Did a whale swallow Jonah?

[tonychanyt]

King James Bible, Jon 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.

a great
גָּד֔וֹל (gā·ḏō·wl)
Adjective - masculine singular
Strong's 1419: Great, older, insolent

fish
דָּ֣ג (dāḡ)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 1709: A fish

But then, KJB, Mt 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.

Strong's Greek: 2785. κῆτος (kétos) — 1 Occurrence

BDAG:

sea-monster (such as tried to swallow Andromeda) of Jonah’s fish

Tzetzes on Lycophron 34 has Heracles staying in the belly of the κῆτος for three days when he rescues Hesione).

NASB 1995:

for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER.

New King James Version:

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish.

God made a special big fish to swallow Jonah.

Did a whale swallow Jonah?

It was not a usual whale. God may have made a special Cetacean (whale) for the occasion. In any case, it was a special huge fish (sea creature).

 

[Aaron112]

People all over the earth swallow camels every day, don't they?
(while straining /choking/ on a gnat!?)

So let's say a minnow swallowed Jonah, and swim with that....



Now, to back-define minnow.

 

[David Lamb]

King James Bible, Jon 1:


a great
גָּד֔וֹל (gā·ḏō·wl)
Adjective - masculine singular
Strong's 1419: Great, older, insolent

fish
דָּ֣ג (dāḡ)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 1709: A fish

But then, KJB, Mt 12:


Strong's Greek: 2785. κῆτος (kétos) — 1 Occurrence

BDAG:



NASB 1995:


New King James Version:


God made a special big fish to swallow Jonah.

Did a whale swallow Jonah?

It was not a usual whale. God may have made a special Cetacean (whale) for the occasion. In any case, it was a special huge fish (sea creature).

I think you have answered your own question! Whales are mammals, not fish. I remember when my wife and I used to run a club for children at church, we felt we had to rework the words of the song that starts, "Now listen to my tale of Jonah and the whale, way down in the middle of the ocean." I seem to remember we revised it to: "Imagine if you can, a fish that ate a man, way down in the middle of the ocean."

 

[GodisgraciousR325AV]

First of all, recieve the word of God not according to the wisdom of man's understanding.

Whales are great fish, we can see this in Genesis as well and Jesus is just defining it. According to God, whales are great fish.

 

[tonychanyt]

According to God, whales are great fish.

verse?

 

[GodisgraciousR325AV]

verse?

Its in Genesis 1, and Jesus quotes Jonas as a whale. Jonah talks about great fish. This is called cross-refrencing and Bible defines itself.

 

[tonychanyt]

Its in Genesis 1, and Jesus quotes Jonas as a whale. Jonah talks about great fish. This is called cross-refrencing and Bible defines itself.

Thanks for the reference. This is how to do referencing and quotation in a scholarly manner:

1. Display and indent the relevant text.
2. Selectively bold the particular keywords that are important to your point. There is no need to bold the entire sentence. Have a laser-sharp focus.
3. Be concise and precise to the point. No need to quote the whole paragraph.

I do this for others who read my posts. It is a standard high-school scholarship. If you practice this, I guarantee it will sharpen your analytical thinking. In any case, no one is required to do it. I prefer to debate with people who do.

 

[David Lamb]

Its in Genesis 1, and Jesus quotes Jonas as a whale. Jonah talks about great fish. This is called cross-refrencing and Bible defines itself.

In the Old Testament, the word translated "whale" in the AV/KJV doesn't mean the marine mammal such as the hump-backed whale, etc. It means
1) dragon, serpent, sea monster
1a) dragon or dinosaur
1b) sea or river monster
1c) serpent, venomous snake
Similarly, when Jesus talks of Jonah being swallowed, the Greek word used is ketos, which means a sea monster or a huge fish. (I understand that the modern Greek word for whale is fálaina - I don't know if this was the same in the Greek of the New Testament times.

 

[GodisgraciousR325AV]

In the Old Testament, the word translated "whale" in the AV/KJV doesn't mean the marine mammal such as the hump-backed whale, etc. It means
1) dragon, serpent, sea monster
1a) dragon or dinosaur
1b) sea or river monster
1c) serpent, venomous snake
Similarly, when Jesus talks of Jonah being swallowed, the Greek word used is ketos, which means a sea monster or a huge fish. (I understand that the modern Greek word for whale is fálaina - I don't know if this was the same in the Greek of the New Testament times.

Well, that's what the translation being for over 400 years even before King James Version going back to the 1175 Wesex's gospel.

