210 THE UNIVERSE 



took to show how Joshua might have mistaken a 

 luminous aurora borealis for the sun standing still. 

 And I am inclined to think that a mistranslation 

 is responsible for the story of Jonah and the big 

 fish. Somewhere in ancient history I got the idea 

 that the pirate boats in ancient times were called, 

 "the big fish." If so Jonah might have been cap- 

 tured by the pirates after being thrown overboard, 

 and put in the hole or belly of the boat, and after 

 three days, seeing no prospect of a ransom, was 

 thrown onto the land. God may have prepared the 

 pirates and boat for this purpose and a miracle 

 would be unnecessary. The writers of that day 

 would say Jonah was swallowed by "the big fish," 

 meaning the pirates captured him, and centuries 

 afterwards the translators would make a great 

 miracle out of it. Take many of our modern ex- 

 pressions, as, "the ship and sailors went to Davy 

 Jones' locker;" if centuries hence our language should 

 become obsolete, the translators would say, "the 

 ship was in a great storm, and it and the sailors 

 were all saved by running into David Jones' big 

 chest." That would be a literal translation, but 

 would not state the facts. Take another illustration. 

 In the war, "a company was lost in the woods and 

 was gobbled up by the enemy." A future transla- 

 tion would read, "a company of soldiers was lost 

 in the woods and a ferocious turkey gobbled and 

 eat them all up." Either of these would make a 

 greater miracle than Jonah and the whale. 



I mention this to show how easy it is to mistrans- 

 late an obsolete language, especially an Oriental 

 language, always so full of figures of speech, hyper- 

 bole and parables. 



