An Analysis into the Biblical Story of Jonah - Research Paper Example

Section/# An Analysis into the Biblical Story of Jonah The Biblical concept of truth is one that is integrated with the believer and/or reader from the very earliest texts of the Old Testament. As such, the truth represents a key component of salvation that is later represented in the New Testament. However, it is not, nor should it ever be considered the sole determinant. One of the most powerful exemplifications of the role that truth and its understanding and acceptance portends is that of the story of Jonah and the whale. Rather than exemplifying a trite object lesson for children to interpret as a fantastical miracle worked on Jonah’s behalf by a benevolent God, the story represents key components of the human experience, the process of sin, rebellion, salvation, as well as yet another foreshadowing of the events that would ultimately transpire within Christ’s early ministry as he ministered, was crucified, and died for the sins of an alien race. As a further means of understanding these complexities, this brief research paper will delve into the determinants of the story of Jonah and seek to find the most compelling and powerful comparisons and references to other Biblical concepts as can be found. The first aspect of the story of Jonah that bears mention is the time period in which tit took place. As anyone who has a modicum of understanding with regards to the nation of ancient Israel can readily attest, the nation was one that soon became drunk on their own “chosen” status. Whereas it was indeed iterated by God time and again throughout the Old Testament that He had set them aside as a people and that they were indeed his most believed among all the earth, the underlying purpose for this was all too often forgotten or missed entirely by the shareholders and religious leadership within the country. Instead of seeking to integrate an understanding of appreciation and humility for such an honored space in all of the nations of the earth, the nation of Israel developed an overtly haughty and arrogant posture that understood the blessing to mean that all other nations should bow at their feet as they were the gifted and blessed of the Almighty (Hamel, 1995). This was a fundamental error due to the fact that God ultimately intended this blessing to cause a type of leadership among the nations of the earth. By providing the nation of Israel with such a benevolent gift of superiority and love, it was the intention that they would then take these gifts, or talents, and utilize them as a witness unto all of the other nations and peoples; showing the manner in which God’s love and affection could present one of the greatest gifts that mankind had ever seen. However, as can be seen through various stories, inclusive of the story of Jonah, the extent to which this ideal was actually realized was all but non-existent. Instead, the nation of Israel turned to an arrogant interpretation of God’s blessings and began to hoard their status; requiring constant exile and humiliation to seek to re-integrate with them the present need to be a missionary nation – a beacon to the world. Jonah exhibits much the same arrogance with regards to God’s directive to speak to the people of Nineveh. This aspect of calling and rebellion is not only a central theme to the story of Jonah but also to the way in which humanity ultimately relates to the presence and voice of God within Christianity. This again strikes at the very concept of truth and the means by which an individual integrates with this. Although there are many different means to interpret many theological theories and passage of the Bible, the story of Jonah does not leave one with a great deal of leeway with regards to the means by which it can be interpreted. Ultimately, a man is met with the difficult requirements that God insists must be carried out, the man then decides that the commands are nonsensical and ridiculous and thereby shirks the responsibility, then necessitates a chain of actions to be brought down upon him and those that are silently in rebellion alongside him as a means to steer him back to the path that God has desired all along. This of course ties directly back into the understanding of Israel’s shirked role as a model to the rest of the world. Ultimately, Jonah’s task can be understood as a task of salvation to the doomed inhabitants of a city that has no knowledge of God or the manner in which He wishes for them to repent of their ways and be saved. Instead, the inhabitants of Nineveh serve as the exemplification of the generic understanding of the outside world and the fact that their spiritual needs were not being met by the very group of shareholders within the region who were set aside by God to perform such a task. This exemplifies a type of double irony. This is concentric upon the fact that both the nation of Israel as well as the prophet Jonah seek to shirk their responsibility with regards to the rest of the world and the missionary purpose for which they have both been called (Schulman, 2008). As such, one can understand the punishment and redirection that Jonah experienced within the story as indicative to some of the troubles, hardships, and calamities that he found in his way as a function of his chosen rebellion. One of the means by which the reader and theologian of Old and New Testament theology can come to an understanding of the key concepts of importance that are presented