'dove')[a] is a Jewish prophet in the Hebrew Bible hailing from Gath-hepher in the Northern Kingdom of Israel around the 8th century BCE.

He is the central figure of the Book of Jonah, one of the minor prophets, which details his reluctance in delivering the judgment of God to the city of Nineveh (near present-day Mosul) in the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

[9] Although the creature that swallowed Jonah is often depicted in art and culture as a whale, the Hebrew text uses the phrase "large fish".

Some modern scholars of folklore, on the other hand, note similarities between Jonah and other legendary religious figures, like the Indian yogi Matsyendranatha "Lord of the Fishes", the Sumerian king Gilgamesh, and the Greek hero Jason.

[36][35] The Book of Jonah is read every year, in its original Hebrew and in its entirety, on Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – as the Haftarah at the afternoon mincha prayer.

[39] The medieval Jewish scholar and rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (1092–1167) argued against any literal interpretation of the Book of Jonah,[40] stating that the "experiences of all the prophets except Moses were visions, not actualities.

"[40] The later scholar Isaac Abarbanel (1437–1509), however, argued that Jonah could have easily survived in the belly of the fish for three days,[41] because "after all, fetuses live nine months without access to fresh air.

When forced to go, his call is heard loud and clear, and the people of Nineveh repent ecstatically, "fasting, including the sheep," and the Jewish text is critical of this.

[66] Luther also questioned the idea that the Book of Jonah was ever intended as literal history,[67] commenting that he found it hard to believe that anyone would have interpreted it as such if it were not in the Bible.

[68] J. D. Michaelis comments that "the meaning of the fable hits you right between the eyes",[64] and concludes that the Book of Jonah is a polemic against "the Israelite people's hate and envy towards all the other nations of the earth.

[72] Also, unlike Luther, Calvin finds fault with all the characters in the story,[71] describing the sailors on the boat as "hard and iron-hearted, like Cyclops'",[71] the penitence of the Ninevites as "untrained",[71] and the king of Nineveh as a "novice".

He lost and was thrown overboard.Then the whale engulfed him while he was blameworthy.Had it not been that he (repented and) glorified Allah,He would certainly have remained inside the Fish till the Day of Resurrection.But We cast him onto the open (shore), (totally) worn out,and caused a squash plant to grow over him.We (later) sent him (back) to (his city of) at least one hundred thousand people,And they believed, so We allowed them enjoyment for a while.The Quran never mentions Jonah's father,[77] but Muslim tradition teaches that Jonah was from the tribe of Benjamin and that his father was Amittai.

[88][87] After Mosul was taken back from ISIL in January 2017, an ancient Assyrian palace built by Esarhaddon dating to around the first half of the 7th century BCE was discovered beneath the ruined mosque.

[87][89] ISIL had plundered the palace of items to sell on the black market,[87][89] but some of the artifacts that were more difficult to transport still remained in place.

[87][89] Other reputed locations of Jonah's tomb include: The story of a man surviving after being swallowed by a whale or giant fish is classified in the catalogue of folktale types as ATU 1889G.

[1][100] The Hebrew used in the Book of Jonah shows strong influences from Aramaic[1] and the cultural practices described in it match those of the Achaemenid Persians.

[7][8][101][102][103][104] If this is the case, then it was probably admitted into the canon of the Hebrew Bible by sages who misunderstood its satirical nature[105][103][104] and mistakenly interpreted it as a serious prophetic work.

[105][103][104] Jonah himself may have been a historical prophet;[106] he is briefly mentioned in the Second Book of Kings:[107][4] He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath unto the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which He spoke by the hand of His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.In a lecture delivered in 1978 and published in 1979, Assyriologist Donald Wiseman defended the plausibility of many aspects of the story, supporting "the tradition that many features in the narrative exhibit an intimate and accurate knowledge of Assyria which could stem from an historical event as early as the eighth century B.C.

"[102] Jonah's statements throughout the book are characterized by their militancy,[102][113] but his name ironically means "dove",[102][113] a bird which the ancient Israelites associated with peace.

[114] The king of Nineveh's instant repentance parodies the rulers throughout the other writings of the Old Testament who disregard prophetic warnings, such as Ahab and Zedekiah.

[1][25] According to scholars, no human could realistically survive for three days inside a fish,[1] and the description of the livestock in Nineveh fasting alongside their owners is "silly".

[116] Similar incidents are recounted in Lucian of Samosata's A True Story, which was written in the second century CE,[117] and in the novel Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, published by Rudolf Erich Raspe in 1785.

While some biblical scholars suggest the size and habits of the great white shark correspond better to the representations of Jonah's experiences, normally an adult human is too large to be swallowed whole.

[122] In Greek mythology, the same word meaning "fish" (kêtos) is used to describe the sea monster slain by the hero Perseus that nearly devoured the Princess Andromeda.

[134] The debate over the fish in the Book of Jonah played a major role during Clarence Darrow's cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes trial in 1925.

"[137] The largest of all fishes – the whale shark — has a large mouth, but its throat is only four inches wide, with a sharp elbow or bend behind the opening, such that not even a human arm would be able to pass through it.

[143] A long-established expression among sailors uses the term "a Jonah" to mean a sailor/passenger whose presence on board brings bad luck and endangers the ship.

"[148] Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) features the title character and his father Geppetto being swallowed by "the Terrible Dogfish," an allusion to the story of Jonah.

[152] Gildas Hamel, drawing on the Book of Jonah and Greco-Roman sources—including Greek vases and the accounts of Apollonius of Rhodes, Gaius Valerius Flaccus and Orphic Argonautica—identifies a number of shared motifs, including the names of the heroes, the presence of a dove, the idea of "fleeing" like the wind and causing a storm, the attitude of the sailors, the presence of a sea-monster or dragon threatening the hero or swallowing him, and the form and the word used for the "gourd" (kikayon).

Hamel takes the view that it was the Hebrew author who reacted to and adapted this mythological material to communicate his own quite different message.