Resources on Jonah?

This is one of my odd requests. The Book of Jonah is one that gets mocked a lot, and there are a lot of assumptions in those mockeries: "Jonah was swallowed by a whale and spit up on the shores of Ninevah" is what it boils down to.

Since the etymology of the Hebrew words doesn't really reveal any specifics (they seem pretty general terms), I was wondering if there were any resources that I could make use of on where these assumptions came from.

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DMB

I guess, what assumptions are you referring to?

In my library, the old ICC volume goes into considerable depth on what to do with 'Jonah' .. from Psalms to midrish/kings to greek parallels and onward. I was impressed the MT has the seas up to Jonah's neck, but the Targums send him under. Of course, the spitting up is in Phoenicia where Dagon can battle YHWH.

But happily reading my new maps book ... measuring Ninevah by 'days journey' was always odd in Jonah ... was traffic that bad? But actually, measurements were formalized around 'days journey'.

David Wanat

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285464#Comment_1285464

I guess, what assumptions are you referring to?

In my library, the old ICC volume goes into considerable depth on what to do with 'Jonah' .. from Psalms to midrish/kings to greek parallels and onward. I was impressed the MT has the seas up to Jonah's neck, but the Targums send him under. Of course, the spitting up is in Phoenicia where Dagon can battle YHWH.

But happily reading my new maps book ... measuring Ninevah by 'days journey' was always odd in Jonah ... was traffic that bad? But actually, measurements were formalized around 'days journey'.

Sorry, I guess I was less clear than I thought. I'm thinking about the additions to the Biblical account that some think are part of the Bible story and make it sound "ignorant." For example, the "whale spitting Jonah on the shore of Ninevah" is mocked on the grounds that Ninevah is roughly 500 miles inland.

I'm interested where those additions came from.

Jan Krohn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285464#Comment_1285464

measuring Ninevah by 'days journey' was always odd in Jonah ... was traffic that bad? But actually, measurements were formalized around 'days journey'.

Correct. It's a unit of distance - the distance an army can travel in a day. See Harvest Handbook of Bible Lands for example.

But that doesn't help with Jonah... Some exegetes such as David Pawson suggest that Jonah actually dies in the belly of the fish, and was later resurrected on the shore. That makes the whole story more plausible. Now his commentary isn't in Logos...

Since this view is also popular among Jews, maybe a Messianic commentary on Jonah would help? The only one I own that covers the minor prophets is the JPS Commentary, however, the author is very clear that Jonah didn't drown.

DAL

This might be a good place to start: https://www.logos.com/product/26323/lexham-research-commentary-jonah

DAL

Jan Krohn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285494#Comment_1285494

This might be a good place to start: https://www.logos.com/product/26323/lexham-research-commentary-jonah

Good thinking! I own it, and had a look. The historicity isn't discussed though.

I tried the AI search in the new beta, which gave me a very long paragraph on the historicity of Jonah in BST. If the AI search is right, that's indeed the only resource in my library that discusses the question.

I asked ChatGPT for other resources, and got suggestions for NICOT and EBC (which I both don't own, so I can't verify ChatGPT's reliability on the matter.)

David Wanat

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285494#Comment_1285494

This might be a good place to start: https://www.logos.com/product/26323/lexham-research-commentary-jonah

DAL

Thank you. I’ll take a look.

Mattillo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285543#Comment_1285543

it seems one of the books discounted this monthly deals with Jonah. If this is a well-timed marketing ploy well done. Otherwise, if you purchase this resource, I’d be interested if it answers your question

https://www.logos.com/product/196140/jonah-introduction-and-commentary

David Wanat

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285608#Comment_1285608

it seems one of the books discounted this monthly deals with Jonah. If this is a well-timed marketing ploy well done. Otherwise, if you purchase this resource, I’d be interested if it answers your question

https://www.logos.com/product/196140/jonah-introduction-and-commentary

Interesting. Going by the description, I'd be interested in what she had to say about the "Jonah as Satire" theory. Thanks for sharing the link. I forgot to check the Logos side of things this time.

Doug Mangum (Lexham)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285609#Comment_1285609

The Hebrew text literally translates to "great fish" for the "whale." I wonder when people first started thinking "it must be a whale to have swallowed him whole." I'm suddenly very curious about where this tradition came from as it's quite ingrained in people's thinking about the story of Jonah.

I don't see where Jonah being "spit up on the shore of Nineveh" would've come from aside from misunderstanding the text. Jonah 2 ends with Jonah being spit out on dry land and then he decides to go to Nineveh at the beginning of chapter 3. It doesn't say how long it took him to get there or where he started from. The three-days phrase from 3:3 is one that has puzzled commentators as it seems to refer to the size of the city itself. If I recall the "Jonah as satire" interpretation rightly, I think that's one of the pieces they point at to make that case with it being hyperbole, but there are others.

One observation that I've found intriguing about Jonah is that the narrative inverts the usual pattern of the career of an Israelite prophet. For example, most prophets accept the divine call immediately; Jonah runs the other way. Most prophets preach many words, often over a long period of time, yet Israel does not repent. Jonah says five words (in Hebrew) and everyone repents with even the animals wearing sackcloth.

