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Jonah, Jonah

According to tradition Jonah was the boy brought back to life by Elijah the prophet, and hence shares many of his characteristics (particularly his desire for 'strict judgment'). The book of Jonah is read every year, in its original Hebrew, on Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement, as the Haftorah at the afternoon mincha prayer.

This concept is developed in the book of Jonah: Jonah, the son of truth, (The name of his father "Amitai" in Hebrew means truth,) refuses to ask the people of Ninveh to repent. He seeks the truth only, and no forgiveness. When forced to go, his call is heard loud and clear. The people of Ninveh repent ecstatically, "fasting, including the sheep", and the Jewish scripts are critical of this Babelonian Talmud:Sanhedrin 61a .When praying, Jonah repeats God's 13 traits failing to say the last one which is "...and Truthful", and changing it with "...and whome is willing to forgive the bad". Another translation could be: "...and who regrets the bad". . God responds by showing Jonah that he is "angry at doing good", and that he too would agree to spare an ephemeral plant "Kikayon" - The small Castor tree - is a synonym in Hebrew to "ephemeral" if it has importance for him.

In the book, Jonah is a reluctant and non-compassionate prophet. This story contains a twofold characterization of Jonah: first as a reluctant prophet of doom to the heathen city of Nineveh, and second as a "Son of man" type. The character of Jonah, who wants Nineveh destroyed, is contrasted with that of God, who is compassionate towards Jews and Gentiles, humans and animals.

While some Bible scholars suggest the size and habits of the White Shark correspond better to the representations given of Jonah's being swallowed, normally an adult human is too large to be swallowed whole.

In his 1534 translation, William Tyndale translated the phrase in Jonah 2:1 as "greate fyshe" and he translated the word ketos (Greek) or cetus (Latin) in Matthew 12:40 as "whale". Tyndale's translation was later incorporated into the Authorized Version of 1611. Since then, the "great fish" in Jonah 2 has been most often interpreted as a whale.

Specifically that the seaweed mentioned in 2:5 was a protective seaweed. However, Chapter 2,of the Book of Jonah is not an account of what happened inside the belly of said speculated creature, but rather Jonah thanking God while in the stomach for saving him. Jonah 2 is Jonah speaking to God about his condition before he was technically saved from drowning by the whale. The seaweed mentioned in Jonah 2:5 was not a "protective" seaweed, but rather an trapping seaweed. Jonah, after being tossed overboad, found himself drowning and becoming tangled in the seaweed. Hill, Andrew and Walton, John H.-Survey of the Old Testament Pg. 495-501 However, doubts have been cast that any existing whale or fish would be able to repeat the feat described, either due to size of mouth, narrowness of throat, or because it diverges so wildly from these animals' normal eating habits. The largest whales - baleen whales, a group which includes the blue whale - eat plankton and "it is commonly said that this species would be choked if it attempted to swallow a herring." Lydekker's New Natural History, Vol, III, p. 6 The sperm whale, on the other hand, has "a small mouth... Its food is torn to pieces before being swallowed," according to Dr. C. H. Townsend, a former Acting Director of the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Aquarium. He further states that "there is no evidence that such a feat would be possible." As for the whale shark, Dr. E. W. Gudger, an Honorary Associate in Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, noted that "while the mouth is cavernous, the throat itself is only four inches wide and has a sharp elbow or bend behind the opening. This gullet would not permit the passage of a man's arm." In another publication he also noted that "the whale shark is not the fish that swallowed Jonah." The Scientific Monthly, March, 1940, p. 227 "Essays of an Atheist," Woolsey Teller. Copyright 1945, The Truth Seeker Company, Inc., found online here.

Source: Wikipedia > Jonah