Jonah Essay
This essay was a pretty difficult read but I applaud the author for the amount of work that he put in. The book of Jonah was like four pages long and this dude was able to write like five times that because of how in depth he went in his analysis.
I agreed with some of the questions that he posed, but I had a hard time with some of the arguments he created to answer these questions. For example, the author questions Jonah since in the second half "he broods for the remainder of the story, first about his success and then about his loss of personal comfort" (140). He also asks "Why is Jonah angry at his success? Moreover, why is he so intensely angry that he asks God to take his life, that he asserts 'it is better for me to die than to live?'"(150). I had wondered the same thing since I was confused as to why Jonah was mad at the end when he prevented the Ninevites from facing God's destruction, as well as why he was saying that he should die.
I disagreed with his bit about what the story has to do with sacrifice, as he stated that "The only sacrifices in the story are those that the sailors offer after Jonah is expelled from the ship and those pagan sacrifices offered before Jonah arrives in Nineveh" (145). I thought that this was untrue since Jonah also makes a sacrifice. He tells the sailors to throw him overboard in order to calm the sea, and once he is thrown overboard, the sea calms down, which I'm pretty sure would be a sacrifice.
His part III really lost me when he started to discuss the "kikayon." I struggled to follow what exactly the author's arguments were here, so my overall comprehension from here to the end was pretty minimal.`
I agreed with some of the questions that he posed, but I had a hard time with some of the arguments he created to answer these questions. For example, the author questions Jonah since in the second half "he broods for the remainder of the story, first about his success and then about his loss of personal comfort" (140). He also asks "Why is Jonah angry at his success? Moreover, why is he so intensely angry that he asks God to take his life, that he asserts 'it is better for me to die than to live?'"(150). I had wondered the same thing since I was confused as to why Jonah was mad at the end when he prevented the Ninevites from facing God's destruction, as well as why he was saying that he should die.
I disagreed with his bit about what the story has to do with sacrifice, as he stated that "The only sacrifices in the story are those that the sailors offer after Jonah is expelled from the ship and those pagan sacrifices offered before Jonah arrives in Nineveh" (145). I thought that this was untrue since Jonah also makes a sacrifice. He tells the sailors to throw him overboard in order to calm the sea, and once he is thrown overboard, the sea calms down, which I'm pretty sure would be a sacrifice.
His part III really lost me when he started to discuss the "kikayon." I struggled to follow what exactly the author's arguments were here, so my overall comprehension from here to the end was pretty minimal.`
For your question about why Jonah was angry that he stopped the Ninevites from God's wrath, I think that the writing answers this in the beginning. It mentions that Jonah knew that if the Ninevites repented and saved themselves, then God's wrath would be put on Israel and Jonah wanted to avoid this. I'm not 100% sure, but that was just my understanding of it.
ReplyDeleteI also wondered why Jonah was so mad, although to be honest I would be pretty mad if I was eaten by a whale and my tree was destroyed. I think he might have also been kind of mad about the free will aspect of it, because he felt that God was forcing him into being a prophet. But to be honest, I'm also kind of confused so don't trust me on this.
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