And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. There is little question that the event was a miracle, but this fact certainly does not disprove it! The account, in fact, says as much: One cannot deny the factuality of Jonah’s experience, therefore, without charging the Lord Jesus Christ with either deception or ignorance, either of which is equivalent to denying His deity. Thus Christ actually compared Jonah’s experience to His own coming death and resurrection, pointing out the miraculous nature of both. “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth.” - Matthew 12:40
He said that the people of Nineveh repented of their sins as a consequence of his preaching ( Matthew 12:41). Most importantly, the Lord Jesus Christ accepted the account as true. None of the ancient Jews or early Christians ever doubted the authenticity and historicity of the book of Jonah and its story. Jonah was a real prophet who is mentioned also in II Kings 14:25. The book of Jonah is certainly written as though it were actual history. However, whenever the Bible writers used allegories or parables or other symbolic stories, they always either said so or else made it evident in the context. “Christian liberals” have attempted to avoid this problem by saying that the story of Jonah was only an allegory and was never meant to be understood as actual history. Skeptics say that no whale could swallow a man in the first place, and, even if he did, the man would certainly never survive three days and three nights in his belly, as the Bible claims.
This is one of the Bible stories most ridiculed by people who consider themselves sophisticated and intellectual.
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