early 8th century B C)
when such problems may have been frequent. Until we get a week by week
chronicle of Nineveh the possibility remains that the "king of Nineveh"
during Jonah's visit was not the same as the "king of Assyria". (In my
view, however, the phrase "king of Nineveh" simply tells us where the
King
of Assyria lived at the time.)
I don't "presume" Nineveh was even greater at the time of writing." This is merely one of several interpretations of "was" in "Nineveh was a great city". The most probable explanation is that "was" is used because the entire account is in the past tense. The
120,000
are called
"adam" meaning "man"
or "men" a word sometimes including women. The Bible never refers to
baby
girls or baby boys as "men" which Mr Kotwall wants to maintain.
His
confusion
arose
because the 120,000 "cannot
discern between their right hand and their left band". (4:11) The Bible
sometimes uses right and left to represent good and evil or favour and
disfavour. Jonah lacked Jewish follow-up to teach the 120,000 adults
and
so they would have remained in a state of spiritual ignorance despite
their
conversion.
Mr Kotwall
persists in
viewing the 120,000
"men" as literal babies because the correct explanation gives a
population
figure for Nineveh which agrees with modern estimates. (INVESTIGATOR
37)
Who of us, without going to a library, can accurately give the
population
of, say, 19th century Berlin, Tokyo or Glascow? For Jonah to
get it right adds plausibility to the account!
I didn't
claim
any Bible
renders "three days
and three nights" as "30 hours". I cited scholars who believed about 30
hours was meant. The same words "three days and three nights" are used
of Jesus' time in the tomb – late Friday afternoon to pre dawn Sunday.
"Three
days and three nights" is therefore not literal but idiomatic.
The
account I gave in
INVESTIGATOR 35 argued
for the possibility that the events in Jonah happened and I presented
facts
and scenarios which added credibility to Jonah. Mr Kotwall might still
be correct in rejecting Jonah as history but the reasons he has given
are
not conclusive.
B J Kotwall (Investigator
41, 1995
March)
Anonymous feels that reviewers are not to be trusted, that Encyclopedias could contain faulty logic and scholars arc not really reliable and make "many educated guesses". Since that is so, whom do we turn to for reliable interpretation and analysis of complex historical and Biblical matters? Also by the same logic the "scholars" quoted by Anonymous should be discounted. So what are we left with? "Educated guesses" from Anonymous and myself? The Companion Bible was not the only commentary which I quoted for support. There were several other sources I had quoted. Moffat's, McKenzie, Asimov, Interpreter's, etc. I suppose Anonymous considers all these as also wrong, or mistaken, or using faulty logic. Why refer to Josephus' writings? He lived in the first century and people of Jesus' time did believe Jonah to be historical. In fact many writers of 19th and early 20th century believed the same. It's only the enlightened modern scholars who have challenged this and other fundamentalist beliefs. As regards the rest of the contents of Anonymous' last article I have adequately dealt with the items raised, in my previous submissions. Further comments would result in somewhat of a rehash of what I already stated. The
article in Investigator No.40
on Fundamentalism by Dr Potter is excellent and also relevant.
REPLY TO MR KOTWALL Anonymous (Investigator
42, 1995
May)
Referring to
our debate
on "Jonah" Mr Kotwall
states: "Anonymous feels…Encyclopedias could contain faulty logic and
scholars
are not really reliable."
I certainly did not imply so general a principle. In several specific instances where authorities were wrong I explained why and how. In every discipline scholars make "educated guesses" in areas where there is still controversy – and may then be refuted by others. This is not limited to theology. Mr Kotwall asks: "Why refer to Josephus' writings?" The reason was to show that ancient Jews viewed Jonah as describing events which supposedly happened. The book of Jonah itself indicates it's not an allegory, but intended as factual, which I pointed out in INVESTIGATOR 35. My investigation was in two steps. Firstly I asked whether Jonah was presented as history. The answer was "Yes" and so the 2nd step was to examine whether the events could have happened. I showed that "the events are not wholly impossible." (No. 35 p. 30) Doubtless
more evidence
will come to hand
in future. Mr Kotwall is aware of some of my other investigations where
Bible statements believed wrong were proven right in the 1960s, 1970s
or
1980s.
REPLY TO ANONYMOUS ON JONAH B J Kotwall (Investigator 43, 1995 July) I refer to Anonymous' letter in INVESTIGATOR No. 42. It appears that Anonymous maintains that scholars and encyclopedias could contain faulty logic and could be wrong but nevertheless he quotes them freely. Apparently those references quoted by him have to be taken as reliable whereas those quoted by me would have to be wrong! I agree that so-called "educated guesses" are often resorted to when a controversy exists. I have maintained that there is no real controversy existing among modern-day reliable and informed scholars about "Jonah" being fictional. There is near unanimity on it. Josephus made very useful contributions as a historian, but his works also contain many errors. (The Unauthorized Version, Robin Lane Fox, 1991) I have already stated in my previous submission why it was inappropriate to use Josephus as a reference in this subject. My investigations indicate that Jonah was not history and as such the events related in Jonah could not have happened. This was fully discussed by me in previous copies of INVESTIGATOR. Anonymous' research indicated to the contrary to him. It is for the readers of this magazine to decide which arguments appear more plausible. Finally,
to depend upon
and hope for yet
undiscovered evidence to support or bolster a theory is not good
exegesis! REPLY
TO Anonymous (Investigator 43, 1995 July) When I quoted scholars of one persuasion rather than another I gave extra reasons for my choice. I did not merely ask that: "references quoted by him have to be taken as reliable whereas those quoted by me have to be wrong." A further distinction when quoting a reference is whether the quote refers to something objective which others can check empirically or whether the quote is the scholar's opinion and cannot be independently confirmed. In a controversial question it is not enough to merely quote someone who shares your prejudice. Is there "near unanimity" that Jonah is fictional? Perhaps among "liberal" scholars seeking to "demythologize" the Bible. However, there is also "near unanimity" of Jonah's accuracy among thousands of religious ministers who have university or seminary degrees and so are also "scholars". A controversial question is not, however, settled by taking a census of opinion! Why Josephus should be wrong in stating what Jews of his time believed is for Mr Kotwall to explain. If there are reasons for concluding that all 1st century Jews thought the Jonah book allegorical we should be given those reasons. I have shown that Jonah was intended as history to illustrate moral lessons. And if the presentation of real events was intended then the obvious question is: "Were the events indeed real; did they happen?" I argued (in INVESTIGATOR 35) that Jonah includes enough scientific and historical accuracy to admit the possibility that the events happened. I repeat the "possibility". It's Mr Kotwall who seeks certainty but fails to give that certain evidence. For example, his attempt to undermine the credibility of Jonah by questioning the population figure of Nineveh failed totally. (INVESTIGATOR 40) Finally,
I invite Mr
Kotwall to read my article:
"Investigating Scientifically, whether God Tells Lies" in INVESTIGATOR
31.
REPLY TO ANONYMOUS ON JONAH B J Kotwall (Investigator 45, 1995 November) I would rather depend upon renowned and reliable scholarship than suppositions and guesses from Anonymous. To me "if' and "maybe" and "probably" and "usually" are not enough to accept the premises of Anonymous. If some theory flies in the face of reason, logic and common sense, then I would not entertain it. I do not consider it sacrilegious to say that the Bible does contain myths, fictional accounts, as well as facts and eternal truths. Obviously, there is expected to be unanimity among "thousands" of ministers, who hold degrees from seminaries, on Jonah being factual and other fundamentalist beliefs, because if the ministers did not uphold the fundamentalist opinions of such parochial seminaries, they would not probably get their "degrees"! Such degrees are not worth the paper they are printed upon. I have known such ministers who hold D.D.s but could not read a word of Hebrews or Greek, but nevertheless revelled in their own tendentiousness! I will, though, sit up and listen to distinguished scholars who possess qualifications from accredited universities, who are or were appointed lecturers and professors at such universities, who have significantly published articles and books in the field through renowned periodicals and publishing houses, and who are acknowledged, without reservation, as authorities in their area of expertise. These are the scholars who have been referred to by me in my articles on Jonah. I really cannot understand why Anonymous wants me to give reasons why I have concluded that Josephus was wrong in stating what Jews of his time believed, or why I maintained that Jews of the first century thought Jonah was allegorical. Because I never said so! In fact I stated something quite to the contrary. I said that, "He (Josephus) lived in the first century and people of Jesus' time did believe Jonah to be historical!" (INVESTIGATOR No. 41 p. 15) Anonymous
boasts that my
arguments (which
I had supported by quoting renowned scholars whom he casually dismisses
as "as series of mistaken authorities") – relating to the population
figure
of Nineveh – have totally failed! Even if he says so himself! I had
explained
that because of the Hebraism in Jonah 4:11, the word Adam in Hebrew
could
be taken to mean children here. In fact Anonymous admits that "usually
Adam excludes Children" (INVESTIGATOR No. 37), which apparently leaves
room for children to be included when the word "adam" is used: "Adam is
used widely
throughout the Old
Testament for ‘human kind' or ‘human being'." (The Anchor Bible
Dictionary
p. 62 Vol. I)
It
is not simply a
matter of literal
translation of the Bible verse but involves an interpretation based on
knowledge of the Biblical Hebrew language, its figures of speech and
idioms.
