The Word is in Control

Students of the Bible typically overstate the importance of Jonah's prayer from the belly of the whale, assuming that he was vomited onto the dry land because of repentance; but a closer look at the text of the prayer tells a different story. Was Jonah vomited up because of a profound conversion from disobedience, or is something else going on? The answer to this question is only apparent when we read the Bible as literature, allowing the storyline—not our assumptions about piety—to control how we hear the words of the prophet. In Jonah, it is the Word of the Lord, not the prophet, that is in control. From the very beginning—with or without his prayers—Jonah's destination was never in question. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Jonah 2.

Episode 216 Jonah 2; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Hot Pursuit” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com (http://incompetech.com/)) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/