Keith Robinson, a senior marine science instructor at Seaworld, has stated that large sperm whales have esophaguses that measure as much as a foot and a half wide. Many men often measure more than a foot and a half across their shoulders, so if the great fish was a sperm whale, Jonah would have to have been of fairly slight build.
Lastly, the miraculous is mentioned throughout the book of Jonah. The survival of Jonah in a "great fish" points to the miraculous' being involved.
33 comments
@Bowen: In the Bible's (kinda) defense, it DOES say bats are birds. Perhaps the writers thought "It flies? Bird. It swims? Fish".
Now note this: A human wouldn't live long at all inside a sperm whale's stomach. Low oxygen, for one, and digestive acids for another. To say that a whale ate then puked up Jonah, unharmed, a few days later is, in a word, ridiculous.
Also, am I the only one who thinks we should vandalize the *hell* out of this wiki? Nothing harmful...just replace bullshit with facts, and see how many seconds it takes for the moderators to 'fix' them.
Yes, because the latest studies find that animals do not have air in their stomachs.
This leads us to believe that unless Jonah was a master at holding his breath, hibernating, and going without food or water, he would have died within a few minutes.
Guys, it's a miracle. It's totally unexplained by science, has no empirical or rational evidence to support it, and could never happen today. Ye of little faith, indeed!
It is speculated that if Hansel and Gretel had traversed the forest in the time stated in Grimm's Household Stories and Fables, then they were adrift in the woods for approximately three day, five hours, 27 minutes, 5 or 6 seconds--having covered approximately 4.6 miles before finding the witch's gingerbread house.
It is speculated that the size of the bread loaf needed to leave the 4.6 mile trail of bread crumbs would need to be 2.5 cubits bx 1 cubit x .765443 cubits and at a starting weight of 25lbs.
Thankfully, god granted the two small children the strength to carry this miraculous loaf.
There's this guy that my cousin's friend knows, went to answer an ad for a '57 Chevy this old lady just wanted to get rid of, ya know? She only wanted a couple hundred bucks because it had been parked in her garage for 30 years. So when she opened the garage it was real cherry, and guess what - it was a Corvette! So he drove it home for $200.
When you point to the "miraculous" - do you mean like that?
Nowadays we have the internet to share and enjoy urban legends, and even idiots can log on and type, after a fashion. 2,000 years ago these stories were handed around verbally, very few people could read and write.
You know, I've never met a Native who really believes that Raven stole the sun. I've never met a Hindu who actually believes that there's a real elephant headed god running around. I've never met a Buddhist who believes that a Zen Master actually cut a cat in half.
Why is the word "myth" so damn scary to these people.
Thanks for that. Prior to your insight (using scientific fact, no less), Jonah's BMI really was the only thing that troubled me about whole thing. Now, though, you truly have shown that it is theoretically possible to ram someone into a whale's body cavity, and everything else just falls into place. I'm assuming that as well as being fairly skinny, he had miraculously long arms, so when he held them out, while saying "I swear, it was *this* big!" they could truly give justice to the dimensions of the "great fish".
Of course, you have the option of starting from the it's-all-made-up end of things, which will then mean you can stop wasting your time trying to explain it and move on.
So you find one thing that might have made one part of the story theoretically possible and call it evidence, then claim that the impossible parts were obviously miraculous. What's the point? Just claim that the whole thing was a miracle. Showing that one aspect might possibly fit with reality is completely superfluous if you still have to claim that the rest was miraculous.
Sperm whales are amongst the few fully toothed whales.
They chew their food and rip it to pieces.
After all, I eat cows regularly and don't have a mouth big enough to eat one... Unless they are really really small.
@#614197 Why do people point out that a whale isn't a fish? Do you think a tribe of desert nomads would've made that distinction?
Come to that, how/when would a tribe of desert nomads ever have seen a whale? Or even a 'great fish'?
He would have to be extremely slight build. I am very short, about 5 foot 2, 162 cm to those using metric, and I am about 18 inches (45 cm) across at the shoulders. I just measured. Either Jonah was a dwarf or very slender, which would put him as unfit for physical work like sailing or fishing, or it never happened. Smart money's on the latter.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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