fo n a li, the *lAJhctley etnei the PART TWO By Harry Rimmer, D.Sc.* S OME years ago, when we were ex cavating some of those famous shell mounds of the southern .area, we pened, I will accept the story as truth, on the basis that it is in the Bible.” That is clear thinking. This is also the limit of the mental co-operation we ask of those who read these pages. Of course, we cannot demonstrate on pres ent-day testimony that the experience
We know, of course, that the whale is not a fish, so if the Scripture in the Hebrew text says that a fish swallowed Jonah, the whale is ruled out at once. The whale is a mammal. It follows the order of viviparous birth. It suckles its young and is a warm-blooded animal. It would be scientifically incorrect to speak of the whale as a fish. In the King James Version of the New Testament there is an incorrect translation which makes this fish appear as a whale. Jesus did not say that Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly. The translators, in deal ing with this passage in the original Greek, used the word “whale” because it was the only sea creature they knew that was big enough to suit them. The word, however, is ketos —and simply means a monster of the deep. The He brew word for whale is tannin. The Old Testament Scripture says that Jonah was swallowed by a great dag. The New Testament says that he was picked up by a ketos, and nowhere does the orig inal writing say that this was a whale. The Old and New Testament both agree, however, that a fish or a mon ster of the deep received Jonah into its capacious maw, where he resided for three days and three nights. But let us suppose that the creature of the deep was in very fact a whale. It would still be reasonable and scientifically demon strable that a whale could have swal lowed Jonah! The whales constitute the genus ceta cea. This genus is divided into two gen eral groups, the first of which is com posed of all the whales that are known as denticete. These are the whales, as their name suggests, that are armed with teeth. Most of this variety do not have teeth on both jaws, but they have several strong, well-defined teeth in their lower jaw which fit into sockets in the upper jaw. They use these teeth for tearing loose their food and crush ing squids and preparing them for the first steps of digestion. The sperm whale, for instance, which is a monster that often reaches a length of sixty and sixty-five feet, has forty-four teeth in the lower jaw, but has only the sockets in the upper jaw. This whale has an extremely small throat. He chews his food and crushes it; It is evident at once that this whale could not have swallowed Jonah, because of his custom of chewing, and the restricted area of the esophagus. Presumably this type of whale, which has been the chief object of commercial pursuit, gave rise to the current belief that NO whale could swallow Jonah.
had the pleasure of fellowship with an unusually brilliant man of science. This man was a keen thinker, but not related in any sense to the household of faith. During the steamy heat of the mid-day, when it was impossible for men to work with any comfort whatever, we lolled around in the shade of the semi-tropical verdure and took what ease the weather would permit. In those times of friendly converse we discussed almost everything in which we had mutual interest. One day the conversation turned upon the Bible. In some curiosity, the writer said to his fellow-archaeologist, “How is it that a man of your mental attainments has never become a Christian?” Very earnestly he replied, “ It seems to me that Christianity must stand or fall with the Bible. I have never become a Christian, beautiful and attractive as Christianity is to me, because I cannot accept the Bible as the infallibly in spired Word of God that you Christians claim it to be.” Finding that we had the same sense of value as to the foundational need of the Scripture, the writer replied, “ I agree with you, Bob. Jesus Christ and the Bible must stand or fall together. But upon the basis of evidence, and after long years of study and thought, I do receive the Bible as the inspired Word of God. Why do you not receive it that way?” “ Because I cannot accept any of the Bible unless I take it allI” “ Check again. What part of the Bible do you not receive? I believe it all.” “ Well, for one thing, I cannot believe that old fish story about Jonah and the whale.” We looked at him in surprise for a moment, and then said, “ Is it possible that a man who knows as much about marine biology as you know, does not appreciate how credible and probable that entire account may be?” The man sat up as though he had been stabbed with a thorn. Gripping my arm with some intensity, he said, “ Now, listen! I do not say to you, ‘Prove that that thing happened.’ I know that that would be practically impossible. It is also unnecessary. But I do say to you that if you can prove that it is reason ably and scientifically probable, that’s all I will ask. For if you demonstrate to me that this thing could have hap- *Reproduced by permission from the book T h e H a r m o n y o p S c ie n c e a n d S criptu re . Copyright by Research Sci ence Bureau, Inc.
“Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh . . . and he cried, and said Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown . . . So the people of Nineveh believed God . . .and put on sackcloth . . . and God saw their works, that they turned away from their evil way; and God re pented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not (Jonah 3:3, 4, 5, 10). of Jonah was exactly as it was written in his book. We were not there. How ever, we can show from the records of science that it is highly probable, and that the thing could have happened ex actly as Jonah recounted his experience. For when we bring to light the evidence of modern scientific research upon the record of Jonah, that record is shown as being reasonable in the light of pres ent evidence. The only objection of the infidel that we have ever read is that there is no whale that has a throat large enough to swallow a man. It is sometimes diffi cult to understand how the whale crept into this story. The Scripture in the original language nowhere says that Jonah’s host was a whale. In the book of Jonah in the Hebrew language, the word there translated “ fish” is the Hebrew word dag. This word appears in the Old Testament nineteen times, and is translated on each occasion “fish.”
Page Eleven
F E B R U A R Y , 1 9 5 2
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs