DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
Disagree. Jonah tells them to throw him into the sea, but they row hard to bring the ship back to land instead (Jonah 1:12-13). Only when they cannot do they pray to the Lord and throw him in (Jonah 1:14-15).
Why it’s interesting
Before they throw him, they pray not to be made guilty of innocent blood (Jonah 1:14). Michael Coogan and Cynthia Chapman's Old Testament textbook calls these foreign sailors more devout than the prophet asleep below deck.
Scholarly consensus
Learn the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.