The prophet Jonah - a prophet willy-nilly. The Sacred-ironic story of the Bible

Of all the prophetic books of the Bible, Jonah's book is the most difficult to understand and deeply study. With its small volume, this work confronts researchers with a huge number of problems that make it difficult not only to interpret it, but even to classify it. Thus, a number of specialists in the Old Testament biblical studies even deprive the book of Jonah of the status of a prophetic script, giving various reasons for defending their thesis. For example, O. Kaiser notes that the book of the prophet Jonah is not a prophetic text, but a story about a prophet, in connection with which he relates this work to the historical writings of Tanakh.

Contents of Jonah's book

The book of Jonah can be structurally divided into three constituent parts. The first part begins with the command of God Jonah to go to Nineveh to report the wrath of the Most High. The mission of Jonah is to induce the Ninevites to repent, so that God cancels a severe sentence. Jonah also tries to evade the divine command and escapes by flight on the ship. But the Lord overtook the ship by a terrible storm, to which the sailors react by casting lots to find out who was responsible for this foul weather. The lot justly points to the divine deviator (the prophet Jonah), he, forced to confess his fault, asks the sailors to throw him overboard. The sailors follow the advice and throw Jonah into the sea, where he is swallowed by a huge creature, in Hebrew called simply "fish," and in the Russian translation of the Bible denoted by the word "whale." According to the narrative, within this fish the prophet Jonah stayed three days and three nights. Then the fish, after the prayer of Jonah, spit it out on the shore of the same Nineveh, where originally God sent it. This event is known in the Christian tradition as a sign of the prophet Jonah, and is usually correlated with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The second part of the story tells how the prophet Jonah pronounced the sentence of God to the Nineveh people - another 40 days and the city will be destroyed if the inhabitants do not repent. To the astonishment of Jonah himself, the residents reacted to the preaching of the visiting prophet with all seriousness. The king declared public repentance and all residents, even domestic animals were to fast, dressed in sackcloth - penitential clothes.

The third part of the book contains a description of the dispute between God and Jonah. The latter, when he saw that the Almighty, softened by the repentance of the Ninevites, canceled his sentence and pardoned the city, was upset because of his tarnished reputation. To teach the prophet, God produces a miracle: in one night a whole tree grows and on the same night it withers. The latter serves as a moral illustration for Jonah - he felt sorry for the plant, so that he even cursed his life. If you are sorry for the tree, how can you not pardon the whole city? - God asks Jonah. On this issue the narrative of the book ends.

The Historicity of the Book of Jonah

It is highly doubtful that the events described in this work took place. The fabulous components that permeate the whole narrative frame reveal the fact of literary influence of non-Jewish origin. Sea voyages, salvation by fish, etc. are all common motifs in ancient tales. Even the very name of Jonah is not Jewish, but, most likely, Aegean. Nineveh at the supposed time in general was not what it is represented in the book - a great city with a population of one hundred twenty thousand people (given that this number, according to the customs of the time, did not include women and children, the number of residents for the city of this era is Just fantastic). Most likely, the plot of the book was composed of various tales and folk fables for pedagogical purposes.

The Morale of the Book of Jonah

The very fact that God's attention to the pagan city was uncharacteristic for the Jewish religion (and Nineveh had nothing to do with the cult of the Jewish God Yahweh) speaks of the circumstances in which the pagans played not the last role. Perhaps this indicates the local coexistence of bearers of different traditions and the desire of Jews to reconcile their religious world with a pagan environment. In this respect, Jonah's book differs sharply from the Pentateuch of Moses, where pagans are subject to total curse (curses) and are subject to destruction, or, at best, can be tolerated. Jonah's book, on the contrary, preaches God, who cares equally about all people, both Jews and Gentiles, so that he even sends his prophet to the latter with a sermon. Note that in the Torah God sent the prophets to the Gentiles not with the preaching of repentance, but immediately with the sword of retribution. Even in Sodom and Gomorrah, the Almighty only seeks the righteous, but does not try to turn to the repentance of sinners.

The moral of the book of Jonah is contained in the last verse-question of the Lord about how not to regret the great city, where one hundred and twenty thousand unintentional people and many cattle.

Time of writing

Proceeding from the internal analysis of the text, from the presence of late Hebrew words and characteristic Aramaic constructions, researchers attribute this monument of literature to the IV-III centuries. BC. E

The authorship of Jonah's book

Of course, the author of the book could not be the prophet Jonah himself, whose historical prototype he lived (if he lived at all) for half a millennium before writing this work. Most likely, it was composed by a Jew who lived in a place with strong pagan influences - for example, a port city. This explains the moral universalism of this work. More precisely, to establish the identity of the author is not possible.

Prophet Jonah - interpretation and exegesis

Two traditions of interpretation of the Old Testament - Jewish and Christian, interpret this text differently. If the Jews first of all see in the book of Jonah the assertion of the omnipotence of God Yahweh, who above all other gods and whose jurisdiction embraces all nations, like the whole creation in general, Christians see a different meaning. Namely, for Christians the episode with the swallowing of Jonah by the fish becomes central. Proceeding from the words attributed to the Jesus himself by the Gospels, the prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale represents Christ, crucified, descended into hell and resurrected on the third day.