Today, my son and I went to the old port city of Jaffa, just south of Israel’s modern city of Tel Aviv. The place, of course, is famous for a lot of things, including visits by Alexander the Great and Napolean.

It is however most famous as the location for a famous Bible story: Jonah and the “great fish.”

Standing on the dock, I watched Israeli boaters head out to sea and I was reminded of the critics and the scoffers who allege that Jonah was not a real person; after all, the whole thing about a whale swallowing the reluctant preacher is too fantastic to believe, right?

Yet we believe in alien life, of which there isn’t a shred of evidence. So many want to believe it, fervently hope it is true. But miracles in the Bible are tamped-down and/or ridiculed.

There are marvelous reasons for believing that the Bible is exactly what it claims to be and that the historical records hold up to scrutiny. We’ll talk about those in the days and weeks and months to come.

For now, I am glad I was able to visit old Jaffa, the city of Jonah.

I believe.