Some art discoveries enrich and expand the work of a great ... the Good Shepherd and the prophet Jonah. Fear of ... not until the Bible was translated into English did it become a whale.

In the whale, in whatever trials we might face, God is still there. We can't learn the lesson later; ... The Jonah art is meant to be amusing, I’m sure.

And while any whale swallowing highlights our helplessness in the face of the power of nature and God, perhaps the real takeaway comes from the difference between Jonah and Simancas’ reactions.

Jonah Kinigstein, 99, has been making art since he was a teenager. Some of his work satirizes modern artists such as Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock, visible in the painting behind him.

In the interviews after the humpback whale spat him back out, Simancas does not seem like a petulant Jonah; he’s even generous toward the whale’s intentions in scooping him out of the water.

The novel is divided into two sections, “Truth” and “Mercy,” the tension between which the Book of Jonah sits. The ancient prophet, after all, is given a commandment by God to warn ...

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’ (Matthew 12:39-40; cf. Luke 11:29-32) ...