The book Jonah ‐ a paradigm of the ‘hermeneutics of strangeness’

The Old Testament book Jonah provides for a unique hermeneutical study of strangeness. The context and questions pertaining to it are considered, focussing on the strangeness of events and characters as they present themselves to a modern day secular reader. In both early Christianity and folktales the miraculous was readily accepted, while the distinction between fiction and reality is a relatively recent development. The book Jonah with its moral lesson, also called a Midrash, is significant for studying this tradition. This intricate text, having technical similarities with the contemporary novel, emanates from an extraordinary and competent narrator and can be seen as the prototype of the modern novel. The questions to which the text offers some answers are posed and some differences between the book Jonah and the secular novel are discussed

Art · Epistemology · Hermeneutics · Judaism · Literature · Midrash · New Testament · Physics · Strangeness · Theology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Philosophy