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Chapter 9 - Theology

Surfacing after Being Swallowed in the Book of Jonah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2025

By
Juliana Claassens
Edited by
Jonathan Jansen
Jonathan Jansen
Affiliation:
Stellenbosch University
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Summary

In this essay, I will share some of the perspectives that emerged from my recent experience writing a commentary on the book of Jonah (OTL, Westminster John Knox, 2024) that may offer some insight into what knowledge production entails in my field of biblical interpretation. The numerous incongruities, complexities, and uncertainties associated with this enigmatic book have yielded some interesting interpretations, with interpreters returning again and again to these strange aspects of the text to generate new insights into old problems.

Keywords

biblical interpretationincongruitiesuncertaintyJonah

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Type
Chapter
Information
On Discovery
How Knowledge is Produced across the Disciplines
 , pp. 108 - 118
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Claassens, L. J. (2021). “Jeremiah: The Traumatized Prophet,” in Stulman, L. and Silver, E. (eds.), Oxford Handbook to Jeremiah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 358–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claassens, L. J. M. (2024). Jonah: A Commentary. The Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.Google Scholar
Erickson, A. (2021). Jonah: Introduction and Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilmour, M. J. (2009). “Teaching biblical hermeneutics through Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories.” Teaching Theology & Religion, 12, 151–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graybill, R., Kaltner, J. and McKenzie, S. L. (2023). Jonah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Havea, J. (2020). Jonah. Earth Bible Commentary. London: Bloomsbury.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kugel, J. (1983). “Two introductions to Midrash.” Prooftexts, 3(2), 131–155.Google Scholar
Moe, P. W. (2015). “Of tombs and wombs, or, the whale, part III.” Leviathan, 17(1), 41–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niditch, S. (2023). Jonah: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.Google Scholar
Rushdie, S. (1991). Haroun and the Sea of Stories. London: Granta.Google Scholar
Snyman, G. (1995). “Intertextuality, story, and the pretense of permanence of canon.” Old Testament Essays, 8(2), 205–222.Google Scholar
Tiemeyer, L.-S. (2021). Jonah through the Centuries. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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