The Book of Jonah
Set around 770-750 BC (Hindson & Towns, 2013, p. 293), the book of Jonah is found within the Minor Prophets. Unlike the other books in this genre, Jonah provides a personal narrative carved from a portion of the life of a prophet instead of the word of God spoken through a prophet. While the book does not identify Jonah as the author outright, he is widely believed to be so. In the book of Jonah, God commands Jonah to go to Nineveh, an Assyrian city located near modern day Mosul, Iraq. Instead, he sails west from Joppa on the Mediterranean Sea away from Nineveh toward Tarshish (Jonah 1:1-3 New American Standard). While on the voyage, God causes a great storm to come upon the ship and Jonah is reluctantly thrown overboard
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The exact dates that he lived are not known but it is believed to be between 1050-1000 BC (Hindson & Towns, 2013, p. 112). He was likely born in Bethlehem (Ruth 2:4) and was a wealthy relative of Elimelech, Ruth’s father-in-law, (Ruth 2:1) as well. Boaz probably took an active role in overseeing the work in his fields as evidenced by his presence there. When he noticed his widowed relative, Ruth, gleaning the leftovers from the harvesters, he showed her kindness and gave her protection in his fields (Ruth 2:5-9). Ruth requested that Boaz redeem her according to the custom of the time and he accepted on the condition that the relative that was closer in line to Elimilech be given the first chance. He later claimed the right of redemption by purchasing Naomi’s land and marrying Ruth (Ruth 4:9-10). This marriage began the lineage of David with the birth of Obed and eventually to Jesus (Ruth 4:16-22). Boaz’s role as redeemer was a foreshadowing of the redemptive act of Jesus Christ. Boaz married an outsider and grafted her into the family lineage just as Jesus accepts all who believe in Him including gentiles into the kingdom of heaven (Rom
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
scholarship. I feel that chapter four is more important than chapter three because the topic is
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
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.
The intent of this scholarship is for financial need. Recently my step dad has change jobs which has cut his income significantly. This scholarship would really help paying for college, since I will also have 2 other siblings in college at the same time as me. I will be furthering my academic education at California Baptist University and will majoring in photography. Attending Cal Baptist will give me the best education as well as provide me with a Christian education. It is very important to me that I will have a Christian education and that I will be surrounded by a family like community. Some of my goals for the future are to become a photographer, learn to get out of my comfort zone and challenge myself, and get an internship over one
We often read stories in the Bible without taking the historical context into consideration. As a result, we become unaware of the story’s historical validity. In some cases, stories are used to share a moral concept, or used as a tool to teach a lesson. The Book of Jonah is an example that will be used to determine if this particular story describes an accurate recount of history, or if it teaches the readers a lesson. In the Book of Jonah, Jonah (the prophet) is instructed to go to a pagan city (Nineveh) to preach to the Ninevites, hoping that they will repent for their sins. However, he challenges God and travels to Tarshish instead. Jonah receives consequences for his actions and Nineveh is eventually forgiven by God. Although the
Has anything important change your life? As details in “A Christmas Carol” and “Thank You M’am” show significant changes in someone’s life can be caused by death, bad actions, and behavior. To begin, a significant change in someone’s life can be caused by death. A point conveyed in “A Christmas Carol” when Scrooge was visited by the ghost of christmas future to show Scrooge his death, Scrooge was horrified and convinced to change his attitude. Additionally in ”A Christmas Carol” the author cites that in page 283 paragraph 154-155, Scrooge was shocked to see his own grave.
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
2. Background and Introduction: Jonah was instructed by God to go to Nineveh and preach the message of repentance to them.
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
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
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)
It is thought that Jonah, the fifth of the Minor Prophets, lived during the reign of Jeroboam II, when the kingdom was divided. (Lockyer, 198) Although the Book of Jonah is quite short, just two and one-half pages, it is not short on themes. Because there are so many themes it is hard to classify or to determine its primary message. (Anchor 936 and New Interpreter's 490) These themes range from running away, praying, second chances, anger, and God's compassion and mercy, to name a few. The following will provide a brief explanation of each theme, previously mention, as it relates to the Book of Jonah.
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