The Sean McDowell Show - Could Jonah Survive in a Whale? Here’s What Science Says!

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Is it possible to survive inside a whale for 3 days and 3 nights? Critics often claim the biblical story of Jonah is scientifically impossible, but what if there’s more to it? In this episode, William P. Cheshire, M.D., a neurologist and professor, offers a scientific analysis of the biblical story. He discusses what modern whale research reveals, whether science and faith are truly in conflict, and how we can make sense of the story of Jonah today. READ: Has Science Swallowed the Myth of Jonah's Whale? (https://www.equip.org/articles/has-science-swallowed-the-myth-of-jonahs-whale/) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day? The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy Daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store, download it today. Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The King James Bible study

KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with the timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible studies simple and organized. Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store. Grow in your faith every day. Search for King James Bible Study, KJV, and download the app today. But I'm so curious, are there legitimate, like, modern examples of people who have survived in a whale? There was a lobster fisherman off the coast of Cape Cod who was diving, and he was actually fully swallowed by a humpback whale, was entirely within the mouth of the whale. He reports that it was dark.

He was fully enclosed. Once the boat was on the bottom of the ocean, he had no way to get out of the room for three days before he was rescued. Yes, the story tells us very powerfully that God is faithful to his promises. He will accomplish his promises regardless of whatever obstacles may exist in our lives on earth. And he accomplishes his purposes in history and also in our individual lives. Could Jonah have really survived three days in the belly of the whale or the big fish? Critics have often claimed that it is scientifically impossible. The story is a myth.

and thus the Bible is unreliable. Here to offer a different perspective is Dr. William Cheshire, a professor of neurology. He holds an A.B. and biochemical sciences from Princeton University, an MD from West Virginia University, and is pursuing his MA in science and religion at Talbot School of Theology, which is a sister program to our apologetics degree. He's written an article in the Christian Research Journal about this, and the moment I read it, I thought we've got to have them on. So Dr. Cheshire, thanks for joining us. Well, it's a pleasure, Sean. Thank you so much for inviting me. You say they're critics, and the fact that there are

critics to things that are stated in the Bible is one piece of evidence that these are important questions that matter. So they're worth discussing. Well said. I love that. Now, as a medical doctor and a professor of neurology, there's a lot of issues you could write and research. Why are you interested in this topic. Well, yes, and I have written on topics in ethics and the autonomic nervous system, which is my field. I became interested in this because I'm interested in the intersection of science and Christian faith. And for a long time, there's been this myth that science and faith are at odds with each other and there's a warfare between science and faith, and we have to choose one side or the other. I think that's mistaken. In fact, if we go back to the history of science,

we find that many of the great scientists in 16th, 17th century, Europe that founded the discipline of the scientific method that we know now, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Boyle, Faraday, many others, were devout Christians. So you don't have to be an atheist to be a scientist for it to make sense. In fact, these early scientists were confident that because God, God is rational and orderly and keeps his promises, therefore his creation must be that way also. And that gave them the confidence to know that they could investigate it and also to understand it to some degree.

So we had this connection between science and faith. The story of Jonah is just one example where it hasn't been fully reconciled yet. So I saw an opportunity to learn something. Well, I appreciate that. you're not claiming to like fully reconcile and answer this. You're just kind of probing in and saying, is there a scientific way to look at this? Is this anti-science? And you offer some really interesting insights that we will come into.

Now, there's one question broadly the way you framed it is like science against faith. But then when it comes to Jonah and the whale, we're often told that stories like this are clearly mythical and in particular have been debunked by science. And your estimation is that true? Well, the idea that anything not entirely explained by science is therefore in disbunked or debunked is greatly exaggerated. There are many things that we know apart from scientific investigation. We have to be careful not to fall into the fallacy of scientism as distinguished from science. Scientism is a philosophy or a metaphysical position that says that,

The only thing that we can know about reality is what we can know through the exact sciences. But there are other ways of knowing as well. If we follow this road of scientism down its logical pathway, you might agree with Francis Crick. He was the co-discoverer of the DNA molluscule, and he wrote a book where he claimed that all of us are nothing more than the molecules that make up our bodies. Our brains are nothing more than neurons. We're entirely physical stuff and nothing more. I think there's much more to human nature than that. And not all of it is immediately accessible to the scientific method,

which investigates physical aspects of reality and looks for natural causes in phenomena that are repeatable, that can be investigated, quantified, where hypotheses can be tested and so forth. But there are other ways, of learning about reality as well, that I think if we look at truth overall, we might find are complementary to our scientific understanding of things. That's a really helpful way to look at it.

