The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism

by S. E. Wishard

"And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them, and he did it not." Jonah iii. 10.

"The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas." Matt. xii. 41.

The book of Jonah has been attacked by the destructive critics. Its historicity has been denied. The critics, though certain of almost all of their objections to the Bible, have not all decided whether it is "based on history, or is a nature myth." Keunen has discovered (?) that it is "a product of the opposition to the strict and exclusive policy of Ezra toward heathen nations." Objection is made to the historical statements of the book on various grounds. The objector interposes this difficulty: "Can we conceive of a heathen city being converted by an obscure foreign prophet?"

This objection is of kin to that which can not conceive that by a creative act of God the universe was brought into being, or the inspired statement that "the worlds were framed by the word of God." It is the presence of the supernatural everywhere that is beyond the conception of the critics.

Again, they interpose the difficulty: "How could the Ninevites give credence to a man who was not a servant of Ashur?"

Without presenting the multiplied difficulties that rationalism has supposedly discovered, they may be summed up in their statement substantially, that the book of Jonah is not historical. Whatever else it may be, whether legend, myth or allegory, it is not history.

We turn again from the fancies of "Expert Scholarship" to the testimony of the Bible concerning itself. We discover that the prophet Jonah is referred to several hundred years before the critics have permitted him to live. It is written in 2 Kings xiv. 25 that Jeroboam the Second secured the restoration of certain territory, "according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher."

The name of Jonah, of his family, and the place of residence of his family, are definitely stated. The work is accomplished "by the hand of his servant Jonah," and the date of its accomplishment, is so precisely recorded that these statements could have been disproved had they been false. Hence, there was a person named Jonah.

Our Lord has settled the questions of the personality and work of Jonah, if anything can be settled for unbelief. He has affirmed the historical certainty of the two important events which critical assumption declares impossible. The critical Jews were demanding a sign from our Lord. He had wrought many miracles, but they wanted something beyond what he had given, a miracle for their special benefit. He declined to gratify them. Of that generation he said: "There shall no sign be given it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matt. xii. 39-41.) As Jonah was miraculously preserved for three days and nights and was brought forth, as by a resurrection, so was the Son of man to be brought forth from the tomb. His resurrection was to be the crowning miracle, the sign forever confronting his nation, Jonah's deliverance from apparent death was such a miracle as convinced the Ninevites that he had a message from God for them, so Christ's resurrection was to become the keystone of the arch on which the whole structure of the redemptive system should rest. "He was raised for our justification." (Rom. iv. 25.)

The reader will mark that our Lord referred to the miraculous preservation of Jonah, and his deliverance, as a historical event, recorded in the first and second chapters of the book of Jonah, not as a myth or allegory, but as a historical fact. "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." As the one, so the other. As certainly and literally the one, so certainly and literally the other. If Jonah's preservation and coming forth from the fish that God had prepared was only a legend, then was Christ's death, burial, and resurrection a legend. And in consistency with their critical theory some of the rationalists have reduced them both to legend. For as one was, so was the other to be. The statement is plain, definite narrative, from which there is no escape.