About Jonah

Encyclopedic | Surveys | Academic | Academic, A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives | Links | Miscellaneous reference

Encyclopedic

1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia entry by Emil G. Hirsch, Karl Budde and Solomon Schechter. Covers the biblical story and some of the issues raised in it, but the highlight is a summary of the later rabbinic stories, including an undersea fish-to-fish transfer and an attempt at experimental science by the ship's other passengers:

"Praying that they might not be held accountable for his death, they first lowered him far enough for the waters to touch his knees. Seeing that the storm subsided, they drew him back into the ship, whereupon the sea at once rose again. They repeated this experiment several times, each time lowering him deeper, but taking him out again, and each time with the same result, until finally they threw him into the sea."

1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, entry by James F. Driscoll. Although Catholic biblical interpretation does not require it (see, for example, Noah's ark, not taken literally), Driscoll takes a hard line in favor of the truth of the story—mostly, it seems, because Jesus himself referenced it.

Wikipedia: Book of Jonah. Decent summary where it was least expected.[1] The Wikipedia entry Jonah is brief and dated, dating almost entirely from the 1897 Easton's Bible Dictionary.

Surveys

"Jonah," structural summary and an excellent run-down of the Book of Jonah's literary techniques, including its unusual inversions of the conventions and expectations of biblical narrative. Unknown author.

Good "Introductory notes" and an outline of Jonah, from Bob Dunston's Notes on the Hebrew Bible .

About.com Agnosticism/Atheism: Book of Jonah by Austin Cline. A (decent) summary, not an attack on its historicity. Kudos to Cline for that!

Jonah: Images and Implications by Richard E. Young, an engaging, idiosyncratic multipage commentary on the Book of Jonah. The commentary includes a handy translation, with numbers showing Hebrew-less readers the word-play and repetition.

Academic

Amazon. The Sign of Jonah Reconsidered: A Study of Its Meaning in the Gospel Traditions by Simon Chow (Coniectanea Biblica New Testament Series, No 27).

Review by Robert A Derrenbacker Jr., The Catholic Biblical Quarterly (April 1997), luke-warm review commends its "thorough and concise summary of the various ways in which the tradition of Jonah was understood from the intertestamental period to the early Christian period."

"Taking the Argo to Nineveh: Jonah and Jason in a Mediterranean context" by Gildas Hamel, Judaism (Summer, 1995). Stimulating article resurrects the moribund theory of a relationship between the story of Jonah and that of Jason and the Argonauts. Rather than a shared mythological substratum, Hamel proposes intentional intertextuality. Includes an interesting solution to the "gourd." Footnotes offer some general resources of interest.[2]

"The Canonical Shape of the Book of Jonah" by Brevard S. Childs, Biblical and Near Eastern Studies (1978). Stimulating article on how the addition of the prayer in section 2 changes the "canonical shape" of the story. (It's all moot, however, if the prayer is not a later addition.)

"Jonah, God's Objectionable Mercy, and the Way Of Wisdom" by R. W. L. Moberly, from the Jonah-themed June 2003 issue of the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning. On wisdom and what gets in its way.

"Conversation Analysis and the Book of Jonah: A Conversation" with Cynthia L. Miller, Kenneth M. Craig Jr. and Raymond F. Person Jr. The article springs from Person's book In Conversation with Jonah: Conversation Analysis, Literary Criticism, and the Book of Jonah.

"Extending the signs: Jonah in Scriptural Reasoning" by Rachel Muers, the introduction to the all-Jonah June 2003 issue of the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning.

"An Insight Into the Prayer of Jonah (p) in the Qur'an" by Asma Mermer and Umeyye Yazicioglu, from the June 2003 issue of the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning. An analysis of Jonah's prayer. Starts with an excellent short introduction to Jonah in the Koran.

"Reading the Rainbow" by Rachel Muers, from the June 2003 issue of the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning.

"I suggest, we see God teaching Jonah to read the signs of God's faithfulness and steadfast love, as God reads them. The point is not the continuing need of humanity to be reminded that God is faithful and "abounding in steadfast love"—Jonah knows that already (Jonah 4:2)—but rather the need to learn to read the signs of God's faithfulness."

"Reading the Sign of Jonah: A Commentary on our Biblical Reasoning" by Chad Pecknold, from the June 2003 issue of the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning.

"Gathering at the Table for Scripture Study: A Jewish-Christian-Muslim Trialogue about Jonah Texts" by Michael G. Cartwright, from the June 2003 issue of the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning. Cartwright discusses a series of three-faith discussions. Unfortunately, the Islamic contigent was not typical, nor as high-powered as the Christian and Jewish.

"Jonahic Hermeneutics: How 'We' 'name' G-d"by William Wesley Elkins, from the June 2003 issue of the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning. Elkins loses me at "hello."[3]

Academic, A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives

Amazon. A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives : The Survival of Jonah in Western Culture by Yvonne Sherwood. Also available in (expensive) hardcover. From the flap:

"This book charts the mutations of the book of Jonah as it latches onto Christian and Jewish motifs and anxieties, passes through highbrow and lowbrow culture, and finally becomes something of a scavenger among the ruins, as, in its most resourceful move to date, it begins to live off the demise of faith."

Sample. The first 28 pages in PDF format, courtesy Cambridge UP.

Reviewed by George M Landes, Review of Biblical Literature (8/2002).

"Are we looking at a new curriculum in which it will be de rigueur to include sophisticated literary theory and analysis along with cultural studies in a postmodern packaging? And what will this mean for the untrained Bible student who would like to be able to understand the meaning of biblical texts, minus all the interpretive jargon and mystification?"

Reviewed by Tod Linafelt, Review of Biblical Literature (10/2004):

"The result is an almost impossibly rich book, which for all its great learning is never anything but compellingly readable. … surely one of the most erudite, compelling, and well- written books of the most recent generation of biblical scholarship."

Review of Raymond F. Person, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (2002-2003). Critical.

"… I suspect that many others will find her generalizations as hindrances to her message, rather than provocative statements causing her readers to rethink their positions."

Review by Avril Hannah-Jones, Melbourne Historical Journal, (2002).

"After reading this book preachers will never again be able to use Jonah as a simple tale about God's universal love and the need to obey God no matter what."

Review by Joan E. Cook, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly (Jan. 2002). MIxed review identifies her most "valuable contribution" in her catalog of interpretations.

Review by Carolyn J. Sharp, Anglican Theological Review (Spring 2002), an "agile exploration of the reception history of Jonah." The concluding paragraph is something of a clarion call:

"My hope is that Christian theologians will not simply dismiss her postmodern project but will rise to the challenge, listening more intently to responses to God's Word that are whispered, sung, snarled, and laughed by a cacophony of unfamiliar voices ancient and contemporary. Our edgy, uncertain world is in desperate need of nuanced preaching and teaching that acknowledge its complex spiritual disjunctures, its passionate and confused embodiment, and its deeply complicated joys and fears. Unimaginative hermeneutics and reactionary domestication of wild biblical texts such as Jonah will not suffice. Books like Sherwood's show us that new interpretive horizons continue to unfold, inviting not only more sophisticated reading strategies but also newly creative, even transgressive proclamations of the Gospel."

Cambridge UP blurb.

Miscellaneous reference

The British Museum: Nineveh. Brief description, with many artifacts.