(cf. Biblical Figures of Speech – Bullinger.) JONAH: QUOTATIONS, SCHOLARS, AND NINEVEH'S POPULATION Anonymous (Investigator
45, 1995
November) When taking sides in a controversial issue it's not enough to quote "renowned scholarship", reject contrary evidence and assume the case is closed. It's easy to quote top astronomers who believe alien civilizations exist and easy to quote the opposite. If you take sides, don't just give the quote according to your bias, but give reason for your choice! In INVESTIGATOR 40 p. 50 I wrote: "When anyone supplies information which a scholar did not consider when giving an opinion then the new information should be considered and scholarly opinion set aside if necessary." I also distinguished references stating objective things which others can check empirically from references which state a scholar's opinion and cannot be independently confirmed. (No. 43 p. 5) Any person who ignores these self-evident guidelines and instead claims a vague ability to judge relative values of academic degrees or which scholarship is "reliable scholarship" should give proof of such ability. Even if he could judge the value of academic degrees the use a person puts his degree to is something else again. Neither degrees, qualifications or experience assure accuracy when evidence is inconclusive. In INVESTIGATOR 28 the Bible plus myself were shown correct on the question of whether the crocodile has a tongue and a curator of reptiles, and a crocodile hunter and various authors were all wrong! The question of Jonah and the "fish" is more complicated. I gave a reasoned case in INVESTIGATOR 35, based on evidence, and did not rely solely on quoting opinion of believers. My conclusion was: "The events are not wholly impossible." (p. 30) In vast numbers of issues and questions that's all we can establish – a possibility or probability. We can't change the possibility to certainty by citing a scholarly opinion any more than we can predict roulette results by watching where the world's top mathematician places his bets. Some critics argue for Jonah as "myth"by claiming Jonah got wrong the population figure for Nineveh. I'll go through this question again, keeping in mind the guidelines above. Jonah 4:11 mentions 120,000 "adam" in Nineveh. A few scholars say these 120,000 mean children or infants which implies a total population of about 1 million. This is vastly higher than estimates made by modern researchers of Nineveh's population. I checked
the
translation of "adam" of Jonah
4:11 in 16 Bible translations giving:
people
3
men 1
persons 7 children 1 human beings 3 infants 1
Which is right and reliable and why? The Old
Testament has
the word "adam" in
the Hebrew about 600 times. It's easy to get all 600 from the Englishman's
Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance. "Adam" nearly always refers to
adult
males but may sometimes include females. I found no example of "adam"
referring
to infants or even including them.
Note, I'm not just citing majority "scholarship" (14 Bibles against 2) but giving extra reasons! In Jonah 4:11 "adam" probably includes women. My reasons for concluding this are:
"Enosh"
occurs
in Jonah
1:10, 13, 16; 3:5.
In 3:5 enosh refers to people who "believed God". This would not have
been
males alone. In other words Jonah is concerned with adults, male &
female, who repented and believed.
The few
"scholars" who
disagree do so because
the 120,000 "cannot discern between their right hand and their left
hand."
(4:11)
Take this literally and it means infants. However,
the
Bible
sometimes uses left and
right to represent evil and good or disfavour and favour. In Jonah 4:11
this figure of speech would describe the spiritual ignorance and
vulnerability
of the 120,000 new believers.
Citing a few "scholars" who made the mistake of taking a vivid figure of speech literally is an inadequate response to the preceding evidence. In English
we
don't
usually call children
"persons" or include them among "persons". We can, but it is not usual.
On this basis it's possible that the seven translators who translated
"adam"
as persons agree with my analysis that adults, male and female, are
meant!
