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| Kids' craft featuring a whale made out of a paper plate, with Jonah stuck to its tongue. Image source. |
[spoiler warning for the biblical story of Jonah]
The other day, my son asked me to tell him a story, so I told him the story of Jonah, and right in the middle of it, I realized "this is clearly not a true story." And no, it wasn't the part about the whale that tipped me off.
First, let me give you a summary of the story of Jonah (or you can go read it in Jonah 1-4):
God tells Jonah to go preach in the city of Nineveh, because of its wickedness. Important background information here is that Jonah was an Israelite, and Nineveh was part of the Assyrian empire. Israel and Assyria were enemies.
Jonah decides he's not going to do that, so he gets on a boat going in the opposite direction. But God sends a big storm, and everyone on the boat is worried they're going to die, and they're trying to figure out why the gods have done this to them. Jonah confesses that it's his fault because he's running away from his God. He tells them they need to throw him into the sea. So they do that, and then a great fish comes and swallows Jonah.
Jonah is inside the fish for 3 days, and he prays for God to save him. God commands the fish to vomit him out. Gross.
Then God again tells him to go to Nineveh, and this time he goes. He warns the people that in 40 days, the city will be destroyed because of its wickedness. All the people of Nineveh, including the king, take it very seriously, and begin to pray and put on sackcloth, and repent of their evil and violent ways.
So, since they repented, God decides not to destroy their city.
Jonah is SO MAD about this. He's like, see, *this* is why I didn't want to come! He knew that God was the sort of loving God who would forgive them, and he's so mad about it. God is like "Really? Seriously?"
Then God causes a nice leafy plant to grow, to give Jonah shade while he sits outside the city moping. Jonah is very happy about this plant. But then the next day, God sends a worm to eat the plant, and the plant dies. Jonah is SO MAD about this. But God says, you care about this plant, even though it's just a plant- don't you think I care about the thousands and thousands of people in Nineveh?
And basically that's where the story ends. It seems Jonah is still mad, still disagreeing with God about what should be done to Nineveh.
So anyway, I realized it's not a true story when all the Ninevites repented. This is so unrealistic- some foreigner comes and starts preaching a doomsday message in the streets- in reality when this happens, most people would just ignore him. I mean, we've all heard religious people telling us we need to do this or that, or else God will punish us, and in general we don't take it seriously.
When I heard this story as a child, I never picked up on this part being unrealistic. The context I had was that, sometimes in school, the whole class would be misbehaving, and the teacher comes in and gives us a talk about how bad and disrespectful our behavior is, and we all feel very guilty and then we do what the teacher says.
As a child, it's like, some authority figure comes along and tells you "this is what God wants you to do," then you have to do it if you want to be seen as a "good kid." I did not know that, in the real world, if some stranger comes along and tells you "this is what God says" generally the right approach is to ignore them, unless there is some really good reason to believe they might actually be right about it.
So I was telling this story to my son the other day, and at that part, I realized, well this is obviously not a true story. The mass repentance of the Ninevites is a plot point that serves the overall message of the story, which is God's love and care for all people.
Usually, when people talk about the story of Jonah, they talk about the whale. Or "great fish", depending on what version of the bible you're reading. Some atheist says, "Well this is obviously not a true story, because it's not possible to survive inside a whale for 3 days, this is just silly." And then some Christian says, "It IS possible, here is a historical anecdote about a person who was swallowed by a whale and survived!" And then the atheist is like "uh this example sounds like an urban legend." And then another Christian comes along and says, "Guys, what are we doing? No no no, don't look for evidence that this is *scientifically possible*- the entire point is that God did a miracle, and that's how Jonah survived inside the whale- we actually DON'T want evidence that this is scientifically possible."
A lot of "Yes, this IS a true story, you HAVE TO believe this is a true story, to be a Christian." A lot of "Jesus mentioned Jonah as if it was a true story- you HAVE TO believe this, or else you're calling Jesus a liar!" (I guess these people never realized that when their friends compare some real-life event to a scene from Star Wars, it doesn't mean they think Star Wars is a true story?)
(My position was always, if you believe in God, it's not really a stretch to believe in miracles, so sure, if the bible says some miracle happened, then yeah sure I guess it did.)
So much discussion about whether it's really true that a person survived being swallowed by a whale. I now think this misses the point.
And the second thing, that Christians talk about, when they talk about the story of Jonah: the moral lesson that we're supposed to learn. I always thought the lesson that we're supposed to learn from Jonah is, when God gives you a task, you have to do it, otherwise God will chase you down and send a whale to eat you.
Yeah, when I was a child and learned this story in Sunday school, it didn't really seem important what the actual task was that God gave Jonah, or the result when Jonah finally did it. The story was, God told Jonah to do something, Jonah decided not to, so God sent a whale to swallow Jonah, and then Jonah learned his lesson, that if God tells you to do something, you have to do it. So then when God gave him a second chance, he went and did it. The end. Oh and also the people of Nineveh all repented because when some authority figure comes along and says "you kids have all been misbehaving, you should be ashamed of yourselves" then everyone responds by getting their act together.
Usually children's bibles end the story there, and don't have the part about Jonah being mad that God didn't destroy Nineveh, or the part about the plant.
