Jonah as Fiction

by Leolaia 38 Replies latest watchtower bible

hooberus
Jonah and the Psalms
Leolaia wrote:
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JONAH'S PRAYER: A PASTICHE FROM THE PSALMS
The only portion of the book not yet accounted for is the lengthy prayer that occupies ch. 2. But this poetic text was composed largely from material drawn from the Psalms:
Psalm 120:1, 130:1: "In my distress (btsrth ly) I called out (qr'ty) to Yahweh ('l-yhwh) and he answered me (wy'nny).... Out of the depths (mm'mqym) I have cried to you (qr'tyk), O Yahweh".

Psalm 116:3: "The cords of death encompassed me, and the terrors of Sheol (s'wl) came upon me; I found distress (tsrh) and sorrow".
Jonah 2:2: "I called out (qr'ty) of my distress (mtsrh ly) to Yahweh ('l-yhwh) and he answered me (wy'nny). I cried for help (sw'ty) in the depth of Sheol (mbtn s'wl), you heard my voice".
Psalm 116:3, 42:7, 31:22: "The cords of death encompassed me ('ppwny) ... Deep calls to deep (thwm-'l-thwm) at the sound of your waterfalls; all your breakers and waves rolled over me (kl-msbryk wglyk 'ly 'brw)... I said (w'ny 'mrty) in my alarm, 'I am expelled from your sight (ngrzty mngd 'ynyk). Nevertheless ('kn) you heard the voice of my supplications' .

Psalm 5:7, 46:2: "But as for me, by your abundant loving kindness I will enter your house, at your holy temple ('l-hykl qdsk) I will bow in reverence for you...The mountains slip into the heart of the seas (blb ymym)".
Jonah 2:3-4: "For you had cast me into the deep (mtswlh), into the heart of the seas (blbb ymym), and the current encompassed me (ysbbny). All your breakers and waves rolled over me (kl-msbryk wglyk 'ly 'brw). So I said (w'ny 'mrty), 'I have been expelled from your sight (ngrsty mngd 'ynyk). Nevertheless ('k) I will look again toward your holy temple ('l-hykl qdsk)' ".
Psalm 69:1-2: "The cords of death (chbly-mwt) encompassed me ('ppwny)... the cords of Sheol (chbly-s'wl) surrounded me (sbbwny)...Save me, O God, for the waters (mym) have threatened my life ('d-nps). I have sunk (tb') in deep mire, and there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and a flood overflows me".

Psalm 16:10, 30:3: "You will not abandon my soul to Sheol (npsy l-s'wl)...O Yahweh, you have brought up my soul from Sheol (h'lyt mn-s'wl npsy)".
Jonah 2:5-6: "Water encompassed me ('ppwny mym) threatening my life ('d-nps). The great deep surrounded me (thwm ysbbny), weeds (swp) were wrapped around my head ... but you have brought up my life from the pit (wt'l mscht chyy), O Yahweh my God".
Psalm 22:25, 116:18: "My praise (thlty) shall be for you in the great assembly, I will fulfill my vows (ndry 'slm) in the presence of those who fear him...I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving ('zbch zbcht wdh) and will call upon the name of Yahweh. I will fulfill what I vowed to Yahweh (ndry l-yhwh 'slm)".

Psalm 3:8: "From Yahweh comes salvation (l-yhwh hysw'h). May your blessing be on your people".
Jonah 2:3: "But I (w'ny), with a song of thanksgiving (bqwl twdh), will sacrifice to you ('zbchh-lk). The vow I have made I will fulfill ('sr ndrty 'slmh). Salvation comes from Yahweh (ysw'th l-yhwh)".
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Comments:
First of all it should be remembered that both Jonah and the Psalms were written in the same language; culture; (and if the Bible is true) by prophets of the same God YHWH. Hense, finding similarities in words does not necessarily in itself prove fictional dependance.
Secondly, I don't think that similarity is strong enough in some of the above verses to demonstrate dependance. For example: Psalm 5:7 compared with Jonah 2:4; Psalm 16:10, 30:3 compared with Jonah 2:5-6; Psalm 3:8 compared with Jonah 2:3.
Psalm 5:7: "But as for me, by your abundant loving kindness I will enter your house, at your holy temple ('l-hykl qdsk) I will bow in reverence for you...
Jonah 2:3-4: "For you had cast me into the deep (mtswlh), into the heart of the seas (blbb ymym), and the current encompassed me (ysbbny). All your breakers and waves rolled over me (kl-msbryk wglyk 'ly 'brw). So I said (w'ny 'mrty), 'I have been expelled from your sight (ngrsty mngd 'ynyk). Nevertheless ('k) I will look again toward your holy temple ('l-hykl qdsk)' ".