therein is to examine the manner by which some of the same stories are told from different perspectives, in different times, and involving many different individuals. As such, one of the most common precepts that the story of Jonah portends is with relation to the calling and subsequent refusal and/or fear that Jonah represents. This calling and first refusal and denial was perhaps best illustrated with regards to the story of Moses in the wilderness as God spoke to him from the burning bush. Rather than integrating with the requirements and requests of the Almighty, Moses first response was to seek to shirk the responsibility and question God’s rational for choosing one such as himself for such a noble and lofty task. In much the same way, Jonah exhibits an quick reaction to the requirements that have been placed upon him Yet another interesting aspect of the story of Jonah is the meaning of his name. In Hebrew the name Johan means “dove”. As such, the dove is usually indicative of peace, love, meekness, and devotion within the Hebrew and Old Testament culture. However, the task that God required on the part of the prophet was one which required anything but a meek individual. In effect, God called an individual with the heart of a dove to perform the work that would require the heart of a warrior. This further has a direct connotation to the present time with regards to the types of individuals that can be asked of God to perform seemingly impossible tasks within the present understandings of their strengths, weaknesses, and overall capabilities that they might exhibit. In this way, the story of Jonah is not merely indicative of a weak man who is, after much hardship, able to complete a task; rather, it is about the weakness of humanity that instantly seeks to find the easier path regardless of what the will of God may be telling the person is the best path to pursue. A further level of interpretation can be gleaned from an understanding of the city to which Jonah seeks to flee; Tarshish. In Hebrew, the name “tarshish” means “hard or severe”. As such, many theologians have compared this definition to the harsh and determinate use of logic that Jonah was trying to employ. In many ways, this use of logic and human means of reasoning are tacitly warned against when it comes to performing the will of God; had Jonah merely accepted his task and assignment rather than mulling the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach, none of the hardship that ultimately befell him would have needed to have taken place (Marshall, 2008). Perhaps the most important means by which the story of Jonah can be interpreted is through the lens of modern Christianity and the Messianic undertones that pervade the story. Though Christ was without sin and perfect before the eyes of the Father, the character of Jonah is fraught with fear, uncertainty, arrogance, and disbelief. Such an interpretation of the character of Jonah remove a great deal of comparability with regards to the figure of Christ; however, such interpretations are nonetheless made and founded a very fundamental framework of early Christianity as exhibited by Matthew and Luke in the gospels. Matthew 12:38-41 states the following concerning the story of Jonah and its applicability to the Messiah, “Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.  For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.  The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 21:38-41). In this way, rather than directly comparing the Messiah to the character of Jonah, Christ draws upon the comparison that the signs and miracles that have been witnessed in the past are more than evidence to His own divinity. Such a response perfectly fits into the ministry of Christ in that he served as the perfect fulfillment of all of the human prophets and prophecies which had come before. A further level of comparison that must be drawn between Christ’s ministry and the story of Jonah is with regards to the crucifixion, death, and resurrection that took place at the close of Christ’s ministry on earth. This is perhaps the most obvious connection due to the fact that Jonah spent a total of 3 days and 3 nights in the “belly of the fish”; a clear and unmistakable parallel to the time that Christ spent in the belly of the earth. In this particular interpretation of Jonah, the means of a “typological” representation of Christ is affected. Within theology, typology is the means by which an individual or inanimate object comes to represent or typify Christ. Although imperfect and ultimately flawed, Jonah served not only as an exemplification for how the Jewish nation was behaving within the context of its calling and within the time it was written, it also served the dual purpose of presenting the reader with a foreshadowing and a typological prophecy regarding the means by which the Savior would be called, take the calling, suffer hardship, and spend 3 days in the belly of the earth only to rise again and provide salvation to all humanity as a result of this process. What is interesting to note within such a context is the actual words which were used in Jonah’s prayer. Said Jonah, “Out of the belly of Sheol I cried” Jonah 2:2. This very same word was used later in the New Testament when referring to the tomb in which Jesus was laid following His death by crucifixion. Although providing a way to life for a mere 120,000 people of Nineveh, Jonah was most certainly an incomplete typology of Christ in the fact