The lesson was, when God tells you to do something, you have to obey.
But I'm reading this now, with the idea "this is not a true story", and thinking about how the writer chose to have the events of the story happen in a certain way, in order to make a point. And I'm like, wow, the point actually is this: God wants to get the message through to Jonah, that They love the people of Nineveh, and that They want the people of Nineveh to stop their evil and violence. They *don't* want to destroy the city. God's trying to make Jonah understand this, trying multiple times, and Jonah refuses to accept it.
God tells Jonah to go preach in Nineveh, and Jonah doesn't want to, because he doesn't like Nineveh. And maybe that made sense- maybe it was dangerous to go there and start telling people that they would be punished for their sin. But God is not just going to let Jonah ignore this- God wants Jonah to know that They care about Nineveh, so God sends the storm and the whale.
Then when Jonah finally does go to Nineveh, and all the people repent immediately, Jonah says, "Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." (Jonah 4:2) The writer includes this part to really make the point. These words "slow to anger, abounding in love" are a well-known quote about the character of God, and this is a story about taking those words seriously and following them to the conclusion that God loves all people, not just the people of Israel. It's ironic how Jonah says these words as if it's a bad thing- he knew this about God, and he doesn't like it, and that's why he didn't obey God in the first place.
And one last time, God tries to get through to Jonah by giving him this nice plant to shade him from the hot sun, and then taking it away. How can Jonah be so upset about the plant, and unable to accept that God would be upset about the destruction of a city full of thousands and thousands of people and animals?
When I view the story this way, not as a true story but as a plotline that the writer made up in order to really emphasize their message, I'm like, wow this is a really good story. All that talk about "can a person really survive being swallowed by a whale" totally misses the point.
There's a bit of a plot hole: When Jonah refused to go to Nineveh, why didn't God just use some other way to get Their message to the Ninevites? It seems like getting Jonah to understand that God loves Nineveh is a higher priority than getting the Ninevites to repent and be saved.
When I learned this story as a kid in Sunday school, or reading children's bibles, I don't think I ever got the message that it's about God's love and concern for all people, regardless of their nationality or race. It was about "yes this IS a true story, it IS" and "when God orders you to do something, you can't say no."
Another thing that strikes me, about the way children's bibles tell this story: The actual bible is a collection of 66 books. The book of Jonah is one of them- it's 4 chapters long, and it's self-contained. But children's bibles present a series of bible stories, as if they are all just things that happened, one after another. The same style, the same level of "it's a true story", all throughout. Children's bibles don't accurately reflect the fact that the bible is a collection of books pulled together from a bunch of different sources.
(Also very interesting that children's bibles typically skip the part about Jonah being mad, and the part about the plant! I guess if your main reason for including the story is "look, kids, a whale" and also you want your protagonist to be an uncomplicated good person, you will have to skip those parts.)
If you just take the book of Jonah by itself- and you should, because it is a book just by itself, it's not part of any of the other books in the bible- why on earth would you decide "this is a TRUE STORY and I will die on this hill"?
Let me give you another example from the bible: the parable of the good Samaritan. The gospel of Luke sets up the story like this:
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. ..."
So we get this framing, that an "expert in the law" asked Jesus "who is my neighbor" and then Jesus told this story. It's obvious that this is not a true story. (Okay I say it's obvious, but I've heard of American Christians traveling to Israel and going to the "Good Samaritan Inn" or something and asking "is this where it really happened?" No, it's not "where it really happened"- it's not a true story!) It's obvious that it's a story told with various storytelling devices- the rule of three, the extremes in how the 3 passersby are described (the first 2 being the most stereotypically good religious people, and the 3rd being an ethnic minority that Jesus' audience wouldn't have liked) to upend the audience's expectations- to really make the point.
And then we have the book of Jonah, which is just a standalone book. It doesn't come with any framing device like "some wise person told this story to teach us something." (Perhaps the writer didn't feel that was necessary, because the whole surviving-for-3-days-inside-a-whale makes it obvious it's not a true story???) So why on earth did modern Christians decide the correct "frame" is "this is a true story"?
It seems to be motivated by the assumption that if it's not a true story, it's just some meaningless, worthless, silly myth. And since this is in the bible, and God gave it to us, it must be a true story. It's just such a bizarre set of assumptions, when you think about it. Can't God give us a story that's not a true story, that's meant to teach us something?
It's just wild, the way Christians talk about Jonah like the main point is whether or not a person can survive being swallowed by a whale. And how I always thought that lesson was you can't say no to God. If you read it without the assumption that it's a true story, but recognizing that the writer made choices about what the plot points would be, a whole different picture comes into view. The point is that God loves the people of Nineveh- that God loves the whole world, not just us. Over and over again, the story makes this point.
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Please enjoy this song from VeggieTales
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And now I want to read a bunch of children's books about Jonah and record statistics about how they present the story- what they say the moral lesson is, do they include the ending with the plant, etc. If anyone has already done this, please post a link in the comments~
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See also, these posts from the Slacktivist:
No, the book of Jonah cannot be read as history
9/30 Flashback: Jonah blogging
Team Everybody sliding into our DMs
Related:
Figuring Out What I Believe About "The Prince of Egypt"
"Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" (I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH)
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