X. STORY OF JONAH,—ITS ABSURDITIES.
The history of Jonah is so much like numerous stories we find in heathen mythology that we are disposed to class it with them. Its absurdities are numerous, a few of which we will point out:—
1. It represents Jonah as claiming to be a Hebrew; but as it says nothing about the Jews or Hebrews, and treats entirely of the heathen or Gentiles, that is probably its source, and it was perhaps intended as a fable.
2. The ship he boarded, when making his escape, was a heathen vessel, which implies that he had some affinity for that class of people.
3. It seems very singular, that if Jonah did not believe Jehovah to be a mere local personal deity, rather than the Infinite and Omnipresent God, he should entertain the thought of running away from him or escaping from his presence by flight.
4. The heathen who had charge of the vessel were evidently possessed of more humanity and more mercy than either Jehovah or the leading men of Israel, who seem to have made it a point to kill nearly all the heathen they could lay their hands on; as did Abram, Moses, Joshua, &c. For it is stated, that after they had cast lots to find who was the cause of the storm which overtook the ship, and in this way discovered it was Jonah, they strove with all their might to get the vessel to the shore, rather than resort to the desperate expedient of throwing Jonah overboard. This bespeaks for these heathen a feeling of mercy and humanity.
5. We learn by the language these heathen used in their prayer to stop the storm, "We beseech thee, O Lord," &c., that they believed in one supreme God. Where, then, is the truth of the claim of the Jews that they alone believed in one God, or the unity of the Godhead? In this way their own Bible often proves this claim was false; that the nations they had intercourse with believed in one supreme and overruling God.
6. It is stated, that after Jonah was thrown overboard, and was swallowed by a fish, he prayed to the Lord. How was this discovered? Did he pray loud enough to be heard through the sides of the whale? or did the fish open its mouth for his accommodation?
7. As for the prayer, it appears to have been made up of scraps selected from the Psalms of David without much connection, or relevancy to the case.
8. It is stated that the Lord spake to the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry land. It must have been a very singular fish to understand Hebrew or any human language.
9. In another respect the whale must have been a peculiar one, or of peculiar construction. The throat of an ordinary whale is about the diameter of a man's arm. It must therefore have been very much stretched to swallow Jonah, or Jonah must have been very much compressed and elongated.
10. The gourd that sheltered Jonah must also have been of a peculiar species to have a vine that could grow several yards in one night, and stand erect so as to hold the gourd in a position to shelter the prophet; and the gourd would have to be as large as a cart or locomotive, or it would soon cease to afford him shade.
11. Jonah seems to have been a very proud and selfish man, with but little of the feeling of mercy, as he preferred that the whole nation of Ninevites should be destroyed rather than that his prediction should not be fulfilled, for he became very angry when he found the Lord was going to spare them.
12. The reason the Lord assigns for sparing Nineveh is a very sensible one,—because "there are more than threescore thousand persons that can not discern between their right and their left hand." This is certainly very good reasoning; but why did he not think of this when millions of innocent persons perished in the act of drowning the whole human race, excepting four men and four women, or when Sodom and Gomorrah were swallowed up, or when seventy thousand were killed for a sin committed by David, or in the numerous cases in which a war of extermination was carried on against whole nations, with the order to slay men, women, and children, and "leave nothing alive that breathes"? Why such partiality? But this is one of the two thousand Bible inconsistencies.
13. This is a very poor story, with a very bad moral. It indicates fickleness, short-sightedness, and partiality on the part of Jehovah; and selfishness and bad temper on the part of his prophet.
14. There are other absurdities in this story which we will bring to view by a few brief questions.
15. Why did Jehovah care any thing about the salvation or welfare of Nineveh, a heathen city, when usually, instead of laboring to save the heathen, he was plotting their destruction?
16. What put the thought into the heads of the mariners, that the storm was caused by the misconduct of some person on board? Can we suppose they ever knew of such a case? If the misconduct of human beings could produce storms or a disturbance of the elements, the world would be cursed by a perpetual hurricane.
17. We are told the sailors cast lots to ascertain who was the cause of the storm. Rather a strange way of investigating the cause of natural events.
