Bible

Historical or metaphorical?

6 Comments

Some people think the books of Job and Jonah are fictional.  I tend to think they were real, especially in the case of Jonah.  I base this on the way Jesus mentioned Jonah plus a reference in 2 Kings, as well as how the whole book of Jonah reads (the big fish is actually a small part of the story).  The case for Job is more mixed.

Matthew 12:39-41 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.”

2 Kings 14:25 He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.

However, I don’t think it is essential that people share my views.  I would rather someone disagree on whether the books are historical than to insist that someone must hold one view or the other to be considered a Christian.

6 thoughts on “Historical or metaphorical?”

  1. My thoughts on Job and Jonah run parallel to my thoughts on at least the earliest chapters in Genesis, in that I believe that it’s at least possible for two mature, intelligent Christians to appraoch these particular parts of the Bible in the same way — that is, affirming the Bible’s inerrant and unique authority as God’s written message to man — and still reach different conclusions on how to interpret those parts.

    About Genesis, one could conclude that the universe was created in six 24-hour days, another could see Genesis 1 as true but — like some prophecies in Revelation — not literal and factual. Myself, since I know the capabilities of science break down at the point where supernatural intervention takes place, I’m not sure we can ever read Genesis, regard the universe around us, and know with certainty how the account in the former led to what we observe in the latter, and that doesn’t bother me all that much. We can (and should) trust in faith that the Book and the universe can be reconciled, because they have the same unchanging Author, but we might never know in this life how they are reconciled.

    Ultimately, the truth of the “what” of the creation account in Genesis is what matters: God almighty created the entire universe, He created man in His image, man fell from being perfectly good into a state of corruption when he chose to sin, and sin has thoroughly corrupted all of creation. The “how” of the mechanism of these events is less important, regarding our present relationship with God and each other. A man cannot live in perfect harmony with God if he denies God’s sovereign work of creation, but I believe he can live in harmony with Him even if he remains ignorant of the details of that work.

    Likewise, much of what we can learn about God through the books of Job and Jonah is independent of the question of the historicity of these books. It seems to me that everyone will be a Job or Jonah: we will all suffer in this life, as suffering is unavoidable as part of our condition in fallen humanity, but the question remains, will we be like Job and suffer for the right reason of loyalty to God, or will we, like Jonah, suffer the consequences of disobedience to God? This question doesn’t hinge on whether either account of Job or Jonah is historical.

    All that said…

    I believe both books are historical even if they’re not an essential part of the main narrative from Adam to Abraham to Moses to David to Christ. I won’t necessarily dispute the argument that the genre of the works doesn’t necessitate a historical interpretation — the genre doesn’t exclude such an interpretation, either, does it? — but while there may be good reasons to reject the historicity of either book, there are definitely bad reasons.

    I’ve seen ostensibly devout Christians deny the historicity of Jonah because of the implausibility of surviving in the belly of a whale or fish for three days, and some could deny the historicity of Job because God enters the dialogue at the end.

    Well, look: as Christians we must affirm the literal, factual historicity of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

    If a Christian affirms that Jesus rose from the dead, how can he deny that Jonah survived in the beast’s belly because of the implausibility of the thing? (Logically, is the “sign of the Jonah” that Christ gave less miraculous than the story of Jonah itself?)

    And if God revealed Himself in human flesh and revealed His glory in the Transfiguration, on what basis can we deny that God could have spoke to Job?

    It’s like the Christian who ostensibly affirms the central miracles of Christianity but thinks that, for instance, the “real” miracle of feeding the multitudes was that the people really did have that much bread and fish, and that Jesus used the boy’s meager lunch to guilt-trip the masses into sharing: why seek naturalistic explanations for a miracle that is less impressive (literally infinitely less impressive) than the claim that God became a man to die for our sins?

    My guess is that the mind of the man of immature faith reels at the miraculous. He won’t dare attack the central claims of the faith, at least not initially, because the logical consequence of doing so is too much to bear, so he’ll attack the peripheral claims even if those claims are less astounding than the central claim of the empty tomb.

    It might be commendable humility to admit that we don’t know with absolute certainty the mechanism of creation or the historicity of Job, but it’s dangerous and (I believe) sinful to exclude the possibility that God really did create the universe in 144 hours and that He really did reveal Himself to a man named Job. It’s a denial of His power and sovereignty.

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  2. I have often said that Jesus’ comments you quoted here don’t really make sense if he is referring to something allegorical or mythical.

    We don’t say, “as in the the tale of the three pigs…..” to refer to something in the present or future that we intend to mean is real.

    In the same way, I don’t think Jesus would have used a fictional description to refer to what he meant would literally take place in the future.

    Just as Jesus was in the heart of the earth for 3 days, so was Jonah in the belly of the fish. Both are meant to be accounts of real events.

    That’s how I see it, but I agree, I wouldn’t call you a heretic for disagreeing.

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  4. Neil, I enjoy your site and all the different parts related to it. I have wished for a long time that Bubba would start a blog site. Keep up the good work and discussions.

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