Messiah and the Sign of Jonah: The Ignored Stipulation in the Carpenter's Claim to be Messiah

The Prophet Jonah, of all the Biblical characters, seems an unexpected candidate for Jesus to invoke as precedent for His earthly ministry. Just as unexpected, the typological implications of Jonah challenge the status quo of Gospel chronology. From the duration of His ministry to the day of His crucifixion, viewing the Gospels through the lens of Jonah gives new perspective to the chronological record. Jesus offered a single miraculous sign in authenticating His Messianic claim: the Sign of Jonah. It's most notable aspect specifies that just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so Jesus would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. It's a stipulation too long ignored; for either the Good Friday - Easter Sunday tradition is in error, or the Carpenter from Nazareth isn't who He claimed to be! Yet more than this, Jonah serves as the blueprint for Jesus' entire ministry. From calming the storm upon the Sea of Galilee, to offering salvation unto the Gentiles; from being rejected by His own countrymen, to being lifted up in the course of dying. It's all predicated upon the Galilean prophet-of-old. This is a serious study into the depths of Scripture which equips believers to emerge from the abyss of religious orthodoxy onto the shores of hallowed ground.