Bible Contradiction? Who cast Jonah into the sea?

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Who cast Jonah into the sea?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:

The sailors

“So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging.” (Jonah 1:15)

God

“For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me.” (Jonah 2:3)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. In dealing with this alleged Bible contradiction it is important to know the context of the two verses cited.
   1. In terms of the context Jonah 1:15 is part of the narrative of what happened to Jonah when he ran away from God and Jonah’s disobedience to God’s command to go preach to those in Nineveh.  Jonah here is on board a ship (v.3) but then God brought a storm (v.4) and here in Jonah 1:15 it is clear that the Gentile sailors after much reluctance finally picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea.
   2. In terms of the context Jonah 2:3 occurred after the event in Jonah 1 which climaxed with Jonah being swallowed up by the sea creature after being thrown off board the ship.  Jonah 2:3 is part of Jonah’s prayer to God in the “stomach of the fish” (Jonah 2:1).  In talking to God Jonah said “You had cast me into the deep.“
3. In looking at Jonah 1:15 and Jonah 2:3 according to its context it is clear that the two verses would yield the answer of “the sailors” and “God” respectively to the question “Who cast Jonah into the sea?”
4. But the answers “the sailors” and “God” are not mutually exclusive concerning the question “Who cast Jonah into the sea?” so this here is not necessarily a Bible contradiction.  In talking about who cast Jonah into the Sea we are talking the cause(s) for the effect of Jonah entering into the sea.  But remember that there can be different kinds of causes.  For example philosophers have noted the distinction of efficient cause, material cause, formal cause, final cause, etc.  The point here is that we must remember there are possible ways that there is not a contradiction here if we keep in mind that there are different kinds of causation.
5. Picking up with point 4 we must note that this is not just a hypothetical discussion of causation; Scripture is clear that the causation by man and God is not necessarily the same.  The Bible teaches that God can cause things to happen in ways that is different than other beings in that God can bring about an effect through secondary means such as human agents, other creatures and His creation.
   1. Proverb 21:1 states “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.”  Note that a king’s heart is not above God and that God is sovereign in directing it.  Thus God in some sense can cause a certain effect by directing the heart of kings or that of other human beings to accomplish His will while at the same time there is a proximate cause of a king or another human being who are “willing” and doing the action.
   2. Proverbs 16:1 states “The plans of the heart belong to man, But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.”  Here the Lord can cause a specific answer from a man but even as the Lord causes this to happen there is the secondary cause of the man himself since the answer comes from the man’s tongue.  The man in one sense is causing his tongue to speak while in another sense God’s causation can also be simultaneously be operating according to this verse.
   3. See my example in Who brought evil on Job?
   4. See also the example Who makes people deaf and blind?
6. From point 5 and the two examples from the Bible we see that there can be concurrent causation by both God and creatures though of course the causation are distinct in that one is that of the Creator and the other of creatures.  Thus we shouldn’t see a contradiction here with both God and men casting Jonah into the sea.
7. To be more specific with God’s role of casting Jonah into the sea don’t forget that God brought about certain circumstances that led the sailors to cast Jonah into the sea.  God caused the storm to happen.  God frustrated the sailors’ attempt to row back to land.  These factors, being caused by God then caused the sailors to cast Jonah into the sea.  It is no wonder that in Jonah 2:3 Jonah himself would see beyond the immediate cause and saw God’s causation, something Jonah talked to God about in his prayers.
8. There is also something interesting to note with the Hebrew verb for “cast” in Jonah 2:3 that helps us further in seeing that there is not a Bible contradiction here.  The Hebrew verb for “cast” is וַתַּשְׁלִיכֵנִי.  It is a waw conjunction plus a Hiphael imperfect second person masculine singular of שׁלך which has the lexical meaning of “throw down.” The verb also has a first person common singular suffix.  The verb’s root שׁלך is actually a different verb for throwing than the ones that were repeated again and again in Jonah chapter one.  This particular root verb שׁלך in Jonah 2:3 is used in the Old Testament in places like Psalm 51:11, 102:10 with the sense of a punitive separation from God’s presence.  Thus there is not a contradiction here since two different sense of “cast” is being used.  While Jonah 1:15 describes the human and physical causation of how Jonah got thrown into the sea in Jonah 2:3 the moral/punitive causation and God’s providential causation is being described.  If there are different sense of causation being discussed there is not here a contradiction since they aren’t used in the same sense at the same time in a way that is incompatible.

There is not a Bible contradiction here.  Just another fishy attempt by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to make something out of nothing.

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