The Bible as Science: Jonah and the Whale

Jonah and the whale gets mocked so often that many people assume the Bible must be careless with facts and science. We take the opposite approach: slow down, read the text plainly, and ask what the evidence actually supports. From the opening minutes, we lay out why “science falsely so called” is not a threat to Scripture, and why the loudest attacks on biblical accuracy tend to come from a surprisingly small list of recycled objections.

We then turn to the core controversy: the book of Jonah and the two verses critics most want deleted, the great fish swallowing Jonah and later casting him onto dry land. Rather than dodging the hard questions, we walk through what the passage says, why the miracle is the point, and why changing the Bible to fit the scholarship of any generation is a dead end. Along the way, we highlight how often people discuss Jonah without ever reading its four short chapters for themselves.

Finally, we build the positive case for Jonah’s historicity, first through the historical reference in 2 Kings and then through the conclusive testimony of Jesus Christ. Jesus treats Jonah as real, ties Jonah’s three days and three nights to His own burial and resurrection, and points to Nineveh’s repentance as a warning to the hard-hearted. We also explore a more human, more believable reason Jonah runs: not because God is “tribal,” but because Nineveh is dangerous, hated, and frightening for a lone prophet.

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Transcript

Welcome And Listener Updates

0:07

Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W. Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of Deland, Florida. Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs will bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior. Now here's your host, Pastor James W. Knox. All right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I'm Brother James, and I greet you one more time in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And I welcome you once again to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast. We're so very happy that you've tuned into the program today. You know, it's it's obvious to us, it's it's evident, that there are more and more people listening all the time. The uh we've had several phone calls this week from our local broadcast. We've had several letters this week that have come as a direct result of uh things that people heard last week on on the broadcast. We have had uh people come to visit us uh just this week, and and some even stay and join with us at the Bible Baptist Church in Delane, Florida, as a direct result of the preaching of the Cross Radio broadcast. And so we certainly thank God for uh speaking to hearts. We certainly thank those who prayerfully support this work for uh so doing, and we certainly thank each and every one of you that responds to the program, lets us know that you're listening, and uh the many that call to encourage the many that write and say, continue, please, with that preaching, don't stop. We we get so much from it, we profit so much by the programs, and we certainly thank God for that. You know, it's not uh it's not every day that you have the privilege of of hearing someone defend the word of God against those who are so constantly attacking and criticizing it. Every single day it seems that we hear the Bible criticized, we hear the Bible attacked, we hear it made fun of, we hear it questioned and ridiculed, and yet it's so important, it's so important that those who know the truth of God's word and know the error of those things which are being uh said against it, it is so important that a voice be lifted up and that we speak out against that which is false, that we not only speak up for what is right, but we speak out against what is wrong, and we thank you, we really do thank you for encouraging us to continue to do just that on these radio

Why Science Cannot Overrule Scripture

2:37

broadcasts. We started a series of programs, uh, twelve broadcasts ago. This will be program number 13 in a series, on the Bible as science. And nowhere, nowhere is the criticism of the Bible any greater than among the so-called scientific community. Now, the Bible calls it science falsely so-called, because all true science, all true knowledge, will coincide with the teaching of the Bible, will support and bring itself into line with the teaching of the Bible, because after all, God's Word is true, and everything written in the Word of God is true, even when it deals with matters of science. This has been the big argument that we've heard for years and years that the Bible is not accurate when it speaks scientifically, that modern science has disproved the Bible, and we've spent twelve broadcasts showing you that modern science is disproved by the Bible, or where modern science is in agreement with the Bible, uh, it is simply catching up to what God had written in his word thousands of years ago. So, those of us that believe the Bible, we we never uh quail or tremble in the presence of science. We never blush and feel as though we are outgunned uh when we are in the presence of someone with a scientific background because we've got the truth. They're looking for the truth, maybe. They're studying, hoping to find the truth, they at least they say so. But those of us that have the word of God, we have the truth. We are way ahead of the game. And we certainly thank God for

