Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 32

 Jonah and the Whale

The story of Jonah and the whale is one of the more popular Bible stories, though it's obviously a fairy tale.  God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and "cry against" the wickedness of the people there.  Jonah, perhaps feeling that the God who created the universe ought to be able to deal with a few wicked people in Nineveh without Jonah's help, disobeys God and takes a ship in the opposite direction.

(Above: Jonah on the Santa Maria Antiqua sarcophagus, c. 275 AD.  Note that the sea monster looks nothing like a whale.)

Then there was a mighty tempest at sea with huge waves threatening to sink the ship.  Jonah told them that his fleeing from God was the problem, and if they threw him overboard, the sea would become calm.  After some half-hearted protestations, they threw him overboard, and the sea became calm.  And a "great fish" swallowed Jonah.

Above, the naked mariners throw the naked Jonah overboard to be swallowed by a sea monster, in an early 4th century mosaic in Aquileia, Italy.  Note that the sea monster's neck is too narrow to swallow Jonah, but that didn't bother the artists.

The Bible says nothing about Jonah or the mariners being naked.  So why are they naked?  Because artists like to portray the naked human body.

Here's another part of the Aquileia mosaic, with a bunch of naked fishermen, some of whom have angel wings.  I have no idea what that's all about.  At the top is Jonah lying under the shade of a gourd plant, which occurs later in the book of Jonah, but we won't get into that part of the story.

Above is a picture of Jonah being swallowed by the big fish, from the Jami al-Tavarikh, a Muslim book c. 1400.  At least this one looks like a fish.

This is Jonah Thrown to the Whale by Johannes Sadeler, c. 1582.  Although the Bible calls it a "great fish," Western sources interpreted it as a whale.

According to the Bible, Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.  Then Jonah prayed to God, and the fish vomited up Jonah onto the dry land, as illustrated above by Pieter Lastman, 1621.

Now, it should be obvious that, since there is no air in the belly of a fish or a whale, nobody could survive there for more than three minutes, let alone three days and three nights.  So this part of the story is ludicrous.  It's a fairy tale, just like in Disney's Pinocchio, when Geppetto is swallowed by a whale and Pinocchio rescues him.  We should not be surprised.  The Bible is basically a collection of fairy tales, with a few dubious historical references.

Contemporary artists have also illustrated the story.  Above, part of the base of the Jonah and the Whale Fountain at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, by Carl Milles, 1931-1932.  We see a naked Jonah about to be swallowed by the whale.

And here's Jonah and the Big Fish by Edward Knippers, 2001, showing the fish vomiting up a naked Jonah.

This 2007 photo was called Jonah and the Whale Rib.  Cute.

We end with another Jonah, Jonah Falcon, born in 1970, said to have the world's biggest cock.  Rolling Stone magazine did a feature on him in 2003 and reported that his uncut cock is 9.5 inches long when soft and 13.5 inches when hard.  To quote the Bible: "Behold, it is large." (Genesis 34:21)