Science is not the only way we know things. There's a lot of things we know from testimony, from experience. There's things we know immediately like moral knowledge, but it's one powerful way of knowing things about the world. That's for sure. So I think that's a really helpful way that you frame this. I'd be really curious, as you scientifically went into this story of Jonah, like, what did you expect to find? And how did you kind of bracket like, okay, I'm a Christian, and so I have certain convictions,

but I've got to follow where the science leads. I came into this project not expecting any particular outcome. If I were to find that scientifically is totally impossible, that would not shake my mind. faith at all because there's always the possibility for miracles God can do whatever he wants with his creation but can we understand the story better by looking at the science now if we look at whales and I think that the big fish in the story of Jonah dog Godol in the Hebrew which translates fish but they didn't distinguish fish from whales in ancient times whales actually are mammals but

they wouldn't have known that I think if we look at what we know about whales now there's a lot that we can add to the story and the reason there's been a lot of scientific research into whales in the last couple of decades is that they've become an endangered species in the 18th and 19th century they were exploited commercially hunted down and many species of whales were brought to the brink of extinction because whales were sold for their blubber which could make oil and soap and useful products but it got out of hand and whales are actually very important on planet earth. For those who are interested in

climate change, whales play a role in the carbon dioxide cycle on planet Earth. They eat small fish and krill and the wastes of the whale as they're going through the oceans is the food for plankton. Plankton is one of the major chlorophyll forms of life on planet Earth that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. We want less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in order to slow down global warming. So the fact that the number of whales has decreased over time might be a factor in climate change. I've not investigated that. I just want to point out that they're part of God's creation. They're important. They're not just sort of incidental light forms out there. So there's been a lot of research in Wales. So I wanted to know, well, what has been

learned about whales in the last few decades that might add something to what we can understand about the story of John. That's so interesting and fascinating. And when I was in Israel, this is, I think it's 2019. I was thinking of the story of David, you know, roughly 3,000 years ago. And it talks about a bear and a lion that he killed. And yet there's no bears and lions in Israel. So I'm thinking, wait a minute, scientifically, this is a problem. I talk with my Jewish guide and he goes, yeah, they're not here anymore, but there's remains of bears and lions from that time. So the story's plausible. I thought how interesting.

So it's the same thing with you. I've been to the Mediterranean Sea. I've been to Jop. I've been in the area where they believe the story took place and always wondered, like, are there actually big fish? Like, what kind of fish was this? Could somebody really have actually survived in a big fish or a whale for a period of time? Always been in the back of my mind.

Now, we're going to get to your scientific assessment of this, but maybe just remind us most people know what is the broad outlines of the story of Jonah? Well, first of all, I appreciate your recommendation for my next research project of lions in Israel. Good. Do it. I wonder how thoroughly that's been looked at. It would be nice to have an excuse to go back over there. And I hope that we will see more peace in that land. It's been very troubled. And speaking of Israel, you know, I came face to face with a whale in Israel. So not many, not everyone knows that dolphins are classified as whales. I was scuba diving in the Red Sea in 1998, came face to face with the dolphin, swam right up to me.

Interesting. They are whales. But I didn't know before, my wife didn't know, the most common type of whale in the Mediterranean, there are whales in the Mediterranean other than dolphins, are the fin whales. And they are a very common type of whale worldwide. I think that's the species that probably Jonah interacted with. So who was Jonah? Jonah was a Jew who lived in the 8th century BC.

BC and the word of the Lord came to Jonah we were told in the book of Jonah. And the word of the Lord was Jonah, get up and go to Nineveh and preach against them because they have done evil. So what did Jonah do? Did Jonah say, here am I, Lord, send me. How quickly can I get there? No, No, Jonah said, I don't want any part of this. I want to get as far away from this as I can. So he boarded a ship for Tarshish. Tarshish, it's not known for certain where it was, but scholars think it was on the southern coast of Spain,

modern Spain near Gibraltar. The distance between Tarshish and Nineveh was about 2,500 miles, which is about the distance between you and me right now, talking between Florida and California. So he wanted to get far away, and he tells us later in the book of Jonah, why. And that is, Jonah didn't like the Assyrians in Nineveh. Nineveh was the major city of the empire of Assyria. It was very prominent, very important culturally.

