Thematic Essay On The Book Of Jonah

John Oswalt, in his book The Bible Among the Myths, presents his position to the reader that the bible is different and separate from other writings of the Ancient Near East. He asserts the Bible is both historically accurate and theologically sound. He makes the defense the Bible was divinely inspired and revealed to humanity and unique from other Ancient Near East literature. There was a time when the Bible, and the Israelite religion was different from its neighboring societies. But as times have changed, many people now lump the bible with other Ancient Near East myths.

scholarship. I feel that chapter four is more important than chapter three because the topic is

In the book of Jonah we see the vast amount of tension between both God and Jonah. He is one of the prophets who also believes in tolerance of non-Jews opposite to Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s stress of an unadulterated blood race of Jews under a restrictive Jewish God. Jonah is one of a vast line of important people in the bible who argues with God. As you see in past books of the bible everyone has stood their own against the Lord. Jonah though decides to try and run from God. The Lord called to Jonah and said “Arise, go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry against it,” but Jonah flees to Joppa, setting sail on a ship duty-bound for Tarshish, assuming he can evade the Lord. Jonah views the Lord as sort of a indigenous God of restrained power that his hand would not reach as

Oswalt first learned about the issues in “The Bible Among the Myths” while taking a class taught by Dennis Kinlaw at Asbury Theological Seminary. His interest in the subject has grown since with graduate study and his own classes which he taught. William F. Albright, his students, and G. Ernest Wright led the rethinking of the evolutionary paradigm within the philosophy of Idealism. Although they believed the differences between the ways the Israelites thought and their neighbor’s thoughts of reality caused no evolutionary explanation to show, today it is found that Israelite faith can be explained by evolutionary change. Scholars today say that it is no longer about the differences between the two, but more about the

The Book of Daniel took place in between 605 BC and 530 BC however the message is still relevant in today’s society, 2544 years later. Different themes are found in the book. These themes teach a lesson which can be used into today’s society. Even though the times, tradition and circumstances are different now than it was back then the messages are greatly relevant. The main themes of the book were about faithfulness toward what you believe in no matter what society says or the dangers. God is trustworthy and does everything for a reason no matter if the person is in the worst spot ever in life they have to believe there is something better in the future. Also Gods ability to save his children in the face of danger and

Bible as the Inspired Word of God The Bible is the work of various authors, who lived in different continents and wrote in different eras. Furthermore, much of the text does not claim to have been 'dictated' by God and is not always God speaking to people. In parts it consists of people speaking to God, as in the Psalms, and people speaking to people, as in the New Testament letters written by Paul. In light of this, some maintain that it is not possible to treat the Bible as a book of divine oracles, delivered once by God and recorded by its authors through divine inspiration, since biblical authors were products of their time and subsequently their understanding of divine truth was culturally

In Chapter 16 of The Gospel of Matthew, the dynamics of Simon and Jesus’ relationship quickly change. Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt.16.16) and Jesus replies, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!” (Mt.16.17) but then Peter rebukes him soon after and Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mt.16.23)

Jonah and Abigail were young teens in love and ran everywhere hand in hand. From the time when each of them were born, they were inseparable as best friends because of their parent’s already close relationship, which overtime developed into more as their bond for one another grew stronger. Over the years, they had built several memories on a certain cobble bridge, where they would hop in canoes when it was past the prohibited times to sail its rivers, light illegal lanterns in the midnight sky, and skipped rocks from up above. Johna always thought that both of their lives would be perfect as later on in life he would plan to complete it by asking Abigail for her hand in marriage. Her long blonde locks, pale skin as white as fallen snow, freckles

God called Jonah to “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry aginst it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” (Jon 1:2) Jonah fled Gods calling to Tarshish. During his escape a great storm came upon the boat that he was on. So the crew cast him into the sea where “the lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” In Matthew 12:40 Jesus refrences this as “Jonah being in a whales belly for three days.” While in the belly of the fish Jonah prayed to God to let him out. “the Lord spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land”.(Jon 2:10) Jonah then went to Ninevah “and cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”( Jon 3:4). Ninevah repented and turned back to God and he showed mercy. Jonah was still angry because God showed this savage nation mercy. God then explained to Jonah that everyone needs mercy even your greatest

Figure 8-6 shows the biblical episodes of the story of Jonah. To the left you see the sailors threw him from his ship and on the right he emerges from the whale that swallowed him. Figure 8-7 shows Christ as the good shepherd, whose powers of salvation the painter underscored by placing the four episodes of the Jonah story around him (Gardner's pg. 238).