Psalm 16:10, 30:3: "You will not abandon my soul to Sheol (npsy l-s'wl)...O Yahweh, you have brought up my soul from Sheol (h'lyt mn-s'wl npsy)".
Jonah 2:5-6: "Water encompassed me ('ppwny mym) threatening my life ('d-nps). The great deep surrounded me (thwm ysbbny), weeds (swp) were wrapped around my head ... but you have brought up my life from the pit (wt'l mscht chyy), O Yahweh my God".
Psalm 3:8: "From Yahweh comes salvation (l-yhwh hysw'h). May your blessing be on your people".
Jonah 2:3: "But I (w'ny), with a song of thanksgiving (bqwl twdh), will sacrifice to you ('zbchh-lk). The vow I have made I will fulfill ('sr ndrty 'slmh). Salvation comes from Yahweh (ysw'th l-yhwh)".
hooberus
Jonah and the Psalms continued:

Other Psalms do however show stronger similarites in certain phrases (particularily those that involve water). For example: Psalm 42:7 compared with Jonah 2:3.
Leolia's conclusion for similarities is that:
Here the author of Jonah was heavily influenced by the Psalter -- especially the psalms that expressed metaphors of drowning which became literalized as actual references to the prophet's watery fate in the prayer of ch. 2.
However, rather than "metaphors of drowning" becoming "literalized as actual references to the prophet's watery fate", could it instead be that that Jonah (being familiar with the Psalms) may have used a few certain relevant memorized portions of a few psalms in his prayer to God? Today people do the same (ie: Psalm 23 at funerals). (It should also be remembered that scripture memorization was much more important then in that culture than it is today).
It is very significant to note that the prayer passage in Jonah is the only passage in Jonah that is claimed above as being similar to certain Psalms. One would think that if the author of Jonah had really used Psalms "literalized as actual references" that similarities to Psalms would be found in the non-prayer passges of Jonah as well, however this does not seem to be found (and would have been potentially more difficult to explain).
Narkissos

Hooberus,
I'm afraid you are wasting your time (but it's yours all right).
Literary genre is very easy to grasp intuitively and very hard to prove objectively. To the average modern reader, such features as talking snakes or donkeys -- or, for that matter, doing poetical anthologies while sailing in a fish belly -- are sufficient clues of the tale genre. But once an ideological agenda bars you from the position of the average reader, no amount of demonstration will convince you. If anything is possible in real life, you can't demonstrate either that Aesop's fables are fables either.
One particularly wrong argument imo is, if Jesus understood the Flood, Sodom & Gomorrah or Jonah's stories as historical, they must have been so. This argument, btw, is easily reversed by critics, as several posters above put it: if Jesus was wrong on this issue, he can't claim no authority. I think this is quite shallow on both sides. Do you expect a 1st-century man to have an understanding of modern physics? If not, why would you expect him to have a modern historical conscience? Even from a Christian, trinitarian theological perspective such as you assume, this only shows a lack of understanding of the doctrine of incarnation: God became flesh, a man within a definite historical and cultural background, not a superman with absolute and universal knowledge. Please think about it. Blind apologetics and criticism feed on each other.
AlmostAtheist

why would you expect him to have a modern historical conscience? Even from a Christian, trinitarian theological perspective such as you assume, this only shows a lack of understanding of the doctrine of incarnation: God became flesh, a man within a definite historical and cultural background, not a superman with absolute and universal knowledge.

Wow, I didn't expect to get called on that one.
Jesus had supernatural knowledge of people's hearts, was able to spout prophesies, could heal and ressurrect (and spell better than me, no doubt), and knew the scriptures front to back. He knew that he had existed before Abraham, though I think it could be argued that he could have discerned that about himself from the scriptures. His supernatural abilities are not in question. It seems unlikely that such a supernatural person with knowledge of heavenly things would mistakenly believe that an allegory was true history, regardless of the beliefs of those around him.
I could buy that he knew it wasn't real history and was only referencing those stories to make a point. It would be weak, but buyable. But I can't buy that he just didn't know.
Just my opinion, of course. Subject to change without notice. Certain restrictions apply. See your dealer for details. (Opinion not valid in Wisconsin, Oregon, and Maine.)
Dave
Narkissos

