Jonah Scholarship

Blog | Duane Smets

A big passion of mine is building confidence in the Bible and its words as being authentic, reliable and truthful. Many have difficulty with either the content or even the text of the Bible. In sermons, when relevant, I address the content of the Bible which is not easy for us to hear or accept. However, not every question and challenge to the veracity of the Bible can be handled in a sermon, particularly in regards to questions regarding the reliability of the text. There is a whole academic discipline, tradition, and methodology dedicated to this type of questioning known as “higher criticism.”

When it comes to “higher criticism” questions about the book of Jonah abound. Yet there are good answers. So as a warning, this is a whole other level of nerdery but for the handful that care. This post answers some of the main criticisms about the trustworthiness of the book of Jonah.

Date

It used to be a saying “scholars say…” as if they were some unified body of authority and accuracy. The truth is the only thing which really makes you a scholar is having a Ph.D and have written a serious book or in this case biblical commentary. Scholars widely differ on a lot of things. Some “scholars” are very liberal and some very conservative. Some do better work than others and some sloppily dismiss good data. “Scholars” are all over the place on the date of Jonah. They range from 750-250 BC. That’s a pretty wide date range.

2 Kings 14:25 names Jonah specifically by his father, which was the ancient equivalent to a first and last name, “Jonah son of Amittai.” The only other place “Jonah son of Amittai” appears in the Bible is in the book of Jonah. In addition, this is the only Jonah extra-biblical sources (Sirach, Tobit etc.) have ever named. So we’ve clearly got the same Jonah and the Jonah mentioned in 2 Kings 14 is dated with a pretty specific and narrow window: during the reign of King Jeroboam II, who reigned for forty-one years after his dad Joash was king. This is almost unanimously recognized as being either from 784-743 BC (Albright) or 793-753 BC (Theile). Either way, we are clearly talking 8th century BC.

Now it should be a given then that Jonah was thus a prophet from the 8th century BC. Yet some “scholars” have rejected this for three primary reasons. 1. Supposed Aramaisms in the book of Jonah (4th century BC, 300 years later). 2. Supposed copying of motifs from Jeremiah (6th century BC, 200 years later) or Joel (post exhilic 6th century BC). 3. The references to Nineveh in Jonah as being a great city with a king, when Nineveh was in Assyria, who is known to have had capitals in Calah and Assur.

Upon closer inspection none of these reasons stand up to scrutiny or explanation. 1. “Aramaisms” have turned up in Ugaritic texts as far back as 1200 BC, thus they have been increasingly recognized as “Northwest Semitisms” 2. The continuity between Jonah, Jeremiah and Joel is easily accounted for by recognizing the nature of divine revelation’s homologoumena. Sharing the same God and the same concepts is not the same as dependency. 3. Nineveh was most likely the capital of Assyria at the time and “King of Nineveh” and “King of Assyria” were simply two ways of referring to the same person, like King of England and King of London.

In the end standing with the specific historical time reference of 2 Kings 14 is the most reliable source for dating the book of Jonah.

Authorship

The book of Jonah is written in third person as a narrative. In addition, the book of Jonah as a whole is highly critical of the person Jonah and his decisions. Due to these two factors many have questioned whether Jonah actually wrote the book, since most people would not want to speak negatively of themselves or think of themselves in third person terminology.

However, the book begins with “the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai” which is the way all Prophet books begin their writings even when using an amanuensis like Jeremiah did with Baruch. Such a phrase is an ancient identity mark for authorship of a book which is why the Hebrew biblical canon (since 400 BC) has long titled the book, “Jonah” and placed it in the collection of the minor prophets.

In response to the book of Jonah’s critical nature of Jonah depends on how the story of Jonah ended. The book ends abruptly with God prompting Jonah to humble repentance. If Jonah did not repent then yes, this critique carries legitimate weight. But if Jonah did repent then the sort of repentance God was seeking would undoubtedly change Jonah into being a person who would gladly admit his faults so that God’s character might shine and others might experience the same grace God worked in his heart. A book like Jonah, by Jonah is exactly what we would expect. In addition there are several parts of the story which would have been only known by Jonah himself (being in the fish, his suicidal thoughts, and God’s provision of a supernatural plant). Thus, either way Jonah communicated this story which has been recorded.

Once again, it’s most reasonable to simply side with the words of the Bible, that the book of Jonah is the product of the “word of the LORD” which came to Jonah.

Unity

Due to the largely narrative nature of the book, both the introduction (a classical prophet book introduction) and Jonah’s prayer (a psalm like poem) while in the belly of the fish have been questioned as literary additions into an expanding story. However, upon closer analysis G.M. Landes has shown the details of prayer and subject theme demonstrate too close of a parallel with the word choice style and literary themes emphasized throughout the story in the book of Jonah. In addition, manuscript evidence knows of no other composition than the inclusion of these two parts with the rest of the book of Jonah. Thus such questioning of Jonah’s literary unity is really an argument based on silence with no physical evidence to support it.

2 Kings 14:25 identifies Jonah as a professional prophet. As such he would have been trained in literary techniques of poetry, letter and narrative. It is completely likely and feasible that Jonah put all of his skills to work in this great composition. Today’s reader of the book of Jonah can be confident the book is a carefully crafted work, arranged exactly in a complete whole as it’s author intended it to be read.

Conclusion

The words of the book of Jonah can be trusted. Yes Jonah tells a whale of a story and speaks of some things which may be difficult to be believe. But that is more a matter of the message of Jonah than the text of Jonah. What is not difficult to believe is when the book is written, who wrote it and what they intended for readers to read. Hopefully this post has built up your confidence in that.