Moby-Dick · Chapter
LXXXIII: Jonah Historically Regarded explained
Ishmael addresses skeptical Nantucket whalemen who doubt the biblical story of Jonah and the whale.
What happens
Ishmael addresses skeptical Nantucket whalemen who doubt the biblical story of Jonah and the whale. He recounts their various objections—such as anatomical inconsistencies, digestive concerns, and geographical improbabilities—and systematically presents the counter-arguments offered by learned commentators and clergy from various traditions. The chapter satirizes the conflict between literal, empirical reasoning and faith, ultimately siding with the miraculous interpretation.
Themes in this chapter
Interpretation and Perception
The core of the chapter contrasts literal, empirical perception (the whaleman's doubts based on whale anatomy and geography) with interpretive, faith-based perception (theologians' allegorical and miraculous readings).
Religion and Spirituality
Examines the tension between skeptical reason and devout belief, using the Jonah story as a focal point for debates on miracle, faith, and scriptural interpretation across cultures.
Characters to notice
- Ishmael
Narrates the chapter, presenting the skeptical arguments of whalemen and the theological counter-arguments with a tone of scholarly irony.
Key passages
“One old Sag-Harbor whaleman’s chief reason for questioning the Hebrew story was this:—He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles... one of which represented Jonah’s whale with two spouts in his head—a peculiarity only true with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale...)”
A whaleman doubts Jonah's story because an illustrated Bible shows a two-spouted whale, a feature only of the Right Whale, which has a tiny throat.
Highlights a literal, anatomical objection based on whaling knowledge.
“But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his foolish pride of reason—a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the sun and the sea.”
Ishmael condemns the whaleman's skeptical arguments as arrogant and impious, stemming from a limited, practical education rather than theological learning.
Ishmael's narrative voice explicitly judges empirical skepticism as prideful rebellion.
“And some three centuries ago, an English traveller... speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which Mosque was a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil.”
An old travelogue mentions a Turkish mosque dedicated to Jonah containing a miracle: a lamp that burned without oil.
Cites enduring, cross-cultural faith in the Jonah story, presented as its own kind of miracle.