Once upon a time there was a man named Jonah who was traveling to Nineveh on a ship when along came a mighty wind which rocked the ship violently, scaring the pee pee out of everyone on board except for Jonah who like many Biblical figures in various Bible stories had passed out.
The brave sailors of the ship started to panic and began throwing things overboard. Meanwhile Jonah awakened with a hangover, went on top, and convinced the sailors that if they threw him overboard the storm would stop and sure enough it worked.
Then, as if things weren’t going badly enough for Jonah, along came a “big fish” which swallowed him.
After three days of living underwater inside of the fish’s stomach it occurred to Jonah to pray. After some fast talking God spoke to the fish (in fisheese) and the fish vomited Jonah onto land where he scampered off to preach to the people of Nineveh.
Can anyone reading identify some of the problems with this story? Let’s see how well you did:
Oxygen
Jonah, without scuba gear and hence without oxygen, survived inside of a fish’s stomach underwater for three days. A lesser man would have suffocated within minutes, but apparently Jonah was exceptionally good at holding his breath?
Digestive Juices
The environment of the stomach is not a very pleasant place. Not the sort of place you would want to take your girlfriend on the first date. Stomachs are dark, smelly, and full of nasty digestive juices which curiously are meant to digest things over time that the fish has swallowed such as for example, Jonah.
Water
Also in stomachs, potable water is very scarce. In fact there is generally no potable water at all. The only thing available for drinking is just poisonous digestive juices. Human males require 3.7 liters of water a day to survive. In fact after three days of not drinking water Jonah would have at least been very close to dying from lack of water alone. Certainly in no condition to walk to Nineveh.
Reading the story of Jonah and the Whale, I have to wonder if the tale is more spicer than it appears.
The fish has long been the symbol of the great mother goddess, specifically her genitalia. Prehistoric man, who invented religion believed, tens of thousands of years before the cult of Yahweh emerged, that life came from a female deity, because that’s where new life came from, and they worshipped the great mother goddess’ where life came from knowing that it smelled like, well you know, and called it the vessel of the fish.
(Enki, a Sumerian God is healed by the great mother goddess, Nunhersag, by being cradled on her (well, you know.)
Jonah didn’t want to go preach to Ninevah, so is it possible that instead he was preoccupied with a great vessel of the fish for three days.
Taph
Taphophila, that’s a very interesting slant on the Jonah story.
As you know, religous myths replicate from culture to culture.
The Jonah story is from prehistoric religious myths. It is relating to man entering the fish (coitous) and birth.
Incidentally, the pointed oval is an ancient symbol of the great mother goddess’ yoni. (The symbol is often seen on car bumpers of Christians. So the next time you see one, remember what it is.)
http://www.atheists.org/christianity/fish.html
Taph
Does not the fish story also include parts of the concept of the Zodiac, where we are now, or have already, moved into the sign of the Waterbearer?
So it sounds like you don’t believe the story, right? A Fairy tale or sometthing like that?
The story of Jonah happened exactly the way that the Bible records it. Jesus said that “as Jonah was 3 days and 3 night in the belly of the Whale, so also would He be 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the earth.”
Jesus proved that the story of Jonah actually happened by using it as an illustration for his death and resurrection.
Some things are true even if you don’t believe them
Your reasoning would only be valid to someone who believes that the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels were never mistaken.
I was once a born again Christian so I probably know how you feel about the words of Jesus, but a critical look at the Gospels show that Jesus was just a normal man trapped in the understanding of his day and he certainly made mistakes.
Jesus was likely what we would today call a “cult leader.” He had a small group of followers who were ready to die and kill for him. According to the Gospels, Jesus likely thought his purpose was to start an uprising against the occupiers and rulers of Judeah at the time, the Romans (ala Moses or a King David) which would be supernaturally joined and result in the end of the world.
Instead Jesus was caught and executed which left his followers scratching their heads about how to make sense of all of it. Out of this need for rationalizations they borrowed the resurrection story which was nothing new. Resurrection stories had been invented for various gods for thousands of years before Jesus. Later Paul turned the execution of Jesus into a Mithra-like sacrifice with the blood of Jesus covering and washing away believer’s sins much like the blood of bulls literally dropped down on Mithra believers at the time which was supposed to wash away their sins.
By the time the oral traditions of Jesus’ life were set down in writing dozens of years later, the stories were likely heavily distorted and embellished.
Some of the words attributed to Jesus however were wrong. For example: the disciples never saw the end of the world as Jesus clearly predicted would happen in their lifetimes. Stars never fell from the sky, nobody came in clouds of glory to gather people away, etc…
As far as the story of Jonah, I have outlined some of the reasons why someone living in the belly of a fish for 3 days and scampering off to Nineveh afterwards is obviously impossible.
As a matter of fact, if Jesus had quoted such a ridiculous story as if it really happened, it damages the credibility of his own words.
By the way, if one counts the number of days between Friday and Sunday (Saturday, one, Sunday, two) they will see that in the execution story, Jesus was only dead 2 days, not “3 days and 3 nights” as Jesus was supposed to have predicted (Mat 12:40).
This story seems to be funny to say the least, but it has all the proper ingredients of parables (he who has eyes to see, see). The “fish” was obviously an artificial craft, no fish or whale or any animal could have had, as the poster properly says, water or oxigen to make a man survive for three days, or the engine to “vomit Jonah in dry land.” Reality can be weirder than fiction, but is simple to explain. Peace!
Jesus said that “as Jonah was 3 days and 3 night in the belly of the Whale, so also would He be 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the earth.”
We know that the fish and the whale are not related.
Just one more ridiculous story in a big book of ridiculous stories…
Anyone who believes the bible is word for word factual has clearly suffered from some sort of breakdown and or aneurysm!