I’m in a Hebrew module this week, and it’s been awesome and refreshing! We are translating through Jonah and Ruth, and possibly something else will be thrown in there by the end of the week. On Monday we translated Jonah, and on Tuesday we translated Jonah again, and then got about half way through Ruth.
Jonah is one of the most fascinating people in the Bible. As the professor of the class told us, Jonah had good theology, but a bad attitude. To be honest, it baffles my mind how this can be true, but our prof had us consider how many people we knew who went to good, fundamental baptist churches (some of them even in the GARBC! GASP!) but lived with rotten attitudes toward God, their families, or the lost. Turns out I know quite a few…even myself from time to time. This is a small example of what I love about Seminary: the academic challenge that is fully combined with spiritual challenges, and practical application. Well, that and watching the prof get giddy with delight as he explains to us how the Hebrew word for “Father-in-law” takes it’s roots/origins in a word that can also mean “Circumciser”. All I can say is “yikes”.
Jonah through out the book complains, whines, pouts, and questions God. Sure, in chapter 2 he offers up a fantastic psalms-type prayer, but given what he does before and after the prayer, I’m having a hard time believing it was sincere. Maybe it was. It is interesting to see that God prepared this fish for Jonah as a means of his rescue from the ocean that he was chucked into. He also used this fish to bring Jonah back to where he should have been to begin with.
As we got to the part where the fish spits Jonah onto dry ground, someone in class wondered if the fish had to beach itself to get Jonah out, and then it died. Someone than asked, “Yeah, how far can a whale hock a loogie?” Yes, it is deep intellectual questions like this that keep me going to class year after year. Anyway, about the fish possibly dying after spitting Jonah out, we discussed it for a bit, and then our prof smiles and says, “Well, God never claimed to be a card-carrying member of PETA!” The conversation eventually lead us to finding this delightfully fun website about exploding whales.
One of the issues that Higher Critics have with this book is Jonah’s message. They will say that this book is inaccurate because Jonah was a Hebrew and spoke hebrew, while Ninevah spoke Akkadian. Therefore they would not have been able to understand each other. Yup, this is an actual, real argument. Hilarious. First of all, Akkadian and Hebrew are closely related languages, and it would not be beyond the realm of possibility for Jonah to have learned how to speak a few phrases at the very least. However something they also don’t consider is that people from both Israel and Ninevah probably knew Aramaic, which was a common language at the time. It is possible then that Jonah preached in Aramaic. This is why books of the Bible like Daniel have portions written in Aramaic. The portion that is intended for the world to hear is written in a common language that they can understand. Which then brings many interesting questions to mind about Bible translations and versions, but let’s not go down that road today.
Jonah teaches us many good lessons: make sure your attitude is right in ministry, God is compassionate even towards the most wicked of sinners, and sometimes God needs to go to drastic measures to break the stubborness of our hearts. Don’t be like Jonah; be open to God’s leading wherever it may take you. Be compassionate as He is compassionate. And, if you are running from God, don’t ask to be thrown overboard a ship during a storm at sea. You might regret it!
“how far can a whale hock a loogie?” bahahahaha! Bizarre questions like that seem to come up more frequently toward the end of the semester when everyone’s tired and a bit silly. I think my two favorites from college were a discussion on whether there were “degrees of eunuchization” and whether there was something inherent in the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that made Adam and Eve realize they were naked (the fruit was then referred to throughout the rest of the class, even by the prof, as “naked fruit”).
Something I noticed about Jonah earlier this year while taking one of my annoying “the only healthy church is a rapidly growing church” classes is that he was probably one of the most numerically successful prophets in the OT, but also the worst possible example of how we should act…I think it shows that God is going to generate the results He wants regardless of how we act (but it’ll probably be more pleasant/rewarding for us personally if we do what He asks of us).
Does the Hebrew also mention that the sharpness of the circumcising blade is directly proportional to how well the son-in-law treats the daughter?
I second Joel’s maniacally appreciative laughter. All I can say is that with this level of spiritual insight and the impressive law-enforcement efforts I saw on a recently-posted SA video, FBBC seems to be safe from all enemies, be they raving heretics or reckless speeders.