In What is the Bible (Part 1) I talked of the Bible as witness, and mentioned stories where Abraham and Amos haggle with God, and ended with a reference to arguing with God in the Bible. Here I’ll begin to explore Jeremiah’s side of the conversation from Jer 12:1-4 (we’ll get to God’s reply later!)
Spotting the exaggerations and humour in the book can help us understand, but it also acts as a warning!
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!
For some reason one of the difficult stumbling blocks at the start of a Bible intro course is “genre” and why it matters. So, here’s a < 5 minute Bible attempt to explain!
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.
