Book of Jonah

The book tells of a Hebrew prophet named Jonah, son of Amittai, who is sent by God to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh, but attempts to escape his divine mission.

In Judaism, it is the Haftarah portion read during the afternoon of Yom Kippur to instill reflection on God's willingness to forgive those who repent,[1] and it remains a popular story among Christians.

Mainstream Bible scholars generally regard the story of the Book of Jonah as fictional,[2][3][4] and often at least partially satirical.

[5][6] Most scholars consider the Book of Jonah to have been composed long after the events it describes due to its use of words and motifs exclusive to postexilic Aramaic sources.

Most scholars consider the Book of Jonah to have been composed long after the events it describes due to its use of words and motifs exclusive to postexilic Aramaic sources.

Among other arguments he mentions that the "Legends of Agade" (see Sargon of Akkad and Rabisu) date to the time of the Old Babylonian Empire, though later versions "usually taken as a late composition, propagandistic fairy tale or historical romance can now, on the basis of new discoveries of earlier sources, be shown to be based on a serious and reliable historical record".

[12] Unlike the other Minor Prophets, the book of Jonah is almost entirely narrative with the exception of the psalm in the second chapter.

The story of Jonah has a setting, characters, a plot, and themes; it also relies heavily on such literary devices as irony.

[19] The sailors refuse to do this and continue rowing, but all their efforts fail and they are eventually forced to throw Jonah overboard.

[22] While inside the great fish, Jonah prays to God in thanksgiving and commits to paying what he has vowed.

[37] God causes a plant, in Hebrew a kikayon, also called a gourd in the King James Version,[a] to grow over Jonah's shelter to give him some shade from the sun.

The Book of Jonah appears to have served less purpose in the Qumran community than other texts, as the writings make no references to it.

In c. 409 AD, Augustine of Hippo wrote to Deogratias concerning the challenge of some to the miracle recorded in the Book of Jonah.

But the Gloss also chops up, compresses, and rearranges Jerome with a carnivalesque glee and scholastic directness that renders the Latin authentically medieval.

While some glosses in isolation seem crudely supersessionist ("The foreskin believes while the circumcision remains unfaithful"), the prevailing allegorical tendency is to attribute Jonah's recalcitrance to his abiding love for his own people and his insistence that God's promises to Israel not be overridden by a lenient policy toward the Ninevites.

For the glossator, Jonah's pro-Israel motivations correspond to Christ's demurral in the Garden of Gethsemane ("My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me")[52] and the Gospel of Matthew's and Paul's insistence that "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22).

[opinion] In Jungian analysis, the belly of the whale can be seen as a symbolic death and rebirth,[53] which is also an important stage in comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell's "hero's journey".

"If religion is only a blanket to provide warmth from the cold, harsh realities of life," Bashevkin imagines Jonah asking, "did concerns of theological truth and creed even matter?

"[55] The lesson taught by the episode of the tree at the end of the book is that comfort is a deep human need that religion provides, but that this need not obscure the role of God.

[57] Saint Jerome later translated the Greek phrase as piscis grandis in his Latin Vulgate, and as cētus in Matthew.

"[13] The Book of Jonah closes abruptly,[44] with an epistolary warning[59] based on the emblematic trope of a fast-growing vine present in Persian narratives, and popularized in fables such as The Gourd and the Palm-tree during the Renaissance, for example by Andrea Alciato.

[64][66] The oldest known complete version of the book is the Crosby-Schøyen Codex, part of the Bodmer Papyri, which dates to the 3rd century, and is written in Coptic.