A Specimen Attack by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 8, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 26.

A Specimen Attack.

By Editor

WE have received a little sheet called the Liberal, published in a town of that name in Missouri, the object of which is to fight the Bible and to teach people that there is no God. Here is how it "upsets" the book of Jonah: It attempts to make the Bible narrative ridiculous by showing that what it imagines to be the account is impossible. Taking the statement that Jonah was three days in the whale's belly, it gives the following figures to show how fast he must have traveled: "Across the Mediterranean Sea, 2,300 miles; West coast of Africa to Cape Town, 6,700 miles; Cape Town to Cape Guardafui, 4,200 miles; Cape Guardafui to Tigris River, 2,000 miles; up the river to Nineveh, 450 miles; total 15,650 miles." Then, true to its name, it gives the whale a liberal allowance of twelve hours for rest and refreshments by the way, and thus calculates that it must have traveled four and one-fifth miles per minute! We can't imagine why the writer did not make the whale go around Cape Horn also, then up the Atlantic, through the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Obi, up the Obi River as far as it was navigable, and the remainder of the distance overland. That would have made the narrative seem more absurd, and would have been still more unlike the Bible account.

If the Liberal writer had ever read the account he would know that Jonah's going to sea was in running away from Nineveh, and that after the Lord had commanded the fish to cast him back on the land, the word of the Lord came to him again, and he went to Nineveh. The necessary and only inference is that he was cast upon the land from which he took ship. Certain it is that the Bible gives no ground for the ridiculous assumption that the whale carried Jonah up the river to Nineveh. This is a fair sample of infidel objections to the Bible. Those who attempt to throw discredit upon the Bible, usually exhibit their own ignorance and viciousness, and make themselves ridiculous. "Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in Heaven."