Hi AA,
I didn't mean to call you on this but I do think it is worth a discussion.
What I suggested was "from a Christian, trinitarian theological perspective" (which is not mine). From such a standpoint, one has to make sense of all the Gospel texts -- those in which Jesus seems to know everything and those in which he obviously doesn't (explicitly about the "day and hour," for instance). Now in the same package as the Nicene Trinity doctrine you get the Chalcedonian kit of the "two natures" of Christ (divine as God the Son, human as the man Jesus). This is clearly designed to explain away the contradiction: Jesus as a man didn't know everything.
Of course you are not supposed to buy into that (I don't) but Hooberus is. Then from his standpoint I hold that the argument is weak. The Galilean, 1st-century man Jesus had no universal knowledge, then what he might have believed about past history has no historical value per se -- not anymore than his possible beliefs on astronomy or physics. That was my point.
Now I rather think that the Jesus of the Gospels is, first of all, a literary character -- regardless of whether this literary character is partly based on a historical person. This literary character needs to be broken up in at least four distinct pictures (many more actually, for each Gospel reflects a diversity of views): the Johannine Jesus, for instance, is a fairly consistent divine character with universal knowledge; nothing seems to escape him; the Markan Jesus, on the other hand, has divine traits (e.g. walking on the sea) but also human ones: he loses his temper (e.g the leper), has a hard time with some of his miracles (e.g. the last blind man), changes his mind (e.g. the Syro-Phoenician woman), shows ignorance (e.g. the fig tree) and admits to it (the 'day and hour'). This complexity has to be taken into account.
Whatever, a literary character is only text-deep. What "he" may think behind the text, for instance, is a moot point. His beliefs are a literary character's beliefs -- actually those of the author or of the traditions, or legends, which the author uses. The synoptic references to Jonah, placed on his lips, have to be understood in this perspective imo. They prove strictly nothing as to the historicity of Jonah.
VM44

When did the book of Job start to be considered as a historical book? --VM44
Narkissos

VM44: Job or Jonah? About the latter perhaps the first attestation is in 3 Maccabees 6 (1st century BC or AD):
Pharaoh with his abundance of chariots, the former ruler of this Egypt, exalted with lawless insolence and boastful tongue, you destroyed together with his arrogant army by drowning them in the sea, manifesting the light of your mercy upon the nation of Israel.
Sennacherib exulting in his countless forces, oppressive king of the Assyrians, who had already gained control of the whole world by the spear and was lifted up against your holy city, speaking grievous words with boasting and insolence, you, O Lord, broke in pieces, showing your power to many nations.
The three companions in Babylon who had voluntarily surrendered their lives to the flames so as not to serve vain things, you rescued unharmed, even to a hair, moistening the fiery furnace with dew and turning the flame against all their enemies.
Daniel, who through envious slanders was cast down into the ground to lions as food for wild beasts, you brought up to the light unharmed.
And Jonah, wasting away in the belly of a huge, sea-born monster, you, Father, watched over and restored unharmed to all his family.
Then Josephus, AJ IX,10,2:
Now I cannot but think it necessary for me, who have promised to give an accurate account of our affairs, to describe the actions of this prophet, so far as I have found them written down in the Hebrew books. Jonah had been commanded by God to go to the kingdom of Nineveh; and when he was there, to publish it in that city, how it should lose the dominion it had over the nations. But he went not, out of fear; nay, he ran away from God to the city of Joppa, and finding a ship there, he went into it, and sailed to Tarsus, in Cilicia (19) and upon the rise of a most terrible storm, which was so great that the ship was in danger of sinking, the mariners, the master, and the pilot himself, made prayers and vows, in case they escaped the sea: but Jonah lay still and covered [in the ship,] without imitating any thing that the others did; but as the waves grew greater, and the sea became more violent by the winds, they suspected, as is usual in such cases, that some one of the persons that sailed with them was the occasion of this storm, and agreed to discover by lot which of them it was. When they had cast lots, (20) the lot fell upon the prophet; and when they asked him whence he came, and what he had done? he replied, that he was a Hebrew by nation, and a prophet of Almighty God; and he persuaded them to cast him into the sea, if they would escape the danger they were in, for that he was the occasion of the storm which was upon them. Now at the first they durst not do so, as esteeming it a wicked thing to cast a man who was a stranger, and who had committed his life to them, into such manifest perdition; but at last, when their misfortune overbore them, and the ship was just going to be drowned, and when they were animated to do it by the prophet himself, and by the fear concerning their own safety, they cast him into the sea; upon which the sea became calm. It is also reported that Jonah was swallowed down by a whale, and that when he had been there three days, and as many nights, he was vomited out upon the Euxine Sea, and this alive, and without any hurt upon his body; and there, on his prayer to God, he obtained pardon for his sins, and went to the city Nineveh, where he stood so as to be heard, and preached, that in a very little time they should lose the dominion of Asia. And when he had published this, he returned. Now I have given this account about him as I found it written [in our books.]
VM44

Oops! Sorry about that, meant Jonah! :) --VM44
maninthemiddle

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Jonah as Fiction

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