III. TOWARDS A FOLKLORISTIC READING OF JONAH
3.1.4 Gattung
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Jon 4:2c "For I know that you are a gracious and compassionate god, slow to anger and abundant in kindness, resisting punishment" (kî yādaʿtî kî ʾattâ ēl-ḥannûn wĕraḥûm erek ʾappayim wĕrab-ḥesed wĕniḥām ʿal- hārāʿâ)
Joel 2:13-14a "Tear your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your god, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in
kindness, resisting punishment. Who knows whether He may turn away and concede?" (wĕqirʾû lĕbabkem wĕʾal-bigdêkem wêšûbû el-YHWH ĕlōhêkem kî- ḥannûn wĕraḥûm hûʾwĕniḥām ʿal-hārāʿâmî yôdēʿ yāšûb wĕniḥām)
Whether Jonah adapts Joel, usually attributed to the fourth century, directly or they simply share a common source is unclear, but taken in combination with some of the other circumstantial evidence already noted we may tentatively assign an early postexilic date to the book‘s composition. The story itself is likely older and, as I have already maintained, the topos at the narrative's heart is certainly older. There are several possible extrabiblical sources from which the book of Jonah may adapt forms or content. These suggest that some of the elements we see in the Jonah narrative possibly have antecedents in the ancient Near Eastern milieu, but without attestation the nature of these remains speculation.
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which immediate social needs were filled by disseminating it, and its own internal characteristics problematize the matter. As a result, interpreters' efforts have come to several different conclusions, with the only consensus being that a reading of the story as historical report no longer has currency.215
Most commentators read the story allegorically because of its use of symbols, but even in this vein there are several types worth considering. The narrative has often been called a parable, a short story which conveys subtext prescribing moral or religious behavior appropriate for certain situations or even for life generally. This category is somewhat broad--parables may not even be necessarily allegorical--and thus the commentator is allowed the designation without describing the effects of the literary form. This tendency is epitomized by Rofé who claims simply that, "the theoretical debate between God and Jonah, which finds expression in their actions as well, leaves no doubt that the Book of Jonah is a parable" without explicating the literary and textual features to support that conclusion.216 More precise terms are available but these have sometimes been applied unevenly because of disagreement over what these categories mean.
Phyllis Trible explores several Gattungen at length and notes the problems with claiming one category over another. Cognizant of the moralizing effect the story has, she settles on situating the book of Jonah somewhere between midrash ("a commentary upon a theme in Scripture," namely, God's miracles) and legend (due to the narrative's
215 Cf. Alexander Rofé, who claims that a ―nearly unanimous agreement exists among scholars as to the literary genre of Jonah." I have found little to support this assertion; The Prophetical Stories: The Narratives about the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Their Literary Types and History (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1988), 159.
216 Ibid., 159.
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purported historical quality").217 The trend in Jonah studies of not assigning the book to a specific category in commentaries and studies or doing so only in the vaguest of terms is the "safest" resolution and perhaps the most satisfying.218 Trible explores the possibility that the book of Jonah belongs to Märchen, an association first noted by German scholars at the beginning of the twentieth century and continued by Gunkel himself.219 Trible highlights numerous Märchenmotiven in the story (discussed below) but also falls short of categorizing the book of Jonah with Märchen. I believe that she addresses the issue most clearly when she points out that while no book in the Hebrew Bible displays as many folkloric features as Jonah, it would be difficult to readily associate Jonah with Märchen.220 Trible concludes that if one were to assign the Gattung of Jonah as Märchen then that category would need to be broadened, and this is not necessary for
acknowledgment of the many Märchenmotiven therein. I must disagree, however, with Trible's assertion that "the Märchen proper seeks to entertain; it does not endeavor to teach"221 because these are not mutually exclusive goals. Are we to believe that
217 Trible, Studies in the Book of Jonah, 177. The claim that the book of Jonah should be understood as a midrash of 2 Kings 14 goes back to Karl Budde, "Vermutungen zum Midrasch des Buches der Könige."
ZAW 11 (1892), 37-51.
218 E.g. McKenzie, Steven L. "The Genre of Jonah" 159-172 in Seeing Signals, Reading Signs: The Art of Exegesis. Studies in Honour of Antony F. Campbell, SJ for His Seventieth Birthday (ed. Mark A. O'Brien and Howard N. Wallace; JSOT Supp. 415; London: T&T Clark International, 2004); Perry, T.A. The Honeymoon is Over: Jonah's Argument with God (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006); Handy, Lowell K. Jonah's World: Social Science and the Reading of Prophetic Story (Oakville, CT: Equinox Publishers, 2007).
219 "Der märchenhafte Charakter dieser Erzählung ist unverkennbar. Alles ist hier wunderbar." von Baudissin, Wolf Wilhelm, Einleitung in die Bücher des Alten Testaments (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1901), 594;
see also Gunkel, The Folktale in the Old Testament (trans. Michael D. Rutter; Sheffield, U.K.: The Almond Press, 1987), 9.
220 Trible, Studies in the Book of Jonah, 146.
221 Ibid., 152; Subsequent to Trible's work folklorists have adopted a more fluid notion of folktales in which Märchen is recognized as a sub-category of a synonym to wondertales. The work of Dundes and others was especially influential to this end.
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"Rumpelstiltskin," a quintessential Grimm Märchen, is intended as entertainment only and not also a cautionary tale for making foolish promises?222
The vast majority of readings of the book of Jonah presuppose edification as its primary purpose. James Limburg refers to the book of Jonah as a "didactic story," a catchall incorporating "a number of shorter literary types."223 This opinion seems valid in light of the moralistic interpretations supplied by faith communities over the centuries, but I believe that it falls short inasmuch as the Jonah narrative may teach and entertain equally. I raise this point because it is related to my use of the term "wondertale" as discussed in Chapter One; Märchen is customarily associated with a folktale which uses fantasy to entertain only but the Sitz im Leben of the wondertale is, even in Propp's conception, more wide-ranging and its standards are more inclusive. For this reason, although we cannot identify the Jonah story as Märchen, I maintain that it may be read as a wondertale because its cumulative structure shares so much with the structures of other wondertales. The most basic features of the wondertale: fantasy, the quest of the
protagonist, radical turns of events, and more, are all in the Jonah story.
Another factor to consider is whether and to what extent the book of Jonah is satirical. Satirical intent is tied to Gattung inasmuch as Gattung considers a piece of literature's place in the social fabric which, in some cases, may be to lampoon a particular ideal or institution. To this end, the person of Jonah is ordinarily seen as the ironic or sarcastic target of an anti-prophetic or anti-northern kingdom authorship. Satire, which
222 The motif of foolish promises endangering one's offspring is found biblically in the story of Jephthah (Judg 11), to which a moralistic reading is usually applied.
223 Limburg, Jonah, 22; Meik Gerhards treats it slightly more narrowly as a didactic novel ("didaktischen Novelle"), Gerhards, Studien zum Jonabuch (Biblisch-Theologische Studien 78; Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener Verlag, 2006), 71.