two Sabbaths that week..

[psalms 91]

I do not think you have the skills needed to use a lexicon to arrive at an accurate understanding of the words in the passages.

Having known visionary an dher skill with things Hebrew, i think probly more so than you

 

[MoreCoffee]

Having known visionary and her skill with things Hebrew, i think probably more so than you

I make so claim to expertise in ancient Hebrew so I do not use a lexicon to disprove bible translations produced by scholars who are expert in ancient Hebrew.

 

[psalms 91]

I make so claim to expertise in ancient Hebrew so I do not use a lexicon to disprove bible translations produced by scholars who are expert in ancient Hebrew.

and subjec t to error as any man is.

 

[MoreCoffee]

and subject to error as any man is.

Yes, every human being is prone to error and a person with a lexicon but little expertise in ancient Hebrew is far more likely to err in matters of translating ancient Hebrew into modern English than is an expert in ancient Hebrew who actually produced a bible in English with a panel of reviewers and other scholars to examine the translation.

 

[visionary]

Yes, every human being is prone to error and a person with a lexicon but little expertise in ancient Hebrew is far more likely to err in matters of translating ancient Hebrew into modern English than is an expert in ancient Hebrew who actually produced a bible in English with a panel of reviewers and other scholars to examine the translation.

Good thing I just posted what the Lexicon said... without comments of my own...

 

[tango]

(Jonah 2:1-2 KJV) (1) Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly, (2) And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

It is very important to note that verse 1 has Jonah praying to God from the belly of the fish. This is after the three days that Jonah spent in Sheol, and Jonah has been resurrected in the fish’s belly. In Jonah’s prayer after three days, he relates in verse 2 how he cried out to God from the belly of Sheol (translated “hell”) because of his affliction, and God heard his prayer. Jonah states in the last part of verse 2:6 above “yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God”. This is an explicit statement that God brought Jonah back to life from “corruption”. The Hebrew word for “corruption” means the grave or the pit. God brought Jonah back from death.

I can't help thinking that's stretching the meaning of the text.

Couldn't God have saved Jonah from certain death by causing the fish to vomit him up? Without something specific to save him Jonah would have died in the belly of the fish. What purpose would be served by Jonah literally dying in the belly of the fish only to be resurrected some time later (in which case he wouldn't know when he was resurrected) and vomited up? I don't suppose they had wristwatches in those days and without seeing the sun rise and set he would have had no idea how long he had been dead and how long he had been alive.

Also, if Jonah could have cried "from the belly of Sheol" (from Jonah 2:2) doesn't that open up a whole can of worms about whether we can cry out to God after death? If that can of worms needs to be opened it needs to be opened, but if we're looking for a simple explanation it doesn't seem unreasonable to figure that if God can cause the storm, cause the fish to swallow Jonah and then cause the fish to vomit him back onto dry land, he can cause Jonah to stay alive in the belly of the fish. And inside the belly of the fish it probably looked much like the world of the dead to Jonah.

Either way it seems like a distraction from the issue of two sabbaths - whether Jonah was alive or dead in the belly of the fish seems secondary to the issue of whether Jonah was in the fish for a literal three days and three nights (i.e. 72 hours, more or less) or whether it was a figure of speech for a generic period of time. I'm still really struggling to see a specific number used to mean a generic number.