Q: In Matthew 12:40, the KJV says that Jesus said that Jonah was in the whales belly, but in the book of Jonah, the creature which described Jonah is called a great fish. A whale is a marine mammal, not a fish. So dont these accounts contradict one another?
A: Its a translation-thing. Both the Hebrew term used in Jonah (dag gadol) and the Greek term used in Matthew 12:40 (khtous) are too broad to determine if the creature which swallowed Jonah was a whale, or something else. The KJV renders khtous as whales but the NKJV refers, in Matthew 12:40, to the belly of the great fish. In the NIV, its a huge fish.
The online essay by James Williams at www.probe.org/content/view/727/95 briefly explores the subject of Jonah -- in terms of historicity and scientific feasibility, and so on -- and covers this point along the way.
(He apparently accepts some skeptical commentators claim that sperm whales are not found in the Mediterranean, but they /are/ found there. Theres plenty of proof of this online. At www.pbs.org/odyssey/odyss...cript.html , for instance, one can find a PBS report containing this news: According to a summary of records from the waters of Spain, France and Italy between 1971-2003, 229 sperm whales were reported as entangled in fishing gear, carrying entanglement scars, or stranded as a result of being entangled - a stranding rate among the highest in the world. And thats /reported/ cases.)
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: Its a translation-thing. Both the Hebrew term used in Jonah (dag gadol) and the Greek term used in Matthew 12:40 (khtous) are too broad to determine if the creature which swallowed Jonah was a whale, or something else. The KJV renders khtous as whales but the NKJV refers, in Matthew 12:40, to the belly of the great fish. In the NIV, its a huge fish.
The online essay by James Williams at www.probe.org/content/view/727/95 briefly explores the subject of Jonah -- in terms of historicity and scientific feasibility, and so on -- and covers this point along the way.
(He apparently accepts some skeptical commentators claim that sperm whales are not found in the Mediterranean, but they /are/ found there. Theres plenty of proof of this online. At www.pbs.org/odyssey/odyss...cript.html , for instance, one can find a PBS report containing this news: According to a summary of records from the waters of Spain, France and Italy between 1971-2003, 229 sperm whales were reported as entangled in fishing gear, carrying entanglement scars, or stranded as a result of being entangled - a stranding rate among the highest in the world. And thats /reported/ cases.)
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
