{"id":77840,"date":"2020-07-21T23:06:29","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T20:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=77840"},"modified":"2020-07-21T23:06:29","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T20:06:29","slug":"jonahs-theology-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jonahs-theology-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonah\u2019s Theology 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"77840","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":67893,"related_cahpter":"529","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"As an Ivri, Jonah was to be a bridge. He reneged on this mission, as did all of Israel.\r\n\r\n","content":"

(Part 1 – see chapter 4 for part 2)<\/span><\/p>\n

Jonah is an exposition of God\u2019s overriding mercy and His goals for humanity. Jonah is called to warn Nineveh (the capital of the empire that was threatening Israel), that if they didn\u2019t repent, they would be destroyed. Jonah, seeking Nineveh\u2019s destruction, does not want to give them that chance. He flees, but where can you flee to from the God of all creation? To the end of the known world at the time, Tarshish.<\/span><\/p>\n

God responds with a storm and Jonah asks his fellow travelers to confine him to the ultimate abyss – the ocean. The deep waters were not considered to be part of the world, but served as a boundary with the heavenly realm. He tells the sailors: \u201cI am a Hebrew, and I worship YHVH, God in heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.\u201d In his moment of realization he defines for us the concept being an Ivri, one who crosses over, and recognizes that the apparent boundary between heaven and earth, sea and dry land, is something that the Ivri is meant to bridge. As the \u201csand on the seashore,\u201d the Ivri bridges the sea and the land – themselves metaphors for the enlightened and as-yet-unenlightened world. And as the \u201cstars in Heaven,\u201d they sit in the firmament that binds the world that we experience and the one we can only imagine, the seat of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

The prophet is used as a stand-in representing Israel. It isn\u2019t just Jonah\u2019s job to convey the message of repentance and worship of God to the heart of the pagan world – even to the capital of our greatest enemies – it is also Israel\u2019s job. It wasn\u2019t just Jonah who tried to flee from his mission imagining that he could somehow escape the oversight of his Creator and go somewhere where another authority ruled. By turning their back on God and turning to paganism, Israel was guilty of the same offense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Was Jonah a real prophet or a post facto rationalization, a morality tale to explain the failure of Israel? As always, it is the message that matters and this short story forms a key piece in the puzzle that is the theology of the Tanakh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(see chapter 4 for the continuation of this essay).<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":77841,"id":77841,"title":"jon1-bridge","filename":"jon1-bridge.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-bridge.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jonahs-theology-1\/jon1-bridge\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jon1-bridge","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":77840,"date":"2020-07-21 20:06:13","modified":"2020-07-21 20:06:23","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":639,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-bridge-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-bridge-300x100.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":100,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-bridge-768x256.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":256,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-bridge-1024x341.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":341,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-bridge.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":511,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-bridge.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":639,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-bridge-1200x399.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":399,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/jon1-bridge-1262x420.jpg","home_baner-width":1262,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Introduction","main_caption":"Jonah\u2019s Theology 1","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"As an Ivri, Jonah was to be a bridge. 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