Many Talmudic passages dealing with the book of Jonah are midrashim that explain details of the Hebrew text itself,8 although Jonah. In this case, this means that the social norms, reflected in the literature,
Form and Types of Biblical Folklore
Gene Tucker makes the distinction that legends are decidedly more "spiritual" in tone than sagas; Tucker, Form Criticism of the Old Testament, 38. 34;Tales of the ordinary" involve persons and events that are plausible and take place in a world that follows the laws of nature as we know them.
The Work of Vladimir Propp
His work shows a profound interest in the historical development of the 'people', as an analogy with the working proletariat in Marxism. Just as Propp's miracle stories correspond in the functions of the dramatis personae, I believe it is possible to indicate morphological parallels.
A New Set of Functions
XIII - The hero uses his newly acquired gift to bring about a change of status for himself; symbol: γ. 43 . destiny for the hero) this critical act takes place unexpectedly in a "no man's land" between human spheres of action.
The Center/Periphery Dichotomy
Lacking empirical knowledge, the ancients used imagination. descriptions of the 'periphery' as a means of helping to identify themselves and their place in the world. 88 The foundations for the anthropology of space and the genesis of the concept of 'hodological' space can be found in particular in the work of the philosopher Otto Friedrich Bollnow.
The rite de passage and Social Position
This point is critical to understanding the topos embedded in this type of Near Eastern miracle story; communitas is a transformative event realized in the near-death of the hero that accompanies his metaphorical social death. Such fantastic descriptions are the province of the miracle story, and in reading stories for these descriptions of liminality through the crossing of symbolic boundaries we read metaphors for the internal and external changes that a rite de passage entails.
The Edge of the World
This is reminiscent of Jonah's reference to the "belly of Hades" while he is isolated in the belly of the. Because of the unique structure of the book of Jonah, it is very difficult to
TWO MORPHOLOGICAL PARALLELS TO THE JONAH STORY
The Lugalbanda Story as Wondertale
109 Nick Veldhuis has pointed out the inherent complications of our understanding of the history of Ur III literary texts. 113 Sol Cohen notes variations in some of the newer epic texts about Aratta written in Old Babylonian; ―Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta‖ (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1973), 13.
Summary of the Lugalbanda Narrative
After biting the life-saving plants, after sipping the life-saving water … he galloped away like a horse in the mountains” (A.17). Your name will be famous in Sumer and will resound thanks to the great gods."
Morphological Analysis
Berlin astutely notes the importance of space for these epic literatures, especially the demarcation of "our country" (Uruk) from "the beyond," noting that where "the main battle takes place in a semi-mythical place that seems to be in the " space.'" Ibid., 22. H - The assistant announces the hero's fate and gives him a gift: Anzud Lugalbandu "fixes" fate and offers him a gift;.
Lugalbanda and the rite de passage
These convey some of the most basic anxieties of Sumerian civilization itself – the supply (or lack) of food, the appeasement (or displeasure) of the gods, the success (or failure) of military campaigns. 140 This concept of accepting one's fate as dictated by a supernatural being appears again in The Tale of the Drowned Sailor and is also a central theme in the book of Jonah.
Aratta and "No Man's Land" as Part of the Physical World
155 For a comprehensive overview of the wordplay and literary artistry involved in this text, see Gary Rendsburg, ―Literary Devices in the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor,‖ JAOS. Both stories deal with journeys to and from fantastic lands and the expansion of the hero's knowledge.
Summary of the Tale
The impressed sailor prostrates himself before the serpent and promises to tell his king, the king of Egypt, of the serpent king's power. He recognizes them on board the vessel from that distance and returns to report these events to the Serpent King.
Morphological Analysis
Like Lugalbanda in the cave and Jonah in the “belly of Sheol,” the protagonist undergoes a symbolic death in the liminal state. G - The hero praises the helper; The sailor is said to tell his king about the power of the serpent and he offers to send gifts.
Enrichment through Rite de Passage
The sailor presents his wealth to the king and in doing so is deemed worthy of promotion. This is an otherworldly place where the material wealth of the ―king's mines‖ is dim, and its fantastic ruler is made of jewels rather than simply adorned with them.
The Egyptian Division of Space and the Land of Punt
The vast majority of readings of the book of Jonah assume edification as the primary goal. There is of course the chance that the author(s) of the book of Jonah chose this number at random;
TOWARDS A FOLKLORISTIC READING OF JONAH
External Structure and Unity
The symmetrical design of the elements of the story does not exclude that the plot itself is linear. While there may be (and have been) compelling arguments about the psalm's relationship to the context of the rest of the narrative, I also believe that the psalm is an integral part of the story.
