Jonah’s Underwater Stomach Vacation
By capella
Once upon a time there was a man named Jonah who was traveling to Nineveh on a ship when along came a mighty wind which rocked the ship violently, scaring the pee pee out of everyone on board except for Jonah who like many Biblical figures in various Bible stories had passed out.
The brave sailors of the ship started to panic and began throwing things overboard. Meanwhile Jonah awakened with a hangover, went on top, and convinced the sailors that if they threw him overboard the storm would stop and sure enough it worked.
Then, as if things weren’t going badly enough for Jonah, along came a “big fish” which swallowed him.
After three days of living underwater inside of the fish’s stomach it occurred to Jonah to pray. After some fast talking God spoke to the fish (in fisheese) and the fish vomited Jonah onto land where he scampered off to preach to the people of Nineveh.
Can anyone reading identify some of the problems with this story? Let’s see how well you did:
Oxygen
Jonah, without scuba gear and hence without oxygen, survived inside of a fish’s stomach underwater for three days. A lesser man would have suffocated within minutes, but apparently Jonah was exceptionally good at holding his breath?
Digestive Juices
The environment of the stomach is not a very pleasant place. Not the sort of place you would want to take your girlfriend on the first date. Stomachs are dark, smelly, and full of nasty digestive juices which curiously are meant to digest things over time that the fish has swallowed such as for example, Jonah.
Water
Also in stomachs, potable water is very scarce. In fact there is generally no potable water at all. The only thing available for drinking is just poisonous digestive juices. Human males require 3.7 liters of water a day to survive. In fact after three days of not drinking water Jonah would have at least been very close to dying from lack of water alone. Certainly in no condition to walk to Nineveh.