Modern Objections To Jonah

4:04

that. Now, on the program today we want to start a discussion of modern science, Jonah, and the whale. Modern science, Jonah and the whale. You say, Brother James, you really believe that story that we learned in Sunday school about uh Jonah being swallowed by a whale? Well, sure I do. Why wouldn't I believe it? Is there any reason not to? You say, well scientists say Well, maybe they do, maybe they don't. In weighing the evidences for the inspiration of the Bible, there are many lines of investigation that are a delight to the Christian investigator. No single fact that is advanced for the support and comfort of the faith, however, is a more practical value and interest than is the fact of the poverty of the critics of the Bible. Almost two thousand years of culture and learning have passed since the manuscripts of the Bible were completed. Some four thousand years or more has gone by since the record was first begun. In those multiplied centuries the wisdom of man has increased to an astounding degree. Yet when men today draw upon that vast body of new knowledge for help in their criticism of the Scripture, they receive no comfort at all. Now we've pondered upon the interesting fact that after these centuries of criticism and study, the enemy of the Bible is restricted to not more than five or six pseudo-scientific arguments against its integrity. We frequently hear the critics say there are scores of scientific errors in the Bible, but when challenged to enumerate a few of these, they invariably name at the most five or six possible errors and can't think of any more because that's all somebody told them to say. They've never read the Bible for themselves or found any errors in it. They just are magpies repeating what some infidel told them. Upon investigation, even these five or six fade away. Leave the Bible utterly unchallenged in its claim to inspiration. Over and over, these five or six objections are reiterated, and they are the sole stock in trade of the infidel. These stock objections will be subjects of our studies from here on out. We want to show beyond question that these so-called weaknesses of the Bible rather constitute one of its strongest features. Now, among these few available arguments that are offered against the doctrine of the scientific accuracy of the Bible, the most frequently advanced by the superficial critic is the modern objection to the story of Jonah and the whale. Cheap witticism has labeled this account the greatest fish story in history. Many men who have never studied the book of Jonah claim that it is the most outstanding weakness in the entire Bible. Infidelity has long laughed at this strange record, and derided its accuracy and questioned its probability, but has never disproved the historicity of the affair. Undaunted by the light of the light laughter of empty objections, the man of intelligence proceeds to investigate and find the truth of the matter by research. That's what we're going to do.

The Two Verses Critics Hate

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Now the book of Jonah consists of four chapters, has a total of forty eight verses. It can be read easily in less than five minutes by the average reader. Yet in many parts of America, uh people are asked, audiences are asked, churches are asked, how many of them have read this short book through at one sitting? And you never find more than ten percent of any group of people that have done so. The most widely discussed book in all the Bible, and not ten percent of those attending churches have ever invested five minutes to see what the argument is all about. And you know those numbers are must much less among those that criticize it. The entire book of Jonah would be accepted by the modern critics if we would remove two verses from its contents. The rest of the book is admittedly a valuable historic document, were it not ruined, that's what the critics say, by the introduction of these two verses. The first of these is the last verse of the first chapter. The other one is the last verse of the second chapter. Now you'll recall how the first chapter, the book of Jonah, recounts the fact that God's wrath was kindled against Nineveh because of its outstanding sin. God, who is ever gracious and slow to anger, sent a message to the prophet Jonah, instructing him to proceed to Nineveh. If we were studying the book of Jonah, I'd show you how he sent that message. I believe he carried it there in person. But uh anyway, he gave him this message, and Jonah was to tell of the coming destruction of the city with all of its inhabitants, unless they repented and turned from their sin. Well, instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah found a ship that was going to Tarshish, and fled from the direction of Nineveh as fast as he could travel. The residence of the prophet was in Gath Hefer, and when he started to Tarshish, it was directly opposite to the direction of Nineveh. But as Jonah was seeking to flee from God's appointed task, a mighty storm arose in which the prophet sailed, in and threatened the ship in which the prophet sailed. And when the men of the ship learned that this storm came upon them because of Jonah, at his own behest, they threw him overboard. To save their own lives, they gave up his. This resume brings us to the first disputed verse, which is given in these simple words. Now the Lord God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. The second disputed verse is in the second chapter. The first verse of this chapter is certainly admissible. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. I'm sure no intelligent person could find fault with that statement. The amazing thing is that the obstinate prophet waited three days to begin. That's where the rub comes in. They said there's no way a man can live in a whale's belly three days and three nights, and why didn't he pray sooner than that? Uh most people say that if they'd been swallowed by that fish in less than three minutes the Lord would have heard their cry, and let me out, I want to go to Nineveh. And so even the most rabid critic does not question the statement that Jonah prayed from the depths of the of the uh sea monster, as some called it, the whale as Jesus called it, the fish as it's called in the book of Jonah. Any man in Jonah's case would have cried out to God. But that's not the point. The first nine verses of the chapter deal with the prayer of Jonah. The tenth and final verse is the disputed record. This statement is made in these simple words. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it cast out Jonah upon the dry land. Without any attempt at textual comment, I've simply quoted the verses from the Authorized King James Bible. This then is the story at which infidelity is allowed for centuries. And yet, this is an account which infidelity has never disproved.

Higher Criticism And Miracles

10:52

Now the Prophet Jonah is an interesting character to say the least. The school of higher criticism, denying all miraculous elements in God's dealings with men, has refused to accept the tale of the whale. Now, if we delete these two verses containing the record of the miracle, they would find the book acceptable to their fancy. However, it has never been profitable in any generation for men to alter the written records of God's word to harmonize with the demands of the so-called scholarship of that generation. We are under the necessity of accepting the book just as God wrote it, and our knowledge must be brought into harmony with his revelation. Not willing to bow before the higher wisdom of the Holy Spirit, the critics have sought to deny the historical existence of an actual Jonah. They have said that he was a legendary hero of Jewish folklore and fable, as was Hercules among the Greeks. The contrary, however, is the truth. Jonah is as historical a character as was Napoleon Bonaparte or Ramses II. They may readily be established by an appeal to a reliable book of pure history. In all the historical records of any people, there are none that are superior to the books of the kings, which records were kept by the Hebrew people under the direction of God's Spirit. The recent advancement of archaeological learning, if it is done nothing else, has established the credibility of these historical scriptures.

Jonah In Kings And Archaeology

12:18

In 2 Kings, the fourteenth chapter, there is an historical reference to the prophet Jonah that authenticates this character and gives him an established background. In this passage of scripture, the father of Jonah is named, thus giving his genealogy. The place of his residence is told. We also learn the name of the king who ruled when Jonah was alive. History further attests that some of his prophecies were fulfilled in the reign of that king. So, from this historical reference we see that Jonah was a real person. To complete the case and make the evidence perfect, there is one other source of testimony to the reality of Jonah that cannot be set aside.

Jesus Cites Jonah As Fact

12:58

That's the conclusive testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Son of God speaks upon any subject, that testimony is and should be conclusive. In the days of his flesh, he was betrayed in the house of his friends by one of his followers. Today he has many so-called friends, who by their infidelity and unbelief reenact the drama of Judas. But believing friend and disbelieving enemy alike are united in their praise of his character. Not even his bitterst enemies impugn his veracity or question the honesty of his statements. So it's with a great deal of assurance that we turn to Christ's testimony concerning the historicity of this man Jonah. In the course of his ministry among men, Jesus made two references to Jonah as an historical character. In one, he gives the experience of Jonah as a type of his own burial and resurrection. Now that's crucial to our study. When the scribes and Pharisees demanded of him proof of his deity, they asked that this proof be given in the form of a sign. Jesus replied to their demand, a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall be no sign, no sign be given you save the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so must the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the depths of the earth. These two experiences are interdependent and equally historical. Since the resurrection of Jesus Christ is established upon the most unquestioned evidence, and since the experience of Jonah is as real as was the resurrection of Jesus, this testimony of the Savior is of peculiar and striking force. The second reference that Jesus made to the historicity of Jonah was a citation of the repentance of Nineveh. As Jesus was teaching and preaching in the course of his ministry, he met with considerable hardness of heart, and in some cases with outright rejection. On one of these occasions our Lord said, The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment against this generation and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas. But behold, a greater than Jonas is here. Now, we have this authority of Jesus Christ for saying that Jonah as a character is as truly historical as is the person of Jesus himself.

