Loading…

A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah is unavailable, but you can change that!

The book of Jonah is arguably just as jarring for us as it was for the ancients. Ninevah’s repentance, Jonah’s estrangement from God and the book’s bracing moral conclusion all pose unsettling questions for today’s readers. For biblical theologians, Jonah also raises tough questions regarding mission and religious conversion. Daniel Timmer embarks on a new reading of Jonah in order to secure its...

While the time of this episode is not explicitly stated, it is clear that Jonah has concluded through observation (after waiting the necessary ‘forty’ days) that Nineveh’s repentance entails the rescinding of God’s threat.3 Against the backdrop of still-standing Nineveh, we see the Israelite prophet fuming over the city’s deliverance, something he judges to be ‘very evil’.4 The first phrase of 4:1 sheds a good deal of light on his reaction with its
Page 118