Jonah: Dead or Alive?

hedrick · Nov 28, 2019

redleghunter said:
His denial of the supernatural was quite clear.

I think the literal meaning of the story is so absurd that it's obviously a satire. But that's almost irrelevant to exegesis. Jonah, as a typical Jew, sees Babylon as the enemy, and wants God to reject them. He goes into a sulk when they're saved. God himself delivers the punch line. He cares about everyone, no matter their nationality. If read in Jerusalem at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah this would definitely have been an attack on what they were doing.

Calvin sees the same. He says "God then shows here to Jonah that he had been carried away by his own merciless zeal. Though his zeal, as it has been said, arose from a good principle, yet Jonah was influenced by a feeling far too vehement" "If then men are inclined to mercy through some hidden impulse of nature, what may not be hoped from the inconceivable goodness of God, who is the Creator of the whole world, and the Father of us all? and will not he, who is the fountain of all goodness and mercy, spare us?"

He doesn't make the connection to the "merciless zeal" of Ezra and Nehemiah, but I agree with Spong that the connection would have been pretty clear to people at the time. (Ezra and Nehemiah are two of the few books Calvin didn't write a commentary on.)

WebersHome · Nov 28, 2019

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● Matt 12:39-40 . . 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.

Now when you think about it; Jesus' corpse was never in the heart of the Earth. It wasn't even in the Earth's soil. Jesus' corpse was laid to rest on the surface of the Earth inside a rock. (Matt 27:57-60, Luke 23:50-53)

So, the only way that Jesus could possibly be in entombed on the surface of the Earth while simultaneously in the heart of the Earth; was for the man and his body to part company and go their separate ways.

Jonah's experience is handy for illustrating Jesus' experience; viz: if Jonah existed at the bottoms of the mountains while his flesh lay deceased in the tummy of a fish, then Jesus existed in the heart of the Earth while his flesh lay deceased in a rock.

Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites and also a sign to Jesus' generation (Matt 13:39-40, Luke 11:29-30). The word "sign" is translated from a Greek word that's sometimes used in the gospels to indicate miracles.

Had Jonah remained alive in the fish's tummy the entire three days and three nights, that would not be the kind of sign that Jesus had in mind. He needed a miraculous event that would adequately depict his own; the reason being that Jesus' flesh was on track to be restored to life. (John 2:19-21)

Jonah, coupled with Ps 16:8-10, Acts 2:25-31, and Matt 12:39-40 proves that Jesus continued to exist out of body when he passed away; and if he and Jonah did, then there's reason to expect that everyone else does too.

If Jesus Christ's resurrection was an actual historical event-- if his crucified dead body really was restored to life just as Jonah's-- then God's son is most certainly the one man in the New Testament that everybody really ought to approach with a great deal of caution because Jonah's message warned of the impending destruction of just one city; while Jesus' message warns of the impending destruction of many cities. (Rev 16:17-19)

● Matt 12:41 . . Men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it; because they repented at what Jonah preached, but, look! something more than Jonah is here.
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hedrick · Nov 28, 2019

The usual assumption is that the sign of Jonah is resurrection from death. There is another possibility. Jonah 2 says

"Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
how shall I look again
upon your holy temple?’
The waters closed in over me;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head
at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the Pit,
O LORD my God."

The Pit is a reference to the land of death. But the emphasis here isn't on death but on rejection by God and separation from him. Poetry, of course, is often symbolic. In the poetry he's cast alive into the Pit, and rescued. But I think the point is in verse 4: rejection by God. After all, he could hardly pray this prayer if he's actually dead.

This goes well with many concepts of the atonement, where our sins are placed on Jesus, and he bears our rejection and separation. Obviously I'm not denying that Jesus was in fact dead, and Jonah's metaphorical death surely made the comparison more apt. But symbols needn't match in all details.

I would say that Jonah was (to the extent that this book is literal at all) literally alive in the fish, but rejected by God and metaphorically thrown alive into the world of the dead.

redleghunter · Nov 28, 2019

hedrick said:
I think the literal meaning of the story is so absurd that it's obviously a satire. But that's almost irrelevant to exegesis. Jonah, as a typical Jew, sees Babylon as the enemy, and wants God to reject them. He goes into a sulk when they're saved. God himself delivers the punch line. He cares about everyone, no matter their nationality. If read in Jerusalem at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah this would definitely have been an attack on what they were doing.

Calvin sees the same. He says "God then shows here to Jonah that he had been carried away by his own merciless zeal. Though his zeal, as it has been said, arose from a good principle, yet Jonah was influenced by a feeling far too vehement" "If then men are inclined to mercy through some hidden impulse of nature, what may not be hoped from the inconceivable goodness of God, who is the Creator of the whole world, and the Father of us all? and will not he, who is the fountain of all goodness and mercy, spare us?"

He doesn't make the connection to the "merciless zeal" of Ezra and Nehemiah, but I agree with Spong that the connection would have been pretty clear to people at the time. (Ezra and Nehemiah are two of the few books Calvin didn't write a commentary on.)

Calvin is right and he did not make the “ridiculous” claim as you did.

The story of Jonah was used by Christ as the sign of His Resurrection. Why? Because people rising from the dead three days after death before the coming of Messiah was crazy talk even to the Pharisees.

WebersHome · Nov 28, 2019

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FAQ: Is it possible that Jesus wasn't dead when his friends took him down from the cross and they inadvertently buried him alive?

A: It's highly improbable.

In his last moments on the cross, Jesus managed to get out one last prayer.

"Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said: Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last." (Luke 23:46)

A soldier impaled Jesus to be sure he was gone.

"Now it was the day of preparation, and the next day was to be a special sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other.

. . . But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water." (John 19:31-35)

(Since Jesus was somewhat elevated, (it's not stated exactly how high) the spear point would have entered his body at an upward angle. The text doesn't say which side was stabbed, but from John's description, and judging from the intent of the soldier to leave no doubt about Jesus' death, the heart side was very likely the side they cut into and the spear point entered just under his rib cage.

The heart is surrounded by a membrane called the pericardium. This membrane contains a serous liquor resembling water, which prevents the surface of the heart from becoming dry and/or chafed by its continual motion. It was very likely this which was pierced and from which the water flowed.

The point of the spear also seems to have reached one of the ventricles of Jesus' heart, and blood, yet warm, rushed forth, either mingled with or followed by the liquor of the pericardium, so as to appear to John to be blood and water flowing together. Though not medically accurate in our day, John's calling the serous fluid "water" was accurate enough in his own day.)

And a Roman officer certified his demise.

"Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph." ( Mark 15:43-45)
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WebersHome · Nov 28, 2019

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FAQ: Seeing as how Jesus was buried dead rather than alive, then can we safely assume that Jonah was buried dead rather than alive too?

A: We can, and in point of fact; Jonah says, in so many words, that his cause of death was drowning.

"For thou didst cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas, And the flood was round about me; All thy waves and thy billows passed over me. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul; The deep was round about me; The weeds were wrapped about my head.

. . . I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; The earth with its bars (closed) upon me forever: Yet hast thou brought up my life from the pit, O Jehovah my God. (Jonah 2:3-6)

The Hebrew word for "soul" in that passage is nephesh (neh'-fesh) which is somewhat ambiguous because according to the first couple of chapters in Genesis, nephesh pertains to both man and animal; but in Jonah's case our focus is upon human life because Gen 2:7 reads:

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

So Jonah 2:5 is telling us-- in so many words --that the depths claimed his life; but not fast enough because just before Jonah died, he managed to get off one last prayer.

"When my soul fainted within me, I remembered Jehovah; and my prayer came in unto thee, into thy holy temple." (Jonah 2:7)

FAQ: Phooey! What kind of fishes are capable of swallowing a man whole?

A: You don't need an entire species capable of swallowing a man whole; you only need one fish.

The fish that swallowed Jonah didn't just happen to be cruising by and chanced upon Jonah's body tangled in the sea weeds. According to the language of Jonah 1:17, the fish was singled out; some versions say "prepared". Well; I tend to think that particular fish was singled out because it was a freak of nature-- I suspect that God tampered with its genetics, possible as early as its mother's womb, in such a way as to make it a super fish so I'd suggest not trying to find another like it (except maybe in the waters around Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant).

There are several miraculous events told in the Bible which skeptical folks have a very hard time swallowing. Well; those of us who believe in miracles are very fortunate because our belief in the supernatural sure simplifies things for us while the skeptics stretch the limits of their imaginations with metaphorizing, parabalizing, analagizing, spiritualizing, fictionalizing, and fantasizing.
_

JackRT · Nov 28, 2019

WebersHome said:
In his last moments on the cross, Jesus managed to get out one last prayer.

"Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said: Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last." (Luke 23:46)

Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Mark 15:34 And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

It is the only saying that appears in more than one Gospel, and is a quote from Psalm 22:2.

mmksparbud · Nov 28, 2019

WebersHome said:
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Yes.
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Sorry---that was the wrong one -- it is post # 16. I got them mixed up.

hedrick · Nov 28, 2019

WebersHome said:
.
There are several miraculous events told in the Bible which skeptical folks have a very hard time swallowing. Well; those of us who believe in miracles are very fortunate because our belief in the supernatural sure simplifies things for us while the skeptics stretch the limits of their imaginations with metaphorizing, parabalizing, analagizing, spiritualizing, fictionalizing, and fantasizing.
_

The problem isn't the miracles are impossible, but that the whole tone is more satire than history. I don't deny that the Bible has miracles in it. But this story isn't about a miracle. It's making fun of Jonah's narrow nationalism / racism.

JackRT · Nov 28, 2019

hedrick said:
The problem isn't the miracles are impossible, but that the whole tone is more satire than history. I don't deny that the Bible has miracles in it. But this story isn't about a miracle. It's making fun of Jonah's narrow nationalism / racism.

The Greeks called such teaching stories fables because they frequently used fabulous events to provide dramatic emphasis. The Book of Jonah is just this sort of fable with fabulous events like --- well, its late and I really don't need to go through the list.

yeshuaslavejeff · Nov 30, 2019

Jesus says the Father granted Jonah as the ONLY sign given to some people.

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Jonah: Dead or Alive?

hedrick

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WebersHome

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hedrick

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redleghunter

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mmksparbud

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hedrick

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yeshuaslavejeff

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