Jonah - Jonah in Christianity

Jonah in Christianity

In the New Testament, Jonah is mentioned in Matthew and Luke.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus makes a reference to Jonah when he was asked for a miraculous sign by the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. Jesus implies that Jonah's restoration after three days inside the great whale prefigures His own resurrection.

But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
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 men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. —Gospel of Matthew, chapter 12 verses 39-41

Jonah is regarded as a saint by a number of Christian denominations. He is commemorated as a prophet in the Calendar of Saints of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church on September 22. On the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar his feast day is September 22 also (for those churches which follow the traditional Julian calendar, September 22 currently falls on October 5 of the modern Gregorian calendar). He is commemorated as one of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Calendar of saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 31. Jonah's mission to the Ninevites is commemorated by the Fast of Nineveh in Syriac and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

The apocryphal Lives of the Prophets, which may be Jewish or Christian in origin, offers further biographical details about Jonah.