They worshipped the God Ishtar in Nineveh, which displeased God. But Johnny didn't like them. They were a threat to Israel. And at times they were in Israel's enemy. So he didn't want to go preach a message to them. So he boarded a ship. And he's sailing west on his way to Tarsh's getting out of the way of trouble, right? He just wants a peaceful life, perhaps.

But then a storm came up. There were strong winds. And the ship was in danger of breaking up and going under. And the mariners on board for a night. Jews decided well there must be someone on board who's angered the gods and and is causing this trouble for us who could it be they threw lots and the lot came to Jonah they approached Jonah who was asleep under in the down below and Jonah confessed yes it's because of me and my God and if you were to throw me overboard the

the storm would cease so Jonah is owning up at this point and putting his life at risk. An interesting point, as I reread the book in preparation for our interview today, these mariners on board are not Jews, and they threw Jonah overboard, but right before they did that, they prayed to Jonah's God to spare Jonah's life. Here we have non-Jews praying to God to save Jonah's life, and God answered their prayer,

because we learned later that Jonah was saved from the whale. And that's just part of the message of the book that God cares about people outside of the covenant that he created with the Jews. And this is Jonah's disagreement with God. God, why are you so merciful to the Assyrians? You know, I hate them. And so this is part of the message that God's grace, his love is beyond. what Jonah had imagined. That's a message for all of us.

So Jonah is thrown overboard. And then we're told that God sent a big fish, a whale, I think, who swallowed Jonah, and Jonah remained in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. Jonah then prays a prayer to the Lord God and talks about his experience in the belly, how the waters were rushing over him, and the weeds were wrapped around his neck.

And then he says, Salvation is from the Lord. And then at that moment, he is saved. The whale expels Jonah on the shore, and Jonah ends up going to Nineveh and preaching against them, and that Ninevites repent, and God does not judge them. He shows his mercy, which is greater than his wrath. That's a fascinating book, and we might ask, well, is it just a... Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go?

The King James Bible Study KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with a timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible studies simple and organize. Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store. Growing your faith every day. Search for King James Bible Study, KJV, and download the app today. Fairy tale. Is it a children's story? It works as a children's story, right?

because the Bible is meaningful to people at all stages in life. But I think it's more than that. As a critic, we might say, well, what genre are we dealing with? Is this poetry? There is a poetic prayer in the book. Is it prophecy? Or is it history? And so I'm asking the question, well, can the science of what we know about Wales

help us to answer that question? Could this be an historical narrative? As I read the book, it comes across as a historical narrative. There's a lot of detail about who was involved, where they were in the situation. Jonah is named, his father is named. We have three cities that are named, and it reads like a story placed in history rather than something in a made-up land. So I think at face value, it comes across as historical.

What you said at the beginning of the answer, I think is really important, that even if this is scientifically impossible and you're not able to offer a plausible way where somebody could survive in a whale for three days, it wouldn't prove that this is false. In one sense, we can't explain all of this scientifically. There's a certain level of timing when Jonah's thrown overboard and protected by this whale and swallowed by it. This isn't accident. There's a level of God's design being there after.

three days spits him up on the shore. So even if we can't explain all this scientifically, anybody reading it realizes the hand of God is at play at least in some level. So if it's scientifically impossible to stay inside of a whale, that doesn't mean this is false. It would mean that this is a miracle and God is preserving him. Now, we don't have to answer this right now, but in some ways, sometimes when people ask me about Jonah, I say, look, if there's a God who's eternal and self-existent, creates something from nothing, life from non-life,

gives us breath. Clearly this God has the power to keep Jonah alive for three days if that God exists. So in some ways, scientific or not, doesn't disprove it, but I think what we're going to get to

with your response is really interesting. I've wondered about this since I was a kid. But let me ask you this question. I'm assuming people like Dawkins and Bart Ehrman skeptics, do they just completely say this is mythological, completely dismiss this and use this to undermine the biblical narrative, or is there anything else in their critiques that you think are worth bringing up before we respond? Well, I looked to see what these gentlemen have said about the story of Jonah and other miracles in the Old Testament,

and Richard Dawkins is amusing to read, and he says the story is just silly, right? It's just nonsense, but I'm not convinced that he's right. Bart Airman is calls it just a story he had a blog post about Jonah that I found online and I wanted to see what Bart thought because he's actually an old friend of mine Oh, how interesting. Yeah, yeah when he was in seminary, we were in a small group together. He and his wife and my wife and a couple of other couples. We spent a lot of time with him. He's brilliant. That's right. He and I have gone in different directions, theologically. But I admire his intellect and I'm saddened by some of the positions he's taken theologically. So I want to counter what each of those gentlemen, admirable gentlemen, nevertheless, or what each of them had to say, because I think there's more to the story.

Fair enough. You know, with Dawkins, it's interesting. I've never met him. From his worldview, it makes sense that this story would be silly. if you have a materialistic, naturalistic worldview. But there also could be a sense if it's not true, but respect to the literature and the history of it rather than write it off as silly.

So I think in many ways, the way people approach this story is indicative of their worldview, Christian or not. And that brings us to my next question. I've never studied the history of how thinkers in the past or in the present approach this. When I saw your article, I started to think, Is there a history of taking this as mythological, or has it always been taken historically,

or has there always been a debate about this? Maybe just tell us, I'm assuming you haven't done like a deep historical dive on this. And by the way, if somebody's watching this and you have and there's a good article of source in this, tag us, I'd be curious to go down that train a little bit and follow it. But what do kind of modern thinkers? I think you cite people like Wayne Grudham, Craig Blomberg. these are leading scholars who are conservative. How do they approach the story of Joan and the Whale?

Yes, I think each of them has a nuanced view of the story. And Wayne Grudom would remind us that the Bible is not meant to be a scientific textbook. It doesn't give us explicit scientific information. And yet it is reliable. The Bible doesn't deceive us. And Bloomberg also has kind of a, is on the fence. as I understand his writings on this story. I think he might admit to the possibility that it could have happened,

but he would say, as I understand his writings, that it's not necessarily historical, because we can still derive moral and spiritual truth from the story, whatever you believe about it, historicity. But we might also ask what another scholar thought about it, and that's Jesus himself in the book of Matthew. He refers to the book of Jonah, and he relates it to his own death and resurrection.

Now for the Christian, Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is foundational to our belief, to our understanding of the world, to our understanding of God's plan of salvation. And if Jesus links that to the story of Jonah, you know, the story of Jesus is historic, and our faith comes to nothing if that wasn't true. for Jesus to link it to the story of Jonah, I think we should at least pause and consider the possibility that that also is history. That's a great way to look at it. Now, I haven't thought about it through this lens,

so I'm somewhat thinking out loud and would have to look at the text. But William and Craig has a distinction between kind of somebody who's referenced in scripture as a literary figure and someone who's referenced as a historical figure. So you could refer to somebody like Job, meaning the story of Job as an example we can learn from, not implying that Job is necessarily historical. But his point about Adam is that when Adam is referenced, he's referred not just as somebody who's a literary figure, but is referred specifically as somebody who is historical,

and thus a biblical worldview because it comes from Jesus requires that we think about Jesus as a historical figure. Sounds like that's some of the debate about Jonah. So Jesus could say, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, referring to the story, or is he referring to him in a way distinctly as a historical figure? I don't have to answer that right now. We don't have to nuance that. but that's where these debates would go.

And maybe I'll do a follow-up on that if people want to nuance on it. In fact, I'd invite people watching this. Go read the text carefully and look at it and see what you think. Anything else before we look at your approach to science and faith, like what's at stake with the question of scientifically analyzing Jonah? Are you ready to keep rolling? No, I agree with what you just said. an historic Adam and Eve and historic Jesus is unquestionably true.

Whether Jonah is historical is of less significance. If he's not historical, our faith is intact. I think that's a very useful distinction. Fair enough. I love that. Good point. Okay. So I'm nuanced this because I'm a professor and a philosopher, and it's really important

that we don't just jump in and go, what is the science show about Joan and the Whale? like we're thinking about this. So you talked earlier about how you don't think science conflicts with faith, but there's a lot of people who take different approaches to science and faith. Some say science is against faith. Some say they're in different domains where they're asking totally different questions. Some say they're asking different questions but overlap sometimes. You have what's called a concordist approach to the intersection of science and faith, which lines up a lot of what we do, at Talbot School of Theology in the M.A. Phil program and the Science and Religion program and in our apologetics program, tell us what that is and the intersection between when we do

scientific research and when we look at the Bible, what kind of concordance do you expect? Well, that's sort of how I've understood things for a long time before I had heard the word concordance. I remember taking a history of science class as an undergraduate. at Princeton and my professor was ridiculing the history of Christianity and favoring science. And I asked the question, well, if both are concerned with discovering the truth, shouldn't they, if properly understood, agree with each other, if we can understand both properly? And his response, as a professor was, he just laughed at me. Interesting.

So, but I think that some of the disagreements between theological interpretations and scientific interpretations of reality very often come down to either incomplete information or misinterpretation, either of the text or of the data, is always an element of interpretation and putting things together. and as we acquire more knowledge, hopefully the ideas will converge and come closer together rather than diverge. So that's what I would see as a concordist view, that ultimately we should seek truth wherever we can find it. In the Reformation, there was the idea of the two books of nature. There's the book of creation where we see God's work, his glory, his creativity, and then there's the special revelation in scripture of his plan of salvation.

That's great. That's really helpful. It's important to say there's not like spiritual truth and then scientific truth. There's just as Francis Schaefer would say true truth. But there are certain spiritual questions that don't intersect with science. Like say the nature of salvation by grace, that's not a scientific question. That's a theological question. And there's scientific questions that don't intersect in any direct way with science, like that water is H2O. But when we're talking about the same thing, for example, that the universe has a beginning, and the Bible starts by saying in the beginning and there's other passages in the Bible that imply the universe is not eternal, now the Bible and theology is speaking to questions of science and there should be an intersection if the Bible's true with science. So we're looking for areas where there's concordance between them when they speak about the same issues. for people watching. Now, let's jump into the question I've been waiting to ask you at this point. Some people are thinking, we nuanced this to death. But I'm so curious, are there legitimate

like modern examples of people who have survived in a whale? And what, if anything, would we learn from these? Let me mention a few facts about whales first. So just to frame our understanding. So as I looked into what researchers have found in looking at fin whales, first of all, for Jonah to enter the mouth of the whale and survive, we would like to see a whale without teeth, so they doesn't get shredded in the process. And fin whales are among the species that have no teeth, so he can safely enter the mouth. Now, is there enough space for a human being to enter the mouth of a whale? The fin whale reaches up to 70 feet in length, I think 40 to 50 tons they weigh. And the mouth, when it's fully open, is the size of several door frames, so large enough to accommodate someone of any size.

So he could enter. So where does he go from there to get into the belly? I've heard it pointed out that, well, there would have been gastric juices in the whale, right? that would have caused Jonah's skin to disintegrate, and how could that have happened? But Finwhal has three stomachs in succession. So the first stomach, the four stomach, has no gastric juices. You could safely be in there if there was enough air to breathe.

If you go further along the digestive route, you're in trouble reaching gastric juices. The problem is, how do you get into the stomach? You have to go through the esophagus first, right? And the esophagus of a thin whale is just four inches in diameter. So there's no way that Jonah, even if he were an expert contortionist, could slide through that narrow space. Yeah. So I think that he probably was not in the digestive system, assuming we're assuming that it's a real story.

Yeah. So what could the text mean by referring to the belly of the whale? So if you look at how the whale feeds, the thin whale will lunge forward in the water to bring in as much water as possible. It's diet being small fish and krill, and it filters out that water. And that inrush of water actually doubles the size of the whale and expands the mouth downwards. So the underside of the whale or the belly is actually mostly the mouth fills with water coming in. So we can hypothesize that Jonah would have been there in that space. So the next question is, would he have had enough air to breathe?

Could he have survived and not suffocated for three days and three nights? That's the most difficult part to answer scientifically, I think. There are two problems. You've got to have air to breathe, and you've got to be able to have oxygen to absorb and you have to be able to liberate carbon dioxide. If you're not able to do those things, you will die within a short period of time. So my hypothesis, there's no way to scientifically prove this because we can't do an experiment going back and looking at Jonah and taking measurements, we have to use the information available

to us. What's known about whales now that might fit? My idea is that perhaps this whale was in shallow water or was directed by God to be in a shallow area. Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and iOS.

Android. Start an end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. Where it was not completely submerged, there was an ongoing pocket of air that Jonah could take advantage of. If I see the whale diving and coming back to the surface and taking in water and releasing water, there's really nothing firm for Jonah to hold on to in the mouth of this whale. It's going to be a slippery surface in all sides. And I think he would have been exhausted after three days and nights. Who could stay awake that long just to take a breath when necessary? Yeah.

So I think it had to have been fairly stationary, resting, maybe in shallow water with an ongoing air pocket. So your next question is, well, are there any examples of people surviving under similar circumstances? There are three cases that I would draw your attention to. Okay, hang on. Let me jump in here before you know those three cases. So if I understand your assessment is that if we have certain conditions, a certain kind of whale, it's in shallow water, not moving too much, it's not scientifically impossible. Is that a fair conclusion? Yes, improbable but not impossible.

Okay, so that's really helpful because part of the task here is not, we don't know exactly what whale it is. We're not given any of these conditions. Just simply say, is there a possible path? pathway there for which someone could survive three days in a whale. And you're saying if certain things line up, which according to the story, God was directing anyways, one could survive in a whale unlikely but not impossible. Okay. Got it. Then you were saying there's three examples that don't perfectly mirror this, but tell us something about living in a whale today. Tell us those examples. Well, first of all, for listeners, don't try this at home. Don't anyone try to stay underwater for

three days. I don't recommend it as a position. I just have to say that. Good call. Good qualifier. Yeah, there was a famous case. In 1891, I think it was, James Bartley, was a fisherman off the coast of the Falkland Islands, and it was widely reported that he was swallowed by a whale and survived. And this was picked up by Christian apologist, wishing to affirm a literal reading of Jonah. unfortunately it wasn't well investigating it turned out to be a false story a hoax oh okay yeah so but it's it's out there all the way all over in the literature and ted davis a philosopher of science historian of science uh it thoroughly has documented this and it's it's not a true story after all but there are two recent cases not involving whales um one well one one actually does

did. There was a lobster fisherman off the coast of Cape Cod who was diving. I assume free diving, and he was actually fully swallowed by a humpback whale, was entirely within the mouth of the whale. He reports that it was dark. He was fully enclosed, and the whale came back up and released him. He estimates within 30 seconds. Most people can hold a ref for 30 seconds if you're terrified in the belly of a whale, maybe less time. But he survived that. And there are news articles out there documenting his story. Even more interesting is a man Harrison O'Keene, who was trapped in a tugboat off the coast of Nigeria. The boat sunk and overturned.

So he was trapped in this small room. And the way the boats were designed, the doors locked by default so that if pirates were to capture the ship they wouldn't be able to access all of the rooms so once once the boat was on the bottom of the ocean he had no way to get out of the room and he was in this small sort of a bathroom enclosure for three days before he was rescued yes three days and three days you can actually find videos of his rescue on the internet if anyone wants to look this up so it's well documented that someone could live with a sufficiently large air pocket for three days. I don't think he didn't look very healthy, I must say, at the end of that of three days.

So there would be, your brain wouldn't be functioning well with the accumulation of carbon dioxide and deprivation of oxygen. But still, he survived. So in principle, it's possible to survive under unique conditions for that long. So if Jonah had a large enough air pocket and was physically, physically stable and not diving to the bottom of the ocean too often, it seems plausible, unlikely, but plausible, that he could have survived that. Still, God's hand is in the details, isn't he? I think that's right.

And, you know, it's just so interesting to think about the story and break it down and look at the details and think, you know, if he did survive, he would not have been in very good shape but he would have been likely sufficiently humbled which was the point of the story is that he needed to be humbled and this is the kind of thing that would you know scare you and humble you especially with god's hand over this which is a larger part of the purpose of the story so maybe tell me you went into this you said your faith does not rest upon this it was a paper you're doing at talbot what did this do to your faith if anything was it just fun Was it encouraging?

Talked about now that you're looking back on this project. Again, you published it in the Christian Research Journal, which is a great contribution. How does this affect your faith, if at all? I don't see my faith as having changed, but it was a lot of fun looking into the details. And now when I read the story of Jonah, I have images from the study of whales that come to mind that enriches the story for me personally. I love that. You know, I'd actually encourage there's certain new AI videos about Joan and the whale. There's cartoons that put images in our mind.

And those are fine for a place. I'd encourage people to use images of this whale and not say we know for sure that it is, but it kind of makes it more tangible and more real when you kind of look at it in the way you're describing it, not this mythical land, you know, 27, 2,800 years ago. But here's the kind of whale. here's an example of somebody surviving. If I were teaching in this passage, this is kind of the very stuff I would use

to make you come alive and humanize it for people. Last question. What do you think the takeaway is from your study? What's the take home for people who are listening to this or who read your article? Well, number one, science and faith need not be in conflict, and they can be hermeneutic allies one to another.

I think we need to look for ways in which that's possible. possible. The story tells us very powerfully that God is faithful to his promises and he will accomplish his promises regardless of whatever obstacles may exist in our lives on earth. And he accomplishes his purposes in history and also in our individual lives. Now in the story of Jonah, we see that even though Jonah was disobedient at first, God still accomplished his purposes through Jonah. So that causes me to ask the question, well, if God can accomplish so much through someone's disobedience, what would it mean for God to work through us as individuals who are obedient and seeking to follow his instruction and his commandments? What would that look like in our lives?

And that's an interesting question that any of us can ask. and as we try to align our own plans with God's purposes and be a part of what he's doing in the world. So these are wonderful ideas to pause and consider. And you don't actually have to come to a near drowning experience to be humbled. There are other ways that he gets our attention. But if anyone listening, if God is calling you and speaking to your heart, listen to him.

Stop and listen and don't let the doubts that some of the critics have put forward getting the way of you hearing his voice because it's worth leaning into him and pursuing him and letting him pursue you. And that personal relationship with our God is what gives us the most meaning in life. My old friend Bart Ehrman has written, he doesn't think that the Bible says that we're to have a personal relationship with God. I'm not a scriptural authority, but I think he's very much mistaken on that point. I think there are plenty of places in scripture where people do interact with God personally, and Jesus seeks a personal relationship with us, and it can be so meaningful.

Well, John chapter 17 in his final prayer, this is eternal life, that they may know you. And that's not experiential knowledge like riding a bike. That's not intellectual knowledge, like knowing something to math or history, that's relational knowledge that we are invited into relationship with our creator, I think is really, really powerful. By the way, I would encourage people not to wait for a voice calling you somewhere like Jonah. I mean, that was an audible voice, a unique prophet during a certain covenant during a certain time. God has made his will known and he is speaking through the scriptures today. So pick up, read the story of Jonah. and then maybe go read one of the gospels because Jesus, they asked him for a sign.

And although he did miracles, the primary sign he was going to give was the sign of Jonah three days and three days and nights, not in the belly of the whale, but in the earth. And in the third day, he would rise again. We got a lot of videos here. There's a lot of books on the resurrection of Jesus. That's in part why the story of Jonah is so important, is that it's the primary pointer towards the miracle Jesus did that reveals his identity. Dr. Cheshire, I think this is such a wonderful example.

You weren't intimidated to look at this scientifically. You didn't come with a preconceived response and thought, you know what, I'm going to look at this, see if it's true, see if it's possible. And I hope you'll do a study. My only study on lions and bears in Israel is what my Jewish host told me. I haven't looked any further. But I think this is a model for a lot of people who love the scriptures, interested in science, say, let's probe in and see if there's a concordance between the two without fear, with the willingness to follow the science wherever it leads. And in this case, I need to add to our understanding of the story of Jonah and certainly removes the claim that science disproves it and it's scientifically impossible.

So kudos to you for doing this. Thanks for joining us. I know you don't do a ton of interviews because you're a professor and you're a medical doctor, you're a busy guy, but really appreciate you coming on. We're going to link to the article below. A lot of the points you made here and even further, people can read that and they can study it. And folks, by the way, we have a master's program at science and religion or in apologetics. We would love to have you come study alongside stellar students like Dr. Cheshire, by the way.

We have some amazing students in our program. Information is below. It's fully distanced. program. We also, this would be interesting for you to know, Bill, is that we just updated our certificate program. For those not ready for a master's, we have new lectures, new content, it's dynamic and we'll walk you through how to learn apologetics and get a certificate from Talbot. There's a 25% discount below specifically for those who watch. Make sure you hit subscribe. Many of you who watch videos in this channel are not subscribed and you haven't hit that

notification button. We got a lot more conversations like this coming up. Dr. Cheshire, this was a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thanks for writing a great article. Thanks for being our program and thanks for joining us today. Thank you. Hey friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet and it makes a huge difference in helping us reach and equip more people and build community. And please consider leaving a podcast review. Every review helps. for listening to the Sean McDowell Show, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, where we have on campus and online programs in apologetic, spiritual information, marriage and family,

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