From: Jay Willingham (jaywillingham@cfl.rr.com)
Date: Thu Sep 19 2002 - 20:03:41 EDT
----- Original Message -----
From: "george murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
The reason for such assessment is that there are features
> of the story that indicate in various ways that it is fiction. I take the
> liberty to repeat this list from an earlier post of mine.
>
> The well-known site of the city of Nineveh was not "three days
> journey in breadth" (3:3).
----George: My NIV says "a visit required three days" in Jonah 3:3. Jay
> "The king of Nineveh" is a title equivalent to "The president of
> Washington." The king who might have been resident in Nineveh would have
> been "the king of Assyria."
----- George, I always thought that figure of speach could also mean the
king of Assyria. Jay
> There is no historical evidence for a mass conversion of the whole
city of Nineveh in the time of historical prophet Jonah (II Kg.14:25), some
time around 765 B.C.
-----George, our best historical source for the period documentarily
speaking is the canon of scripture. By Jonah's day, knowledge of God would
have been widespread, so when a miraculously appearing prophet of God's said
"You're toast", they figured correctly this God was to be reconed with. Jay
> The prayer of Jonah in Chapter 2 makes no reference to his being
"in the belly of the fish" but seems to be that of a man threatened with
drowning (2:5).
-----
Exactly, George, a man saved from drowning by a fish. Jay
> There are obvious exaggerations. I already mentioned the size of
> Nineveh. Jonah's "sermon" in 3:4 is 5 words in Hebrew - enough to satisfy
> the minimum conditions of his commission but hardly enough to convert the
> whole city.
-----George, if a fish just puked a man on the beach and that man told you
were about to be annihilated, you would probably start praying for some
relief, too. Jay.
>
This is manifestly false. The point of Lk.12:16-21 is not lost if
> the events in it didn't actually take place.
> (& of course many other parables of Jesus could be mentioned. I note this
one
> because God appears in it directly rather than via some representation
like the
> father in the story of the prodigal son.)
-----George, Jesus expressly posed his stories and parables as such. Jonah
and Job are named as are many others in their stories. Jay
>
.
>
The force of this question ought not be blunted by trying to find other
messages in the story.
------Amen, George. Petty geneologies can draw us aside from the Savior's
imprimatur to forgive others as we are forgiven,,, Jay
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Sep 19 2002 - 21:11:46 EDT