During one of the presentations in our class, a
group briefly discussed Jonah and the whale.
Since I was a child, I always pondered on whether the fish that
swallowed Jonah was a whale or something else? It is an important question because
considering that the bible was written years ago, one must ask if a whale could
exist during that time period, or if it was some translation to help its
readers have a bigger outtake on the story?
To help me
with this question I wanted to know more about the story, so I decided to
review the slide presentation that dealt with this issue. I went into research to help me with this
question and found very interesting things.
One of the
websites I visited suggested that the whale translation was actually a misinterpretation,
and that to me was fascinating. Within the website the following was stated:
“In the passage above, the Greek word translated
"whale" actually means a huge fish or sea monster.
In the passage in Jonah (1:17; 2:1,10), the Hebrew word was the normal
word for "fish," but here the word is modified by the word great. Our
modern taxonomic system places whales among the mammals, sharks, among the fish
and plesiosaurs among the reptiles, but, the Bible uses a different system. http://www.icr.org/article/1124/
It’s
fascinating in the sense that the word was misinterpreted, and that such an
error occurred within this tale. So what
system did the bible use? What animal was this that swallowed Jonah for three days?
It is an answer that cannot be answered due to the fact we were not living
during that particular time. What can be asserted is the fact Jonah was not
swallowed by a whale, but by some large fish or sea monster. Now the question about sea monsters is a
total different manner, but it does make you think for a second.
I just wasn’t
satisfied with this so I wanted to either verify or disprove this claim. Luckily I was able to verify that the
translation issue was true indeed. In the second website I found Jesus even
claimed this creature be something other than a whale and different translation
s tend to believe the word whale was more than likely a sea creature rather
than a fish or whale. The following was stated:
“What was the underlying Greek word that is
translated “whale” in the KJV (as well as a few other versions)? A brief look
in various respected Greek dictionaries quickly reveals that the word is ketos and is defined broadly as a
“large sea creature” (Newman, 1971, p. 100), “sea monster” (Danker, et al.,
2000, p. 544), or “huge fish” (Vine, 1952, p. 209). Jesus indicated that Jonah
was swallowed by a “large sea creature,” which was not necessarily a whale, but
may have been.”
So with this
finding I believe somewhere in the telling of this tale the translation of the
word “whale” was misinterpreted, and that
it was a sea creature that dates our modern time period. I believe this to be true because both of two
sources I found the word “fish or whale” was misinterpreted and points to a different creature. It is with this
that it can be stated that the animal that swallowed Jonah was a creature that
predated our modern society.