18. Is it not strange that Jehovah would bring on a violent storm on Jonah's account, and continue it for hours, and let him sleep during the time; and still stranger that Jonah was so indifferent that he could sleep in such a storm?
19. Jonah must have been the most considerate and merciful sinner ever reported in history to propose himself that he should be thrown overboard as a means of allaying the storm, and saving a set of gambling heathen. What a wonderful freak of mercy and justice! But it seems to have been all exhausted on the mariners, so that he had none left for the poor Ninevites; for he became very angry when he found Jehovah was not going to destroy them, the innocent and guilty and all together. This was inconsistent, to say the least.
20. What must have been the astonishment of the crew of the hundreds of ships sailing on the same sea to observe a sudden storm to arise and stop without any natural cause! And when they afterwards learned that the whole thing was brought about by the misconduct of one man in one of the vessels, perhaps hundreds of miles distant, they must have abandoned all idea of ever looking again for natural causes for storms after that occurrence. How repressing such events would be to the growth and cultivation of the intellect, and the study of the natural sciences!
21. How could Jonah remain three days in the whale's stomach without being digested, as fish have astonishing digestive powers? And, if he were not digested, both he and the fish must have been extremely hungry at the end of the three days' fast.
22. As a fish large enough to swallow Jonah could not swim through the shoal-water to reach the land, it becomes an interesting query to know how it got Jonah on to "the dry land." It must have required the use of a powerful emetic to inspire the fish with force sufficient to throw him fifty or a hundred feet.
23. Is it not strange that Jonah's message to the Ninevites should have had such a marvelous effect upon the whole city, when it was evidently delivered in a language that none of them understood?
24. We are told the king issued orders for everybody, including men, women and children, and beasts, to stop eating and drinking, and to be covered with sackcloth. What sin can we suppose the beasts had committed that they must be doomed to starve, and be covered with sackcloth as an emblem of repentance? It must have required an enormous amount of sackcloth to cover two millions of people, and probably as many domestic animals. Where it all came from, the Lord Jehovah only knows. And it seems singular that all of the animals should stand quietly while such an uncouth covering was thrown upon them.
25. It is also difficult to comprehend why a nation of people, who probably never heard of Jehovah before, should all repent in sackcloth and ashes. It is the most effective missionary work we have ever read of. In modern times it requires two hundred missionaries a whole century to make half that many converts.
26. But the most conclusive argument against the truth of the story is found in the fact that it is falsified by the testimony of history. According to her history by Diodorus, Nineveh was destroyed by Arbaces sixteen years before Jonah's time.
27. I have noticed this senseless story at some length, because Christian writers have invested it with great importance, and because it is indorsed by nearly all the New-Testament writers. Even Christ himself indorses it, and compares Jonah's case to his. Their extreme ignorance is evinced by the foregoing exposition.
28. Several similar stories are found in heathen mythology, a few of which we will briefly sketch here. The Hindoo sacred book, the Purans, states that Chrishna was swallowed by a crocodile, and, after remaining three days in its stomach, was thrown upon dry land, much to his relief and also to that of the crocodile. A Grecian demi-God (Hercules), according to Gales, was swallowed by a dog, and remained in his stomach three days. But the story entitled to the premium is one preserved in the legends of some of the Eastern islanders. A man, for some misdemeanor on a voyage across the Indus, was thrown over-board, and swallowed by a shark; but, as the fish still followed the vessel, it was finally caught, and search made for the man, when, to the surprise of the whole crew, he was found sitting bolt upright, playing the tune of "Old Hundred" on a fiddle he had in his possession when he went down the throat of the sea-monster. This was rather a pleasant way of putting in the time. Jonah, it appears, was not so fortunate as to have a fiddle in his possession while in the stomach of the whale. The foregoing ten stories, from that of the serpent to Jonah, have been for hundreds of years printed by the thousand, struck off in almost every known human language, and sent off by ship-loads to almost every nation on the globe, to be placed in the hands of the heathen as being productions of Infinite Wisdom, the inspirations of an All-wise God, and calculated to enlighten them and improve their morals. What sublime nonsense! what egregious folly! And what a deplorable and sorrowful mistake has been thus committed by the blinded disciples of the Christian faith!