Posted on 05/17/2005 12:31:30 PM PDT by Enchante
7 reasons not to mess with children:
(1) A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah".
The teacher asked, " What if Jonah went to hell?"
The little girl replied, "Then you ask him".
(2) A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work.
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.
The girl replied, "I'm drawing God."
The teacher paused and said, "But no one knows what God looks like."
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, "They will in a minute."
(3) A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds.
After explaining the commandment to "honor" thy Father and thy Mother, she asked, "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?"
Without missing a beat one little boy (the oldest of a family) answered, "Thou shall not kill."
(4) One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head.
She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, "Why are some of your hairs white, Mom?"
Her mother replied, "Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white."
The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, "Momma, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are white?"
(5) The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.
"Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer, she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, He's a doctor.'
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, "And there's the teacher, She's dead. "
(6) A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, "Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.."
"Yes," the class said.
"Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?"
A little fellow shouted,
"Cause your feet ain't empty."
(7) The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray:
"Take only ONE. God is watching."
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies.
A child had written a note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples."
Cute, but there have been at least one documented case of a man being swallowed by sperm whales.
Jonah was swallowed by a fish.
17 But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.
P.S. #5 is my favorite.
A whale shark?
My parents can relate to #4..
Is this how children see the world, with all eyes??
The ancient writers did not use our current taxonomy. A big animal that lives in the water was a fish.
The kind of "fish" that swallowed Jonah was a whale. Jesus tells us this in the Gospel according to Matthew.
Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Some links about sperm whales. One was washed up, dead, on a beach near me recently hence the links! They could easily swallow a man whole.
http://www.oceanicresearch.org/spermwhales.htm
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/whales/species/Spermwhale.shtml
http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/spermw.htm
Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The KJV, ASV, and RSV all translate this passage using "whale". In other versions, the terms "sea monster", "great fish" and "huge fish" are used.
The word Jesus used in this passage is recorded in the original Greek text as "ketos". (Also used by Septuagint translators for Jonah 1:17). Greek scholars Arndt and Gingrich defined ketos as "sea monster", which seems to be the most accepted translation by scholars. Other definitions include large sea creature, whale and huge fish.
The Hebrew word, dahg, has been translated as "fish" in the general sense.
It is my belief that the use of the word "great fish" is probably more accurate but that does not exclude the possibility that it was a whale. Bottom line, it was a large sea creature.
More important is that the event was prepared by God. That is, it was miraculous. So, the question of whether a whale could swallow a person is mute.
If I had saved all of the amusing stuff my two daughters said, I could write a series of books. Example:
We are seated at a downstairs Mass, and the Priest is sprinkling the parishoners. Some water lands on my 2-year old and she shouts, "Hey! It's raining in here! My tights are getting wet!"
Bump for later
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