Chapter 85.00: CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded.

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CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded.
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Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the
preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical
story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks
and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times,
equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the
dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those
traditions one whit the less facts, for all that.

One old Sag-Harbor whaleman’s chief reason for questioning the Hebrew
story was this:—He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles,
embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented
Jonah’s whale with two spouts in his head—a peculiarity only true
with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the
varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this saying,
“A penny roll would choke him”; his swallow is so very small. But, to
this, Bishop Jebb’s anticipative answer is ready. It is not necessary,
hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the whale’s belly,
but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And this seems
reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the Right Whale’s mouth
would accommodate a couple of whist-tables, and comfortably seat all the
players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow
tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless.

Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his want
of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in
reference to his incarcerated body and the whale’s gastric juices. But
this objection likewise falls to the ground, because a German exegetist
supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge in the floating body of a dead
whale—even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned
their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has been
divined by other continental commentators, that when Jonah was thrown
overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his escape to
another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figure-head; and, I
would add, possibly called “The Whale,” as some craft are nowadays
christened the “Shark,” the “Gull,” the “Eagle.” Nor have there been
wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned in the
book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver—an inflated bag of wind—which
the endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a watery doom. Poor
Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all round. But he had still another
reason for his want of faith. It was this, if I remember right: Jonah was
swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean Sea, and after three days he
was vomited up somewhere within three days’ journey of Nineveh, a city on
the Tigris, very much more than three days’ journey across from the
nearest point of the Mediterranean coast. How is that?

But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within that
short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by the way
of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage through the
whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up the Persian Gulf
and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the complete
circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of the Tigris
waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any whale to swim
in. Besides, this idea of Jonah’s weathering the Cape of Good Hope at so
early a day would wrest the honor of the discovery of that great headland
from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make modern history
a liar.

But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his foolish
pride of reason—a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing that
he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the sun and
the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and abominable,
devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a Portuguese
Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah’s going to Nineveh via the Cape
of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of the general
miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly enlightened Turks
devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah. And some three
centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris’s Voyages, speaks of a
Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which Mosque was a miraculous
lamp that burnt without any oil.