I just confessed my Atheism to friends and family!

[smax]

Also Jonah was swallowed by a fish, not a whale.

Obviously the story is ridiculous regardless, but I do find the translation issues here to be of particular interest.

You make reference to Jonah 1:17:
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

The Hebrew word here is דג גדול (or dag gadol), meaning geat fish.

With just that, one could reasonably conclude that the reference is no more specific than a fish.

However, this passage is referenced again in Matthew 12:40, which reads:
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. -- KJV

The greek word here is ketos, meaning a large fish, sea monster, or whale.

The point I'm making is simply this: the translators of most early and complete English versions of the bible chose the word "whale" during their translation. The most note worthy of these translations is the King James Version, which is the most published version to date.

It is well known that whales do not have the capacity to swallow large objects, so it stands to reason that any valid reference to a person being swallowed by a fish does not refer to a whale. Not to mention that whales are not fish.

I guess it just strikes me curious that the bible, which is supposedly written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 3:16, 2 Pet 1:21), could be subject to such obvious translation errors.

You'd think that the holy spirit would have been far more concerned with translations that would be much more widely spread and used than he/it was with impacting the original texts which are remote at best.

Just another challenge (or dilemma) that faith has to overcome I guess.