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Sam on The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jonah

Sam — 8/22/2006 5:46:00 PM

I like it outside the box. I do intend to utterly refute our new father, Josh...but he's so smart, it's taking me a while.

Charlie on Interprecation

Charlie — 8/16/2006 8:29:00 PM

Good post, Brian. I just read an interesting article in the area of the NT use of the OT. The author was arguing against Kaiser's view that there was one meaning to each text. He was saying that since the text had both a divine and human author, then God intended the various applications for us in the future, so therefore the application is part of the authorial intention of the text. Interesting argument, but I still go with Kaiser.

Michael Davis on The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jonah

Michael Davis — 8/16/2006 6:36:00 PM

Interesting post, Sam. Way to think outside the box!

Brian on An Israelite indeed speaks his mind

Brian — 8/10/2006 12:04:00 PM

we would do better to understand language as language

That is a mighty tall order there.

Josh on An Israelite indeed speaks his mind

Josh — 8/9/2006 12:04:00 PM

Brian, you denier of divinity you,

I appreciate the observation. I think you are correct to suggest that here, and elsewhere, we would do better to understand language as language before we theologize.

Josh on The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jonah

Josh — 8/9/2006 11:57:00 AM

Sam, my opinion on this discussion is well-known (I appreciate the toss of the bone) and unchanged. I think the evidence is weightier for Jonah's living through the whole ordeal than that he died.

You are right that the strongest case for his death comes from the language of chapter 2, but I think that construing this as the normal figurative expression of poetry is just as likely, if not more so, than that it is grounded in reflecting the event of his death.

I note that in verses 15 and 17 of chapter 1, the term "Jonah" is used to refer to Jonah. According to your understanding, the first "Jonah" in 1:17 would mean "Jonah's body" specifically. I note that a personal name can be used to refer to a body post-death. In 2 Sam 18:17 where they throw Absalom into a pit, the term is "Absalom" and not "Absalom's body" but we do have clear previous indications that Absalom had been killed. So I wonder if it is legitimate to read a personal name as denoting the person's dead body if we have no textual indications of that occurrence?

Secondly, the book itself gives no specific indication that he died or that he remained alive. His death is an inference, but I am not persuaded that it is a more necessary inference than the matter-of-fact flow of the text from which one would infer that he remained alive.

Third, resurrection seems to be a rather notable event in the Bible. The resurrections which occurred during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, Jesus, and the Apostles all have the similarity of having participating agents (the prophets, Christ, or the apostles) by which the resurrection is mediated. If we are to assume that Jonah was raised from the dead, this occurrence would seem to be unique and without parallel in terms of how it transpired (correct me if I have overlooked a resurrection, but I have been unable to come up with any that occured outside of the three groupings mentioned above). Now, this is not to say that lack of parallel features means it couldn't occur; rather, it is simply additional terrain for a resurrectionist understanding to overcome.

As for the tidiness of the whole endeavor, I suppose that depends on how one looks at it. Getting a fish to swallow a whole dead body and not digest it in its body for three days doesn't seem to have too many tidiness points in its favor. No matter what happened, remaining alive or death, there was a lot of divine intervention/miraculous work occuring.

Brian on Interprecation

Brian — 8/6/2006 8:02:00 AM

Sorry. That would have to be a different Brian. I did my growing up in Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, and Washington.

Tony on Interprecation

Tony — 8/6/2006 7:01:00 AM

Brian, are you from Dubuque, IA originally, and moved to Indiana when you were around 11? I know there are a few different Brian Beers running about...

Brian on The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jonah

Brian — 8/3/2006 5:53:00 PM

I don't want to get too prosaic here, but suggesting that Jonah actually died would actually make the miracle of Jonah resurrection instead of the strange, nameless miracle of keeping Jonah alive for three days in the belly of a fish.

I'm not saying that this justifies the interpretation. I am just saying that it seems tidier.

Charlie on The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jonah

Charlie — 8/3/2006 5:04:00 PM

That is an excellent question. Somewhere around here I have a list of things that define poetry, but I do not seem to know where it is at the moment. The difference between prose and poetry is a continuum, not a black and white division. Hence, there can be poetic prose and prosaic poetry. This ambiguity caused James Kugel to say that there was no poetry in the Hebrew Bible. But I think that this is a little extreme. Here are some characteristiscs that usually occur more frequently in poetry than in prose.

The text in chapter two is not pure narrative, but is a prayer of Jonah (verse 1).

Parallelism, as seen clearly in verse 2.

A compartive lack of connecting words. These occur in the first part of the chapter, but starting in verse 6 (ET 5) they occur less.

The theme and wording is similar than to psalms.

I would compare this chapter to Judges 5, where there is a poetic account of the defeat of Sisera after the prose account of chapter 4. Both of these poems are more prosaic than other poems. But they are still poetry. They do reflect reality, but we should not try to press them into prose categories of interpreting. I think that the prayer reflects his traumatic experience of being thrown into the ocean during a storm. The pit here is not actual death, but the very closeness and expectation of death which I'm sure he felt.