There are many ways in which the story-tellers of the Bible ensure that their tellings are lively and engaging. One is through the way they report speech. There is usually more "direct speech" (where the words of a character are "quoted") then "indirect speech" (where the teller tells us the gist of what the character said). This direct speech is often skillfully crafted to give a lively and rich portrayal of the person. The podcast begins with cases where a group of people speak (we already heard one of these in the post Humour in the Bible: Part 2: Still Introducing Saul). Another example of this is found in Jonah 1:8 though here different emotions are expressed. The book of Ruth uses skillfully differentiated speech to help portray the characters. In this podcast we'll look at Boaz' two speeches to Ruth from chapter 2 (Ruth 2:11-12; 8-9).
Juxtaposition: putting things together to make something "more than the sum of the parts" is a common artistic skill, it is common (but often unrecognised) in the Bible. As my least favourite book of the Bible helps reveal!
The puzzle of Jonah's actions, and other strange goings-on don't stop in Jonah 1:3, but deepen (pun intended) as we begin to read on... we meet the ship that had plans of its own and hear echoes of Santa Claus in the telling of Jonah's story...
Continuing the series on Jonah, we rush ahead into the second verse of the book, only to spot yet again possibly more than one meaning. Jonah's task however is clear.
By the way I am sorry about the long delays recently, I hope to post more regularly again, but not till after enjoying a two week holiday - starting on Sunday.
So, here's the second part of the Jonah series. This time we focus on 1:3. Again we end with a question - but at least the right question is better than the wrong answer!
This post deals with Jonah 1:1, I excuse this by reference to the new commentary series announced on the first of this month by Eisenbrauns ;-) This 'cast deals with beginnings, and with whether the clues in this verse suggest Jonah is of the genre prophecy or narrative (if you don't understand why this question matters, keep coming back as I'll have a post on "Why genre matters" soon!
PS: Thank you Tyler for reminding me of your blog post commentary on Jonah, you began it so long ago ;-) that I'd forgotten - but it should get a link here! I should also link to my Notes on Jonah, less detailed than these talks, but dealing with the whole book.