If you're interested in a more detailed study of what genre Jonah may be, including a lot more detail on the satire option, I recommend Steven L. McKenzie's How to Read the Bible (OUP, 2005). His introduction is titled "Jonah and Genre" (pages 1–21), and it's the first place I encountered the possibility that Jonah was satire. Sadly, like most OUP titles, it's not in Logos.

Jonah is a lot more complicated than the basic story that's made it into the popular imagination.

Doug Mangum (Lexham)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285532#Comment_1285532

This might be a good place to start: https://www.logos.com/product/26323/lexham-research-commentary-jonah

Good thinking! I own it, and had a look. The historicity isn't discussed though.

The historicity question is mentioned, though briefly, in the "Genre" section of LRC Jonah.

David Wanat

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285616#Comment_1285616

The Hebrew text literally translates to "great fish" for the "whale." I wonder when people first started thinking "it must be a whale to have swallowed him whole." I'm suddenly very curious about where this tradition came from as it's quite ingrained in people's thinking about the story of Jonah.

I don't see where Jonah being "spit up on the shore of Nineveh" would've come from aside from misunderstanding the text. Jonah 2 ends with Jonah being spit out on dry land and then he decides to go to Nineveh at the beginning of chapter 3. It doesn't say how long it took him to get there or where he started from. The three-days phrase from 3:3 is one that has puzzled commentators as it seems to refer to the size of the city itself. If I recall the "Jonah as satire" interpretation rightly, I think that's one of the pieces they point at to make that case with it being hyperbole, but there are others.

One observation that I've found intriguing about Jonah is that the narrative inverts the usual pattern of the career of an Israelite prophet. For example, most prophets accept the divine call immediately; Jonah runs the other way. Most prophets preach many words, often over a long period of time, yet Israel does not repent. Jonah says five words (in Hebrew) and everyone repents with even the animals wearing sackcloth.

If you're interested in a more detailed study of what genre Jonah may be, including a lot more detail on the satire option, I recommend Steven L. McKenzie's How to Read the Bible (OUP, 2005). His introduction is titled "Jonah and Genre" (pages 1–21), and it's the first place I encountered the possibility that Jonah was satire. Sadly, like most OUP titles, it's not in Logos.

Jonah is a lot more complicated than the basic story that's made it into the popular imagination.

I suspect a lot of it came from Sunday School flannel boards.
Berit Olam suggests that “whale” came from the LXX.

Shores of Nineveh, I have no idea. But I think I recall images from a children’s Bible. I wonder how much atheist mockery comes from their Sunday School memories and they think is in the Bible.

Doug Mangum (Lexham)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285624#Comment_1285624

LXX has κήτει μεγάλῳ ("great sea monster") for the animal directed to swallow Jonah. I guess "whale" could be an inference from that. The Huqoq synagogue's mosaic shows a giant fish swallowing another giant fish that's swallowing another giant fish that's swallowing a person. Reports call it a "whale" but the picture just looks like a big fish to me. Since Erickon's commentary has a visual, modern reception component, I'd hoped she'd have something about where the "whale" idea came from, but she rather indiscriminately uses the word "whale" 155x throughout her commentary, so it's hard for me to tell quickly if she explains where the image came from.

I agree that a lot of the mockery likely comes from fuzzy memories of an oversimplified version of the story that people heard as children.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285627#Comment_1285627

academic.edu has 261 or so papers on whale vs. big fish ...

Rosie Perera

I just noticed that there's a Jonah commentary on sale this month for a deep discount:

https://www.logos.com/product/196140/jonah-introduction-and-commentary

I can't tell what the normal price is (I think it doesn't show up for me because I already bought it), but the Kindle edition is $56 and this is $11.99, so it's probably a very good deal.

DAL

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285627#Comment_1285627

The key is not on Whale 🐳 or Sea Monster or Great Fish, the key is in the phrase “Now the Lord had prepared…” which points to the miraculous nature of the event. A whale or sea monster or great fish may or may not be able to swallow a human and keep him alive for 3 days and three nights, but that’s not relevant. The only relevant reality is that YHWH had miraculously allowed the great sea monster/fish (or whale) to be able to do what it did. For all we know that great fish may have been created right at that moment just for that purpose and then it disappeared.

Erickson and others just go by what they learned when they were kids in Sunday school and end up placing the spotlight on the wrong aspect of the story.

My two cents!

DAL

David Wanat

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285708#Comment_1285708

The key is not on Whale 🐳 or Sea Monster or Great Fish, the key is in the phrase “Now the Lord had prepared…” which points to the miraculous nature of the event. A whale or sea monster or great fish may or may not be able to swallow a human and keep him alive for 3 days and three nights, but that’s not relevant. The only relevant reality is that YHWH had miraculously allowed the great sea monster/fish (or whale) to be able to do what it did. For all we know that great fish may have been created right at that moment just for that purpose and then it disappeared.

Erickson and others just go by what they learned when they were kids in Sunday school and end up placing the spotlight on the wrong aspect of the story.

My two cents!

DAL

Right. I intend to cover that on what it really means. The commentaries I have show the fish as God saving Jonah (and compelling him to get on with his mission).

But the question on the fish and where Jonah was vomited up on the shore was for a point on “many of the things critics mock about the Bible aren’t in the Bible.” I wanted to make sure that I didn’t make an embarrassing oversight.

Nick Steffen

I find the Wiley Blackwell Bible commentary helpful for reception. https://ref.ly/o/jonahcenturies/232616?length=74