 

[David Lamb]

Well, that's what the translation being for over 400 years even before King James Version going back to the 1175 Wesex's gospel.

But is "hwæles innoðe" in the Wessex gospels, or "whale's belly", the correct translation of what the bible actually says?

 

[GodisgraciousR325AV]

But is "hwæles innoðe" in the Wessex gospels, or "whale's belly", the correct translation of what the bible actually says?

Hi David,

Are we translating this Greek from Strong's or from where? Its still whale, the Bible is right. Strong's is not trustworthy.

 

[GodisgraciousR325AV]

Another King James Bible Believer

The King James Bible.

brandplucked.com

 

[David Lamb]

Hi David,

Are we translating this Greek from Strong's or from where? Its still whale, the Bible is right. Strong's is not trustworthy.

I didn't use Strong's. In fact, looking at Strong's, it is the only one of the 3 concordances I have that does give "whale" as a possible translation of the Hebrew word:

08577. תנין tanniyn [tan-neen’]; or תנים tanniym (Eze 29:3) [tan-neem’]; intensive from the same as 08565; a marine or land monster, i.e. sea-serpent or jackal: — dragon, sea-monster, serpent, whale.

The NAS Hebrew Lexicon has:

08577. תנין tannin (1072c); from the same as 08565; [serpent, dragon, sea monster: —

I used the Online Hebrew Lexicon ("Online" relating to the Online Bible, a computer program originally created before the days of the World Wide Web.

Perhaps someone who knows Hebrew and NT Greek can confirm for us what the original words actually mean.

 

[GodisgraciousR325AV]

I am going to trust "whale", these were the translations before the world wide web too and they were very smart in these languages, even from their youth up.

 

[David Lamb]

I am going to trust "whale", these were the translations before the world wide web too and they were very smart in these languages, even from their youth up.

But there are plenty of translations which predate the world wide web that do not translate the original Hebrew and Greek words as "whale". They include The Bible in Basic English, CEV Australia, Darby, Diaglot, EMTV, ESV, HCSB, Murdoch, NKJV, Noyes, Philips, Weymouth, and Young's Literal Translation.

 

[Neogaia777]

King James Bible, Jon 1:


a great
גָּד֔וֹל (gā·ḏō·wl)
Adjective - masculine singular
Strong's 1419: Great, older, insolent

fish
דָּ֣ג (dāḡ)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 1709: A fish

But then, KJB, Mt 12:


Strong's Greek: 2785. κῆτος (kétos) — 1 Occurrence

BDAG:



NASB 1995:


New King James Version:


God made a special big fish to swallow Jonah.

Did a whale swallow Jonah?

It was not a usual whale. God may have made a special Cetacean (whale) for the occasion. In any case, it was a special huge fish (sea creature).

If the story is true, then yes, it was a literal "fish" that swallowed Jonah, and if Jonah was swallowed in tact, if the "fish" was that big, etc, then he was literally being slowly digested in that fishes belly/stomach for three days, but was kept alive by God the whole time, or during that entire torment, until Jonah repented for the first thing he did wrong, and agreed to do what was asked of Him finally as having lived a life up to that point as one of God's prophet's, etc.

God Bless.

 

[GodisgraciousR325AV]

A

But there are plenty of translations which predate the world wide web that do not translate the original Hebrew and Greek words as "whale". They include The Bible in Basic English, CEV Australia, Darby, Diaglot, EMTV, ESV, HCSB, Murdoch, NKJV, Noyes, Philips, Weymouth, and Young's Literal Translation.

And which text did those translations use?

 

[David Lamb]

A

And which text did those translations use?

I had to look most of these up, and I didn't find them all. (I should make clear that I am not saying anything about the generally trustworthiness of all the translations I mentioned).

EMTV - Majority Text

ESV - is based on the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible as found in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (5th ed., 1997), and on the Greek text in the 2014 editions of the Greek New Testament (5th corrected ed.), published by the United Bible Societies (UBS), and Novum Testamentum Graece (28th ed., 2012), edited by Nestle and Aland.

HCSB - The HCSB is based on the Nestle-Aland 27th edition and the UBS 4th edition for the NT and the BHS 5th edition for the OT.

NKJV - uses the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia for the Old Testament,[1] while opting to use the Textus Receptus for the New Testament

Weymouth (NT only) - uses something called the Resultant Greek Text

Young's Literal Translation - Masoretic Text (MT) and the Textus Receptus (TR).