Genesis 1-3 offered the very first outline of societal norms and therein introduced interpretations of norms related to family, gender, and sex. In our now-progressive society, the constraints of indubitable religion are removed and the differing interpretations of gender, sex, and family within religion are freely debated. Since the text of creation is divine and human logic cannot fully interpret or understand God’s word, there are copious, varying interpretations of the text. An essential starting point for interpreting the Bible is the understanding that misinterpretations are bound to happen. The difference in time and context alone is causation, let alone the factors of translation and transcription. Susan T. Foh and Carol Meyers, both graduates of Wellesley College, have very differing strategies regarding how to interpret divine texts. Meyers, a professor at Duke, directed attention towards the context in which the text was written. Since our societies are constantly in flux, the context from when the text was written is often different from the context in which predominant and accepted interpretations were fabricated. Foh’s strategy of interpreting and understanding the text is to utilize latter parts of the text, which were written with more recent contexts, in order to understand the text. Both of these methodologies set up the text to be re-interpreted, however, Foh’s methodology is more complete because it allows the text to speak for itself rather than bring in

16 At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him. 17 Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

Verse 5 states that each sailor "cried to his god," which tells the reader that the sailors were pagans; therefore, the later interpretation is more likely. (New Interpreter's 496) The sailors cast lots to see whose fault it is for this situation. Using chance to find the perpetrator insinuates that it took divine intervention to single out Jonah. (New Interpreter's 498) The sailors ask Jonah who he was and where did he come from and Jonah's answer was "I am a Hebrew." He also stated "I worship the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land." The sailors believe that Jonah has brought the storm to them and asks "What have you done?" and "What shall we do with you?" (New American 1011) Feeling the weight of his guilt of running away from God, Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard. They comply unwillingly. Now the Lord still had a mission for Jonah and so he sent a large fish to swallow him up, which is where he stayed for three days and three nights. Certainly, the safest and simplest thing Jonah could have done would have been to go to Nineveh and preach against the city; therefore, running away is never a better answer.

To recap the first half of the Book of Jonah, God calls upon Jonah to go to the great city of Nineveh and send them a message that God will punish the Ninevites if they do not repent for their sins. Jonah, refusing to help the Ninevites, decides to “flee from God in disobedience” (Cosby 124) to Tarshish. Jonah boards a ship with a couple of sailors and sets sail to Tarshish. However during their sail, God sends a terrible storm due to Jonah’s disobedience. The sailors eventually had to throw Jonah into the sea in order to calm the storm. God creates a big fish to engulf Jonah where Jonah was in its belly for three days and three nights. This part of the story in particular allows the reader to stop and ponder if Jonah’s incident with the big fish really took place in history. It is impossible to survive one day in a belly of a fish nevertheless three days! Knowing this bit of information, we can deduce that the

Jonah (The Book of) Jonah is a book of the Bible written by the Johan himself approximately 785-760 BC. (BibleGateway, n.d.) This book of the Bible has only four chapters in it and it is fixed in the Bible after the book of Obadiah and before Nahum. In the four short chapters for this book of the Bible Johan goes from turning his back on the Lord, going back to the Lord, the once again questioning the Lord. The first chapter shows Jonah’s defiance of the Lord. The Lord asked Jonah to go Nineveh and announce the Lord’s judgement. But Jonah turned and went the other direction away from the Lord. (Johan 1:3) Then while on the ship getting away from Nineveh Jonah is swallowed by a whale. In Chapter 2 Jonah was inside the whale and he starts to pray again to the Lord, telling him that even though he is in the situation he is in, he will still turn to the Lord always. So, the Lord commands the whale to sit Jonah out. (Jonah 2:10) The third chapter explains how Jonah is asked by the Lord to proclaim his message of judgement on Nineveh, Jonah did as the Lord instructed. The people off Nineveh changing their ways and the judgement was spared by the Lord. Chapter four of Jonah explains how Jonah becomes angry with the Lord because he does not believe the Lord should have been so gracious with the people of Nineveh. Jonah believed that they should not have been spared. (Jonah 4:1-2). Even though this is a short book it has a major theme to it, the Lord’s compassion for