The ratio of children to adults in Assyria has been put at 5:8. (Garner G C September 1976 Buried History Volume 12 No. 3 pp. 109-141) Assuming
males
and
females were equal in
number the different translations of "adam" give the
following
population estimates for Nineveh:
From my
analysis that
"adam" in Jonah 4 means
adults – males and females – we calculate 195,000. MODERN ESTIMATES AND JONAH'S COMPARED Felix Jones
surveyed the
walls of Nineveh in
1834. The inner circumference was 12 km within which, he believed,
175,000
people could have lived.
35 km south of Nineveh was Nimrud (=Calah). Nimrud was half the area of Nineveh – 358 vs 750 hectares. Its ancient population has been estimated at 63,000 adults and 40,000 children = 103,000. (Garner 1976 p.125) A British expedition in 1949 led by M E L Mallowan estimated Nimrud's populaton, including children, at 86,000. (Lloyd, S 1984 The Archaeology of Mesopotamia Thames & Hudson Britain pp. 213-214) Double these estimates to allow for Nineveh being about twice the size and we have very good agreement with the 195,000 for Nineveh calculated from using the most reasonable interpretation of "adam" in the book of Jonah. Who of us can accurately give the population of 18th century Baghdad, Berlin or Bombay? For Jonah to get the figure correct for Nineveh provokes thought and adds credibility to the book. The close population fit is only one evidence. In INVESTIGATOR 35 there is much more. However, I have not proven the story true but showed that: "The events are not wholly impossible." (No. 35 p. 30) To
overcome the evidence
for the "possibility"
critics need to do better than quote opinions even the opinions of a
few
scholars.
(Investigator
46, 1996
January) The
long-running comment
on Jonah and the
fish missed the following quote: (Sharks Silent Hunters of the Deep 1995 Introduction by Ron & Valerie Taylor Readers Digest Australia Pty Ltd) It should be noted that the 2 dolphins were dead. Even if a human survived being swallowed he'd still have the problem of lack of air to breathe. Eight
years after the debate
between Anonymous and Kotwall concluded
another writer, Ken DeMyer, reopened the topic: Ken DeMyer (Investigator
94, 2004
January)
As your
know
I am a
ANONYMOUS fan. I did
find something questionable in his Jonah piece which overall at first
appearances
seems excellent. It seems as if the James Bartley account given in his
piece may have been a hoax. Below are the supporting links for the hoax
theory regarding James Bartley which seems to have some merit:
www.ship-of-fools.com/Myths/04Myth.html www.straightdope.com/columns/010914.html
REPLY TO KEN DEMYER ON JONAH Anonymous (Investigator
95, 2004
March) I was suspicious of the James Bartley, "modern Jonah", story when I used it in the Jonah debate commencing in Investigator 35. My oldest reference to Bartley was A Dictionary of the Bible (1902) and that reference cited a German church magazine of 1895! Investigator published the Dictionary extract with my comment – "Observe the strange original reference…" but this is omitted in the website version of the Jonah debate. I had no means of checking the Bartley story further, but did see it in non-religious publications, and therefore used it. There are other stories of people swallowed by a whale or shark and surviving. My initial Jonah article cited Australasian Post (December 3, 1988) regarding a man lost overboard from a harpoon boat of the whaler Essex in 1820 and retrieved from a whale's stomach after two hours. Such stories are less detailed than the Bartley story and therefore probably dubious. The most detailed discussion and apparent refutation of James Bartley is by Edward B Davis at: www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1991/PSCF12-91Davis.html
Although it's useful to be able to point to a "modern Jonah" when discussing the Biblical Jonah it's better to desist for the present. The
origin and effects
of lies and liars
is actually a theme in the Bible – from the first lie in Genesis 3 to
the
punishment of all liars in Revelation 21:8. What's wrong with lies is
the
harm they do. If James Bartley, for example, was a hoax then millions
of
people wasted their time over it and anyone who thinks the Bible is
unreliable
may feel he has added reason to think that way.
NEW JONAH ESSAY ON THE WEB Ken DeMyer (Investigator 96, 2004 May) Anonymous
was a good starting point in my
investigation on Jonah and I borrowed liberally to compose my own
essay.
I did
find
another
portion suspect (like
the James Bartley account): Here is
a
site which
states why the above
material is suspect: I discuss hoaxes in my essay and the miraculous. I do not dismiss a whole area of study because of hoaxes. Hoaxes have happened on both sides of the materialist/Christian fence – for example the Piltdown man. I do lean, however, on the survival of Jonah being miraculous but I investigate naturalistic explanations in my essay. I have published my essay on the web:www.angelfire.com/falcon/k_hammerbear/jonah/
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