Book of Jonah

The Book of Jonah is one of the twelve minor prophets of the Nevi'im ("Prophets") in the Hebrew Bible, and an individual book in the Christian Old Testament where it has four chapters. The book tells of a Hebrew prophet named Jonah, son of Amittai, who is sent by God to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh, but attempts to escape his divine mission.

The story has a long interpretive history and has become well known through popular children's stories. In Judaism, it is the Haftarah portion read during the afternoon of Yom Kippur to instill reflection on God's willingness to forgive those who repent, and it remains a popular story among Christians. The story is also retold in the Quran.

Mainstream Bible scholars generally regard the story of the Book of Jonah as fictional, and often at least partially satirical. Most scholars consider the Book of Jonah to have been composed long after the events it describes due to its use of words and motifs exclusive to postexilic Aramaic sources.

The prophet Jonah (Hebrew: יוֹנָה, Yonā) is mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25, which places Jonah's life during the reign of Jeroboam II, King of Israel, (786–746 BC), but the book of Jonah itself does not name a king or give any other details that would give the story a firm date. Most scholars consider the Book of Jonah to have been composed long after the events it describes due to its use of words and motifs exclusive to postexilic Aramaic sources. A later date is sometimes proposed, with Katherine Dell arguing for the Hellenistic period (332–167 BC).

Evangelical Assyriologist Donald Wiseman takes issue with the idea that the story is late (or a parable). Among other arguments he mentions that the "Legends of Agade" (see Sargon of Akkad and Rabisu) date to the time of the Old Babylonian Empire, though later versions "usually taken as a late composition, propagandistic fairy tale or historical romance can now, on the basis of new discoveries of earlier sources, be shown to be based on a serious and reliable historical record".

Unlike the other Minor Prophets, the book of Jonah is almost entirely narrative with the exception of the psalm in the second chapter. The actual prophetic word against Nineveh is given only in passing through the narrative. The story of Jonah has a setting, characters, a plot, and themes; it also relies heavily on such literary devices as irony.

The original text was written in Hebrew language. Chapters 1 and 2 are divided differently in the Hebrew and English versions: verse 2:1 in the Hebrew version is equivalent to Jonah 1:17 in the English version.

An outline of the book of Jonah: