Pete.. I'm going to try to move the discussion which relate to evolution and to trust/faith --whatever... over to this thread

so. "Subject: RE: BS: Church joins real world
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link - PM
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 09:46 AM

joe, if Jesus seemed to regard Jonah as real, I see no reason to mistrust its historicity.,,,

One would distrust it because the basic Jonah story.. as well as the Noah story and the Adam & Eve story... do not seem very likely based on what we know about fish, water, floods, population genetics and systems of writing and preserving exact information. If all you base the truth of Jonah on is the word of Jesus, then you must have some way to verify that Jesus was not only real, but that he knew what he was saying and where HE got his information. Whether Jonah was supposed to have been swallowed by a "big fish" or a whale, it seems unlikely because whale's throats are too small, and the few fish that 'might' swallowa man... i.e. big sharks, would not swallow him whole....and so forth..

If you merely believe it all because of 'faith' in the inerrant word of the Bible.... well, you can only speak for yourself, as those of us who really need solid evidence for such 'interesting' stories can't take it all in.....and there ARE good scientific theories now about how a local flood could have grown into a big story about a World Flood.

Joe Offer has his sincere faith.. but he does a pretty good job of tempering it with the idea of Biblical stories being more guidance than absolute fact.