that It was only after his death and stylized resurrection from being spat out of the whale’s mouth that a change of heart was evoked in him and the lives of the many wayward people of Nineveh were saved. This paves the way for a better understanding of the nature of God at a time when extant knowledge was that God would merely destroy a city without offering them an opportunity to change their minds regarding the sins they had committed. In this way, the Biblical story of Jonah equates to the same typification that Christ presented within his earthly ministry. A further level of typification is seen in the way that Jesus compares the present generation of individuals to the sinful generation that Jonah was sent to save. A marked contrast between the earthly ministry of Jesus and the ministry of Jonah within Nineveh was the level and extent to which the respective shareholders accepted the words which were being preached. Although Christ’s earthly ministry engaged a large number of followers and placed valuable questions in the hearts and minds of countless others, the fact of the matter is that it was not nearly as overwhelming as the story which is related in Jonah. Rather, the stylized interpretation of this story indicates that only after the resurrection and subsequent ejection from the death of sin (belly of the whale) is the individual ready to receive the Holy Spirit who is ultimately responsible for convincing the minds of men and women to turn away from sin and follow the path of righteousness (Salberg, 2008). One of the powerful comparisons between the New Testament and the Old Testament that the story of Jonah provides is oftentimes glossed over by those that study New and Old Testament theology. As such, this relates to the fact that the character and nature of God seems to be greatly differentiated between the times in which the Old and New Testament were written. Such a differential is not entirely constrained to merely segments of the Bible however; rather, it is evidenced in books such as Jonah where the dual nature of God is manifest. As such, in the very beginning of the book, God is represented as relentless and obstinate. Naturally, such adjectives can be applied to the deity that holds the entire universe within His hands; however, as the story progresses, the mercy and longsuffering of the character of God is finally manifest (Aron, 2008). This is done not only to relate to the reader the story as it progresses but as a means of commenting upon the different levels in which Jonah came to know and understand this God. Rather than telling the story from a third person omniscient point of view, the story is related in something of a warped first person limited narrative. Although the pronouns of I or we are not used within this book of the Old Testament, the progression and growth of understanding of this Almighty power are nonetheless related. As Jonah turns from and seeks to rebel against God, the reader is led alongside him in this futile path until the point in time in which another chance is given to change his heart and accept the calling for which he has been selected. By such a means, the book exhibits more than merely a typology of Christ or the exemplification of the means by which the Jewish nation should have been behaving towards its neighbors; rather, it exhibits the many nuances of the nature of God as both a relentless yet merciful God. As can be seen from the preceding analysis, the story of Jonah represents much more than a Biblical fairy tale regarding a large fish and an obstinate man; rather, the complexities of the means by which salvation and mercy is made available to mankind, the effects that faulty logic has upon the human mind, as well as the ultimate message of Maranatha are presented. In such a way, seeking to examine the book from the host of methods that have been employed not only furthers its understanding but also helps to provide a more complete and reasonable link between the Old and the New Testaments. Through the Biblical tale of Jonah, something of a synthesis of Biblical imagery, narrative, object lesson, prophecy, and parable is able to be related to the reader. This all helps to coalesce into a story that yields a far higher level of complexity than the simple surface narrative of a man ignoring God’s will and being eaten by a whale. As such, although this analysis has touched on many aspects of the story of Jonah, it would be good for the reader to consider the fact that these represent only the tip of the iceberg as a far greater level of depth than a mere 11 page paper is capable of capturing exists under the surface. References Aron, L. (2008). Jonah and Applied Psychoanalytic Dialogue: Introduction. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 18(2), 300-306. doi:10.1080/10481880802073462 Hamel, G. (1995). Taking the Argo to Nineveh: Jonah and Jason in a Mediterranean Context. Judaism, 44(3), 341. Holy Bible: New International Version. (2011). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan. Marshall, R. F. (2008). EATEN ALIVE. Touchstone: A Journal Of Mere Christianity, 21(3), 22-26. Salberg, J. (2008). Jonah's Crisis: Commentary on Paper by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 18(2), 317-328. doi:10.1080/10481880802073504 Shulman, R. G. (2008). Jonah: His Story, Our Story; His Struggle, Our Struggle: Commentary on Paper by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 18(2), 329-364. doi:10.1080/10481880802073512 Read More