Jonah and the whale is pretty much all allegorical. Really?

Friend:
I was listening to Bill O’reilly at Foxnews who was telling his guest that the Bible, especially Jonah and the whale is pretty much all allegorical. What say you?

James:
I did not see the segment when it aired live but from what I can tell, from watching the dialogue (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcAZm4_LLnA) it appears that Bill’s entire argument is based upon applying the verification principle. The idea that nothing can be true or even false unless it can be verified or falsified by sensory experience. What is unverifiable is neither true nor false but meaningless (hence the need in Bill’s case to allegorize it). Unfortunately, if we were to apply O’reilly’s hermeneutic (particular way of interpreting scripture) consistently we will end up being forced to abandon the most foundational aspects of the bible since creation from nothing (ex nihilo) has never been observed nor has a virgin giving birth (in humans), nor has science any examples of a man rising from the dead. Yet Bill considers himself a Catholic and a Christian. The irony in relying on the verification principle is that the principle itself fails on it own terms, the verification principle (i.e. the idea that nothing can be true or even false unless it can be verified or falsified by sensory experience) itself cannot be verified and hence is meaningless. We can thus neatly dispose of this form of thinking since self-refuting ideas are necessarily false based upon the law of non-contradiction. Furthermore, Jesus Himself used the authenticity of Jonah’s event to buttress His claim that He would be dead for three days, He said: