Jonah 2:8-4:11
One of the most humorous books of scripture, Jonah tells the delightful tale of a reluctant prophet who delivers the briefest of prophetic warnings, and sulks when he is successful.
Interspersed among the prophet who runs away when God calls, a giant fish in whose belly the prophet recites psalms, and a king who commands the animals to fast, is a story of God's grace being available to all, including non-Hebrews, of the importance of repentance, and a reminder that God is in charge.
 |
| Jonah preaching to Nineveh |
I think that one thing that should be mentioned is that Jonah is thought by many/most Bible scholars to be plain and unabashed fiction, like Jesus' parables, a whacking good story to get some points across, and that its ancient readers understood this. Modern fundamentalists with "Every word of the Bible is True" tend to forget about the possibility that it even _might_ be. After all, if a library can have poetry and law and history, why can't it have fiction, too? It certainly accounts for the geographic whoppers.
ReplyDeleteSibyl Smirl
To say nothing of the biological ones!
ReplyDelete