J. Tyler Brown: The Sign of Jonah in Luke, Acts, and Matthew, Kartoniert / Broschiert

Klappentext

J. Tyler Brown challenges prevailing views of the Sign of Jonah, arguing that the Sign matters more to the Lucan writings and Matthew's Gospel than is conventionally recognized, in both the extent of its influence and its narrative centrality. Whereas much scholarship regards Jonah's Sign as fundamentally condemnatory, both Evangelists understand it as a positive sign provoking Israel to repentance.

Adopting a synthetic and intertextual approach, the author examines for the first time the complete range of Jonah's influence throughout Luke, Acts, and Matthew, including explicit references and literary allusions. He situates them within Jonah's ancient Jewish reception and in eastern Mediterranean sources spanning the Second Temple period through late antiquity, notably the neglected Pseudo-Philonic De Jona .

Ancient Jewish interpreters of Jonah typically foreground divine mercy, understand Nineveh's salvation as affirming rather than subverting Israel's election, and integrate Jonah's deliverance into the whole narrative, with multiple sources linking it to the Red Sea crossing.

In Luke's Gospel and Acts, the Sign unfolds as a scripturally ordained sequence: suffering, resurrection on the third day, proclamation of repentance to all nations. Jonah uniquely prefigures this sequence in order. For Matthew, the Sign is the Son of Man's burial in the earth's heart for three days and nights, addressed especially to the scribes and Pharisees. Each Evangelist's stilling-of-the-storm pericope foreshadows his version of Jonah's Sign.

Reception-historical analysis of the Evangelists' ancient Christian interpreters attests these findings; at the same time, the study refutes the claim that Matthew and Luke are responsible for later anti-Jewish readings of Jonah.