A book review 47 years late! But first, an explanation for doing this. My last email exchange with Terry Fretheim was just a few months before his death in late 2020. I wanted to thank him for his life of scholarship in the service of the church, in which his exegetical theology was worked out with a pastor's heart. My own debt to him is considerable and long term and spans many of his books. Here is some of what I wrote:
"Your book on Jonah taught me so much about OT exegesis as well as giving a credible insight into what the book of Jonah teaches us about God's dynamic mercy, and through a story more comedy than tragedy. The spine is cracked, pages are falling out, the cover is faded and it's held together by the books on either side...
His one line answer: "Jim, Thanks so much for your generous response to my work. You made my day! Terry."
I'm glad I lifted his spirits during what was his last illness. I have numerous reasons to be grateful for the work of Terry Fretheim, but they all go back to my reading of this early study of the prophet Jonah. I'll keep an overview of Fretheim's work over the past 40 or so years for another post.
What Fretheim found as the focal point in Jonah was a theological conflict, an argument that created a problem, and caused a falling out between God and Jonah. The prophet is so annoyed at God he runs away and spirals from disobedience to despair. Jonah is a divided man. He believes in God but disagrees with the nature of the God he believes in! Grace and compassion are fine, but not to be bandied about indiscriminately as if mercy was going out of fashion! Sure, mercy, appropriate mercy. Only not for Nineveh, not for enemies, not for people whose behaviour is so "evil" it is unforgivable.
But there's more. God's grace and compassion are so integral to God's nature that they are poured out on whoever seeks his mercy and trusts to Gods compassionate grace - even Nineveh. If that's not bad enough there's the outrageous game changer in theology - that if evil Nineveh repents and turns from its wicked ways God may relent, change his mind, and pardon them.
To be clear, Fretheim is not saying there's no judgement on sin, evil and 'dire behaviour'. Sin and evil lead to death rather than life. But God will do everything to avoid that. The Sovereign Creator is not to be imagined in our image, created by our preferred theology, controlled by the moral demands and intellectual limits of the creature!
The starting point for all mission is that the God who sends is gracious and compassionate, given to mercy, constant in faithful love. God's mercy is free to all, is gift not earned reward, and as the Word of God, mercy has power to persuade and pull into the orbit of divine grace, even those we think least deserve it.
That in a nutshell is Fretheim's argument. After that initial statement of what he is about, there are three further introductory chapters on the characterisation of Jonah as a person, and the historical situation of those early years of the people of Israel rebuilding after the exile. Confidence was low, faith was hesitant and timid, there was a low grade but chronic cynicism about the Word of God, and religious practice was more option than obligation. And it was Assyria's fault then, and Babylon's fault now, and every other Empire's fault since!
Chapter 3 is a lexical treasure trove setting out the importance of proper names such as Tarshish, Joppa, Assyria, Nineveh, and Jonah - each of them freighted with narrative (and theological) significance. Then there are words that are important because of repetition: Great, Evil, Hurl, Appoint, Call, Fear, Go down, Anger, Perish, Pity. These words are used and re-used for their rhetorical power, they are clues to what the author is trying to say.
The fourth chapter is 'Irony, Structure and Unity'. Jonah drips with irony, one of the most effective forms of argument and persuasion in human discourse. The structure is straightforward according to Fretheim. There are two main parts:
"The one focuses on Jonah's own deliverance, the other focuses on Jonah's reaction to someone else's deliverance. Jonah is joyful when he is spared and angry when Nineveh is. There is revealed here the heart of the argument between God and Jonah. Who is to be the object of God's deliverance?" (58)
Chapter 5 meets head on the question, 'Fact or Fiction.' Is Jonah factual history? Fretheim is cautious: "The question of 'happenedness' is only preliminary to a discernment of the message of the book." Fretheim concludes that Jonah is best understood as a satirical, didactic short story. Interestingly.
Leslie Allen opted for the word parable, conceding that parables as stories can have historical origins, or even a developed historical context, as do historical novels. The point for Fretheim is that the message of Jonah, the theological core of the story, does not depend on proving what actually happened. It depends on a changed mindset about God as a result of hearing the story - as does the prodigal son, and the good Samaritan.
Four chapters follow in which the text is explored and the story unfolded, with clear and at times quite daring theological commentary, bringing the book to a well argued conclusion. I finish the review with some of the last lines of Fretheim's interpretation, which I find sound and persuasive:
"What is involved in God's being moved to spare? The use of the verb 'moved to spare' points us to the fact that God's action has its effect upon God himself. This verb has reference to suffering action, action executed with tears in the eyes...And so 'to have pity' would mean action undertaken with tears flowing down the cheeks. It is suffering action. Here God takes upon himself the evil of Nineveh. He bears the weight of its violence, the pain of a thousand plundered cities, including Israel's. God chooses to suffer in place of Nineveh. His tears flow instead of theirs. Someday he may even choose to die." (p.130)
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