I am having a discussion with my lady before bed an need help. Was it Johah who spent time in the whales mouth/body or was Jonah the name of the whale? And how long did he stay in the whale, was it overnight? Hours? Days? or Weeks Did this really happen? Help me out those that know and study the bible? I am spiritual but not religious, I don't know the bible like a catholic should, I am catholic!! Which means universal church, started by St. Peter.
I prayed really hard to Google and this is what it told me: A great sea creature (the Book of Jonah says it is a fish but the New Testament reference in Matthew 12:38-41 says it to be a whale) sent by God, swallows Jonah. For three days and three nights Jonah languishes inside the fish's belly. He says a prayer in which he repents for his disobedience and thanks God for His mercy. God speaks to the fish, which vomits out Jonah safely on dry land.
Thanks Imo, I guess us mere mortals should not try this at home. I hate going into the little box and telling the priest my sins for repentance, but than again. Don't want to spend three days and nights in a whales belly either, just so lost and confused about how to go about asking and receiving forgvemess for my sins.
Little box/whale - same diff. You're stuck in something for three days, you pray, God intercedes and you are vomited out. The vomit is a metaphor for forgiveness.
I always draw a distinction between what is possibly literally true, what is spiritual true, what is figuratively true, and what God wants us to understand as His truth. Obviously, if this story truly is the Word of God, then God would want us to understand this story as truth, whether it actually happened or not in a literal sense. The morals of the story would be true to God's intentions. The intentions God had for Jonah would be true in a general sense as they are to all of mankind. Those intentions are that we should obey God's calling for our lives; that when we stray from any such calling, God will faithfully remain with us until we follow His direction for our lives; and that once we fulfill that calling, God will welcome us as if we had fulfilled that calling in the first place. So God stays the same the entire time. It is us who must conform to His likeness and His will for our lives. Another truth: Disobedience has natural consequences. We reap what we sow is a universal principle, a universal truth. So it is the principles involved that are paramount from a story such as this one, and which would be true, if not the events. But I do not rule out that the events related in the story of Jonah might be literally true. But to me, it does not matter. What matters is God's intention for me, and for you and others, and that would be to understand the overarching meaning in the story and how that meaning should affect our daily lives.
Bulldogs, no one can answer those questions for you. (except Jonah was the man not the whale) The rest you have to decide for yourself. Get out the book and start reading and thinking.
Hi Bulldogs, I don't know if you are interested in hearing a Muslim's perspective but I might have something to add as someone who was raised with Catholic influences. My mother, in fact, was a strict Catholic who probably would have been a nun if she had not met my father when she did. She took me to church on occasion but not to confession, which she described as somewhat traumatic for her as a young girl. I have tried to imagine what it must be like to sit in the confessional but can't really picture myself telling another human being all the sins I committed and then having to face that person in church later on. This is an issue that drove me away from religion for many years. In the end, I discovered that I do not believe in confessing sins to people. Also, if I am to believe in God, I feel that my relationship with God should be personal. If I need to speak to Him or ask Him for forgiveness, I need to face Him directly and not go through intermediaries, whether it is a priest, saint, prophet, or some other being. Regarding repentance, I believe that true repentance is not just feeling sorry for something you did. It is also taking responsibility for your actions and taking steps to make sure that you do not return to the sin (whatever it may be). Basically, it is: 1. Admitting/acknowledging you sinned; 2. Feeling ashamed of the sin; 3. Resolving not to commit the sin again; 4. Staying away from the things that could cause you to repeat the sin; 5. Trying to correct any harm you may have caused through your sin; 6. And, of course, asking God for forgiveness and help with all of the above. Prophet Jonah (whose story appears in the Qur'an) is an example of someone who showed remorse for his sins when he made a sincere prayer to God in which he said: "There is no deity except You; exalted are You. Indeed, I have been of the wrongdoers." He made this prayer in the depths of three darknesses--the darkness of the fish's belly, the darkness of the ocean, and the darkness of the night--and was saved when God heard his prayer and took mercy upon him (already knowing that he was among the best of mankind). Once he was expelled from the fish's belly, he took up preaching again and fulfilled his mission of guiding the people of Nineveh. They, too, repented, and God showered his mercy on them. Jonah's original sin was that he gave up on the people when they did not initially respond to his efforts to call them to the truth. He fled his mission and ended up at sea where he was eventually swallowed by the fish. The door to repentance is always open and does not have to be complicated. Remember that Jonah called out directly to God and did not sit in a confessional.
