If there is one book of the Bible likely to be treated as a myth or parable, it would be the great story of Jonah.
The colourful account of a disobedient prophet and a convenient great fish make for a story that is both entertaining and deeply challenging. Is the story historical?
The problem of the fish
Answers to this question tend to focus on the problem of the fish. What swallowed Jonah? The ancient Israelites would not have distinguished between mammals and fish so the aquatic rescuer might have been a whale. How could Jonah have survived three days in its belly? For this we must accept the possibility of the miraculous. Miracles are generally spectacular, unique events that are hard to prove in any conventional sense.
Comedy, free speech and warnings from the past
Hannah Arendt was a Jewish philosopher who grew up in Nazi Germany. Eventually she had to flee to France and, …