I heard a preacher on the radio last week comment on the story of Jonah.
He mentioned the people of Nineveh worshiped a fish god, I think it was Dagon. He went on to say that it probably helped in their receiving Jonah’s message, after seeing him emerge from the belly of a fish, not looking human, bleached white from being inside the fish for three days.
**I heard a preacher on the radio last week comment on the story of Jonah.
He mentioned the people of Nineveh worshiped a fish god, I think it was Dagon. He went on to say that it probably helped in their receiving Jonah’s message, after seeing him emerge from the belly of a fish, not looking human, bleached white from being inside the fish for three days.**
If that preacher really said that, then he is just one of many that don’t know much about Middle East geography. His misinformation was the same I heard from my Sunday school teachers at the little Calvinist church I attended as a youngster.
Nineveh was over 400 miles from the Mediterranean Sea, as the crow flies. Walking there probably adds a few more miles. So the Ninevites certainly didn’t see Jonah puked out of the whale.
The long walk likely took at least a couple of weeks. Jonah’s skin would probably have looked normal well before arriving in Nineveh.