Jonah's Tale

One of the prime examples people will point to in the Bible for "allegory" is the book of Jonah. Here we have the story of a prophet (2 Kings 14:25) who is tasked by God to go preach repentance to Ninevah. Knowing that God was gracious and Ninevah would probably repent, Jonah decided instead to run. God stopped him on his escape boat with a storm and the sailors threw him overboard to save their lives. A "great fish" prepared by God swallowed him where he spent 3 days praying until the fish spewed him on shore (conveniently close to Ninevah, apparently). Jonah obeys, Ninevah repents, and Jonah is angry that God let them off. End of story.

This obviously is allegory. I mean, who is going to believe that a prophet got swallowed by a big fish (the translations uniformly say fish, not whale), survives for three days in this fish, then gets spit up on the shore? Clearly never happened. No, no, this is just an allegory. Let's see. Jonah represents Israel. Israel was unwilling to listen to God's instructions. The storm references the political turmoil of the day. The fish is Babylon and Israel spends time "in the belly of the fish". Judea is restored -- "vomited up". Israel is tasked again with obeying God. They do, but they're not happy about it. In case you think I made that stuff up, it's the explanation I found on several Jewish sites. Not my idea.

This doesn't actually work, you see. It makes no sense, for instance, for Jesus to reference Jonah (Matt 12:40) if Jonah is a reference to Israel. Besides, as the "Jonah = Israel" version illustrates, this allegory includes no instructions as to its meaning. Lacking any notes at the end to say something like, "So just as Jonah fled God, Israel flees God", allegory becomes meaningless because there is no definition. It's all up to you. Purely relative truth.

So maybe it's not allegory. Maybe it's parable. (The difference is that "allegory" requires every salient point to be significant while "parable" just tries to convey an idea. Take, for instance, the parable of the Lost Coin (Luke 15:8-10). Who the woman was and what she lost was irrelevant. The joy at finding what was lost was the point.) Jewish scholars suggest that the story is a parable of Israel in exile (Judah, actually). The fish, Ninevah, the worm and the vine (Jonah 4:7) ... these are not individually significant. Just a parable about the state of Israel in exile. It's unpleasant and they're unhappy. Maybe they shouldn't keep to themselves? Maybe they should share God's love with others? It's a morality play warning Jews (and, thus, Christians as well) not to be so stingy with the good news. That sort of thing.

Again, this doesn't seem to actually work. How does this correlate to Jesus's reference to Jonah? And, while many parables of Christ remain up to His listeners and the rest of us readers through time to figure out, there is no explanation of Jonah as parable and, thus, no actual consensus.

Now, to be clear, the Bible does include allegory and parable. Claiming that something in Scripture is one of these doesn't negate Scripture. So the issue is not the reliability of Scripture here. The issue is the question, "Is this allegory, parable, or historical?" What's the problem about it being historical? Well, of course, it's madness. Storms don't chase people, large fish don't swallow people and people don't survive inside large fish¹, fish don't deposit people onshore, entire cities don't repent, vines don't grow overnight then get eaten by a worm overnight ... it's all too ... miraculous. No scientific-minded person could swallow (pardon the pun) this story as historical.

But, you see, this is not a biblical reason to void the historical view. This is a prior commitment to an anti-supernatural bias. It is clear that if there is a God, it is certain that this God will, on occasion for whatever reason He might have, intervene in the natural world. We call these "miracles". That is, if there is a God, it is certain that miracles will occur. Thus, a prior commitment by a theist to an anti-theist perspective makes no sense. Further, assuming that "because there is the miraculous, it must be allegory or parable" would require that all the rest of the Old and New Testaments containing the miraculous would be suspect ... including the biggest miracle of all, the Resurrection. Balaam never talked to his donkey, the Red Sea never parted, there was no Flood. It gets really murky really fast.

There is, in fact, nothing in the text itself that requires or suggests allegory or parable. It is laid out without explanation or interpretation, a basic telling of a story. It is undeniable that the book is written in the form of an historical narrative. Sure, that doesn't mean that it is. I'm just saying that the text doesn't require something other than narrative. It is offered in just as historical approach as the stories of prophets like Elijah and Elisha in 1st and 2nd Kings. These are clearly intended as historical accounts. The account of Jonah reads the same.

There are arguments for allegory and parable approaches, but they don't seem to hold up under scrutiny and there is nothing in the text that requires or suggests a non-historical narrative. Is there any reason why we should prefer a narrative approach over the allegorical? Actually, there are a couple. First, the original Jewish understanding was that it was an event in history, not an allegory. The second is Jesus Himself.

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from You." But He answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish², so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here." (Matt 12:38-42)

If Jonah is allegory or parable, not history, then what must we conclude from Jesus's reference here?

1. No actual Jonah spent time in the belly of any great fish. If Jesus would spend time in the grave "as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish", He would only do so metaphorically.

2. The repentance of Ninevah was allegory. They won't actually rise up and condemn this generation. Jesus's words have no weight or meaning.

3. If Jonah was allegory, the stories of the queen of the South and Solomon are also likely allegory or parable, certainly not historical. Thus, Jesus is only claiming to be greater than an allegory, not an actual person.

It is assumed by the skeptic that Jonah is a fictional story. It does not appear to be so from the early Jewish understanding or from Jesus's reference to the event as a prophecy and a threat. The problems with taking the approach of allegory or parable seem to make these options less likely. The text itself contains nothing that demands anything other than an historical understanding. I would suggest that the only reason to dispute that the book of Jonah is about an actual, historical event would be the argument that God doesn't exist, at least insofar as affecting our world is concerned. This would seem an odd position for a Christian to take.
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¹ Here's an interesting fact. There is an actual story from 1927 (A. J. Wilson, ‘The Sign of the Prophet Jonah,’ Princeton Theological Review, vol. xxv. p. 636) of a sailor off the Falkland Islands who was swallowed by a sperm whale. They caught and killed the whale three days later, cut him open, and found the missing sailor unconcious but alive. He was revived and was bleached, but his health was otherwise unaffected.

² Some have argued that Jonah was actually dead in the belly of the fish, making the connection between his experience and Christ's death and burial much tighter. The problem is that Scripture records that Jonah prayed while he was in the belly of the fish (Jonah 2). That's quite difficult when you're dead.