That Whale Worry

NZ Truth, Issue 850, 4 March 1922, Page 1

That Whale Worry

■■ When this journal used. the. timehonored 'fiction of Jonah and the whale as analogous to tho probable fate of Ole Bill and his crowd at the next election,' : when the "great fish" of public opinion is calculated to vomit them out of office on to the dry ground of rejection; it had no intention of precipitating a controversy upon this hoary legend. But an indignant correspondent writes offering to bet us £5 that the story of Jonah and the whale is 'm the Bible- . Furthermore, this person- is much exercised , at the suggestion that science disposes lof the possibility of a whale ever, swallowing a man, and says that the Almighty would have foreseen this, difficulty and "made a fish with a swallow big enough." He continues: "If I was to reject the story of Jonah and the whale, I would have to "reject everything m the Bible." "Truth" is sorry to have put this unfortunate, individual m the position of having to reject the whole of his BiblicaJ, beliefs, but It holds to its original statement that the Book of Jonah contains no reference to a whale, but simply confines itself to •; an' interesting and picturesque anecdote of "a great fish." Possibly our, correspondent has a Zoroastrian /Bible or a Mohammedan one or is mixing up the. Books of the Prophets with those of Confucius. "Truth's" Bible, however, is the oldfashioned 'One that emanates from the Oxford University Press and its Book of Jonah fails to swallow the whale or allow the whale to swallow Jonah. Anyway,, the subject is not of importance enough to justify a, whale of a worry, and our correspondent is hereby granted permission to go and breed a little whale of his own, to father a modest, little Jonah/ and let either one swallow the other. This would ena.blo him to square. hiaprin. ciplea with facts and retain his faith In hia Bible.