2018 Convention movie: Jonah.... oh my god it's bad......! (page 6)

punkofnice

Aude - I just ignore all the infighting and focus on the matter at hand.

Vidiot

So, is the whale shark that swallowed Jonah computer-generated?

And why did't we actually see the swallowing?

And can a whale shark actually swallow a man whole, or would the krill-and-plankton filters in its throat prevent it?

Vidiot

blisterfeet - "All this prep work the GB is doing on these people is preparing them for something bigger."

I don't see Jonestown-style mass suicide marching orders.

Instructions for the rank-and-file to hunker down and go "underground" (into hiding, supposedly like First-Century Christians), so that they won't notice when the GB and their cronies bugger off to Switzerland or the Caymans (where they have funds stashed - really) when everything goes to shit, though?

More plausible now than, say, five years ago.

sir82

Seems like a good thread to mention this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bartley

James Bartley (1870–1909) is the central figure in a late nineteenth-century story according to which he was swallowed whole by a sperm whale. He was found still living days later in the stomach of the whale, which was dead from constipation.

I don't think I've ever heard any JWs cite this story as "evidence" of the Jonah stories veracity, or at least credibility. It's kind of odd, because they jump all over other non-verifiable, almost-certainly-bogus stories about frozen mammoths, errors in carbon dating, etc.

freddo

In response to "sir 82" - I've heard James Bartley mentioned in Public talks by two brothers. I even heard it about ten years ago when I knew Wikipedia had already referenced it as a fisherman's tale.

OrphanCrow

I had never heard of James Bartley before, Sir82. Thanks for that. It is interesting.

I found this article that states the claim was 15 hours in the stomach of a whale:

Did a 19th-century sailor get swallowed by a sperm whale and survive?

The article concludes with this (full article with original 1891 newspaper clipping at link):

The Great Yarmouth Mercury in the UK started this scoop rolling on 22 August 1891 and the Morning Bulletin in Rockhampton, Queensland, snapped up the bait on 11 September. Dozens more papers ran the story virtually word for sourceless word over two years. It wasn’t until 11 May 1907 that Adelaide’s Evening Journal declared “Champion Fish Story, A Hoax Exposed”.
But the tale refused to die and was rerun in many papers over the next two decades. It appeared again in various publications in 1928, 1929, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1942 (when Melbourne’s The Age gave it a run), 1944, 1947, 1948 and 1953. The yarn continued to be published right up until 1985, when the Sunday Mail even reported how Bartley had settled down as a cobbler in Gloucester, England.
Historians have since concluded that the Star of the East was not a whaler, and there was no James Bartley on its crew manifest, while scientists confirm it is not possible to survive for 15 hours in the stomach of a sperm whale. For nearly 100 years the media largely swallowed this whale of a story without once trying to interview or find a picture of Bartley. It’s a great example of never letting the facts get in the way of a good story.