Jonah’s Character And Nineveh’s Repentance

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One of the fascinating things in the writings of Jonah is the manner in which his character is displayed in this very brief section of his autobiography. Jonah is perhaps one of the most honest writers in literature, for he writes boldly and bluntly of his own faults. He tells of his stubbornness as he set his own judgment against the command of God. He tells without apology of the waywardness of his conduct as he fled from the call of God, but with a rare dependence, he gives no explanation and offers no excuse. He is content to say with charming simplicity just what he did, and offers no motive for his conduct. This course of procedure has laid the prophet open to another assault on the part of the critics. Jonah seems to have been the first foreign missionary. He was called of God to bring a warning of the consequence of sin to a foreign people. With that warning he was to deliver also an offer of redemption and mercy if they would turn to God and repent. This service he refused at first. Later, however, repenting of his refusal, he returned and preached to this nation with tremendous effect. So widespread was the revival that resulted from Jonah's preaching that every soul in the kingdom was converted, from the king on his throne down to the humblest subject in the streets. In fact, even the animals were garbed in the in the sackcloth and ashes of mourning and penitence, as the grace of God manifested itself in the sorrow of the repentant sinners.

Why Jonah Runs From God

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Now in this account of Jonah's refusal to serve and his attempted flight to Tarshish, the higher critic has found much comfort. One of the favorite arguments of the modernistic school is the baseless assertion that the revelation of God in the Old and New Testaments constitutes an evolution of the idea of God. They falsely state that beginning with a God of restricted authority, who was merely a tribal deity, men gradually evolved the idea of a God who is the universal father of humanity. Of course, any honest student reading the scripture with anything more than a casual interest will realize this theory is not borne out by the Bible text, but what critic of the Bible ever read it honestly? In the first place, it is nowhere stated in the Old Testament that God was a tribal deity. In fact, the first revelation of God in the Scripture is the highest revelation that the Bible contains. The first chapter of Genesis opens with the record of an omnipotent, omniscient deity who by his spoken word created the heavens and the earth and all things therein. There is certainly nothing tribal in the picture of the Creator that Moses draws in the first book of the Bible. We further see that this God, who is the creator, is a kind and gracious deity. In those same early writings we find him walking and talking in Eden's garden, seeking fellowship with the creatures that he has created. That picture of a loving God in intimate personal communion with his creatures is never equaled, even in holy writ, until Jesus comes saying, And when ye pray, say Father. The Savior, however, was careful to state that God is only the father of those who receive the Son and are thereby born again. To the enemies of God's message, Jesus said, Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. So the conclusions of higher criticism are baseless here. Their premise is also faulty. There is no evolution of the idea of God, nor does the Bible anywhere teach the universal fatherhood of God. One of the strongest arguments of the critical school, however, for their fallacious philosophy, has been the conduct of Jonah. When God called him for one specific service, he fled from the call of God and headed for Tarshish. The higher critic has sought to show that Jonah believed that God's power was restricted to Palestine, so if he got beyond the confines of Palestine, his God could not reach him. I realize that sounds ridiculous, but when you're looking for an excuse to reject the Bible, anything will do. The most cursory examination of Jonah's creed, however, will show that such is far from the truth. The unbeliever, infidel, atheist, or higher critic can find no comfort in this record, for his weird idea of Jonah's belief in God is proven to be false by Jonah's own statements. Jonah believed in a god who was omnipotent and universal. If you read again the first chapter of this book, this book of Jonah, you'll find that while the storm was raging at its height, Jonah slept in peaceful security in the heart of the ship. When the captain wakened him and said, Who art thou? Jonah's reply contained his creed. He said, I am an Hebrew. Well, no problem there. I am a Hebrew. And I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land. Now is that a tribal deity? Is that a description of a God whose power is was circumscribed by the geographical limits of Palestine? Jonah recognized the universal nature of the Creator and knew that he could not journey beyond his reach. The question arises then: why did Jonah flee toward Tarshish if he was not striving to get out of the reach of God? Why did he take this ship that would bear him away from Nineveh? Well, you've got to remember that all the prophets of Israel, from Jonah right up to Peter, uh arguing with God about going to cornegis household, were intensely patriotic. Jonah loved his own nation and people. And the most bitterly hated enemy possessed by Israel at this period of time was Nineveh. When the Word of God came to Jonah saying that he would destroy Nineveh unless they repented, Jonah, in the fervor of his patriotic heart, said, That suits me. If God will wipe out Nineveh, that will constitute a patriotic victory for Israel, and I'll get as far away from Nineveh as I can. In other words, Jonah was an ordinary human with the passions and interests and the psychology of any modern man. The same instinct of patriotism was manifested in some of the most cultivated Christian men of the twentieth century when the United States of America entered the Great World Wars. Men who had radiated love and had talked about the international brotherhood of man began to curse the Germans, and damn the Kaiser in the First War, and damn Hitler in the Second War, only because that race had become this nation's enemy. Jonah thought and reasoned and acted exactly as a modern man would do in the same circumstances. Not only that, but these critics assumed that Jonah had great faith because God called him to be his prophet. That's not necessarily so. And even a man of great faith has times of great failure. The same Elijah that stood boldly on Mount Carmel and slew the prophets of Baal ran and hid in the cave from the threatenings of Jezebel. The same Peter, who stood with sword drawn to defend the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, denied him in the presence of a little maid at a campfire. Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that maybe Jonah was just afraid of what might happen to him if he went to a foreign land, the only Israelite among all of those Ninevites, and stood boldly in their town square and said, God's going to destroy every one of you people. I don't know about you, but it would take a remarkable faith. Oh, not so much to believe that God could do that, not to believe that God would do that, but it would certainly take a remarkable faith to believe that you could go to Nineveh, preach a message like that, and get out alive. And the Bible nowhere the Bible nowhere holds Jonah forth as a man of great faith. And it's entirely possible that that that rather than believing he was escaping the boundaries of God's tribal deity. What nonsense. It may be he was running for his life because he didn't want to be lynched in Nineveh. Amen and amen. Now you see, when men set out to criticize the Bible, they they abandon their own reason. These matters are simple, these matters are easily understood to anyone who thinks honestly, anyone who will look at the at the Bible with the same the same measure of intelligence and common thinking with which he reads a newspaper.

Reading The Bible Without Sneering

23:48

I'm not saying the Bible's a newspaper. I'm saying when you read a newspaper, you approach it with a certain attitude. You intend on believing what you read there. You may not like it, you may not agree with everything there, but you believe it. And yet men approach the word of God with this skepticism, with this critical, doubting nature that leads them to set up the most ridiculous arguments against the truth of the Word of God. And nowhere is this manifest more plainly than in their attacks on the book of Jonah. Thanks for tuning in today. Join us every weekday for another episode of the Preaching of the Cross Radio Podcast. For hundreds of hours of in-depth expository Bible teaching, please visit our YouTube channel, James W. Knox Sermons, our sermon audio page, Bible Baptist Land, or our website, Bible Baptistteland.com. Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.