I did not call the Jonah story "allegory" - I called it legend.
And I note that you really do not deal with the serious points Brian raised.
For instance Brian's point that miracles are NOT "scientifically plausible" and therefore out of the stated scope of the essay needs to be dealt with. If you need to invoke miracles then it is because the story is NOT scientifically plausible.
The summary of your "scientific" argument might as well be "the story is so vague we can't say that it didn't happen". You don't know what the "great fish" is nor do you know which part of its anatomy the "belly" is (although you provide no support for your assertion that it is the word itself that is vague - for all I know it could simply be an ad hoc invention on your part).
And it would be rather good to know what it is that the 19th Century archaeologists said about Nineveh. After all they were RIGHT that there was no city of the physical size attributed to Nineveh in the Bible. So it is far from clear that it is the Bible that was correct and the skeptics wrong.
But perhaps it is because you prefer to use unreliable sources which share your biases that you have this problem finding serious support for your claims. Indeed you cannot even see the flawed reasoning - 2 Kings 14 does not support the claim that the Book of Jonah is historical. At best it establishes that Jonah was a historical character - and a rather obscure one at that. And the fact that he is so obscure is a strong hint that he accomplished nothing very amazing in Nineveh - certainly he did nothing there that the author of 2 Kings thought worth mentioning.
And I have to add this. The lack of support for many of your assertions that directly bear on the historicity of the account is very much a matter of substance, not style.
[This message has been edited by PaulK, 02-25-2004]