Dating the Book of Jonah
Examination of the language used and the theological claims made in the book of Jonah have been most helpful in narrowing this range, although this is partly a function of textualization and cannot rule out that the stories about Jonah were told in earlier versions or in different formats. The book of Jonah also seems to assume a working knowledge of other Hebrew biblical texts, meaning that Jonah can date texts written during the exilic and early post-exilic periods.213 André Feuillet's study of the connections between Jonah and " writing".
Gattung
Aware of the moralizing effect of the story, he chooses to place the book of Jonah somewhere between midrash ("commentary on a theme in the Bible", namely the miracles of God) and legend (because of the narrative. James Limburg refers to the book of Jonah as "instructive stories,” which includes “a number of shorter literary genres.” Jon's narrative can teach and entertain in equal measure.
Folkloric Parallels to the Jonah Story
In this line of thought, the Jonah story contains elements taken from mythological stories, and the presence of the great fish and the qîqāyôn are considered remnants of numenistic gods. The popular rendering as "whale" in English is derived from the LXX, but even if the Israelites were aware of the existence of these marine mammals, their taxonomy did not make them fish.
Internal Folkloric Features
239 The Mallāḥîm and the Ninevites are not given an individual vote; they act collectively, undifferentiated for the purposes of the narrator. Because if you think about it, Jonah was in the huge belly of the whale for three days.
Wondertale Functions and Transformations in Jonah
Jung, "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (2nd ed.; Theriomorphism is common in fairy tales, but conspicuously absent from the Jonah tale because of the theological prerogatives of Israelite society, who spread it.
Morphology of a Quest Gone Awry
Jonah refers to dwelling in the "heart of the sea" (bilbab yammîm, 2:4), a term that occurs in an. This brings us back to the question of the social context in which the story was likely composed.
RITE DE PASSAGE AND SPATIALITY
Israelite Political Geography
Although the political boundaries of the principalities and kingdoms comprising biblical "Israel" and "Judah" were in almost constant flux, the Hebrew Bible records that the Israelites' self-identity was partially conditioned by the distinction between the land of Israel and all other areas. Farther still were foreign lands of which the Israelites knew something, though perhaps only through second-hand sources.
Israelite Cosmography and the World's Fringes
Even in these texts, authors betray a great interest in ethnography and the relational value of the "center." 254 For a classic summary of the axis mundi see Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, 12-17.
Joppa
Tarshish
Several examples of this phenomenon are discussed in Zecharia Kallai, ―The Reality of the Land and the Bible‖ in Biblical Historiography and Historical Geography (ed. Gershon Galil and Moshe Weinfeld; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. The city was known in antiquity as a source of precious metals and precious stones, and the biblical authors probably knew of its mineral trade with the Phoenicians.269 After this time, Tartessos seems to have declined in size and influence.270 Tarsus is another possibility.
The Sea and the Belly of the "Big Fish"
In connection with the "belly" of the fish, these anatomical descriptions recall Marduk's triumph over the primal sea-serpent of water chaos, Tiamat, from Enūma Eliš:. The perception of Sheol is not easy to reconstruct, but to generalize we can say that it is the chthonic realm of the dead, where one descends to after death and is connected to the grave and it.
Nineveh
These kinds of historical details would only undermine the carefully constructed atmosphere of the folk tale. Having come so close to the hinterland on his journey of prophetic development, he instead withdraws from Nineveh and heads to the east of the city.
Liminality and Communitas
Rather, let us return to the matter of Jonah's interactions with other people, which was first discussed in the last chapter. Jonah's absence at this critical moment means he is in a precarious state, without a place in the new social organization taking shape around him.
Whose Story?
The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archeology of Judah during the 'Exile' Period. 34;Problems in the Interpretation of the Book of Jonah." Pages 32-47 in In Quest of the Past: Studies on Israelite Religion, Literature, and Prophetism.
JONAH AS FOLK ANTIHERO
Jonah as Israelite Antiprophet
Although the Book of Jonah is part of the "Book of the Twelve," its connection to other prophetic texts seems tenuous. This fact may strengthen Jon's connection with the accounts of the books of the Kings, but there are other reasons for considering the book of Jon as related to these works.
Jonah as Failed Social Actor
Not only is his newfound piety ultimately revealed to be false, but Jonah's offering of his life in the parallel sequence in scene four is not the ultimate sacrifice that Jonah intimates. Jonah finds himself in a role he doesn't like, and he's overwhelmed by the drama that's playing itself out in the city.
The Book of Jonah as False Travel Narrative
The content of the story and the fact that travel and movement are primary themes indicate on the other hand that the story was intended for those who knew something about international travel and perhaps about travel literature. On this point see Bob Becking, "'We All Returned as One!': Critical Notes on the Myth of the Mass Return in Lipschits and Oeming, eds., Judah and Judeans in the Persian Period, esp.
Conclusions
I believe that the similarities between these two stories and the Jonah story have been neglected until now due to the dissimilarity of their literary forms. Sabaeans was located at the southernmost tip of the Arabian Peninsula, near modern Yemen.
