num_pages: 201
description: The book of Jonah is arguably just as jarring for us as it was for the ancients. Ninevah's repentance Jonah's estrangement from God and the book's bracing moral conclusion all pose unsettling questions for today's readers. For biblical theologians Jonah also raises tough questions regarding mission and religious conversion. Here Daniel Timmer embarks on a new reading of Jonah in order to secure its ongoing relevance for biblical theology. After an examination of the book?s historical backgrounds (in both Israel and Assyria) Timmer discusses the biblical text in detail paying special attention to redemptive history and its Christocentric orientation. Timmer then explores the relationship between Israel and the nationsincluding the question of missionand the nature of religious conversion and spirituality in the Old Testament. This New Studies in Biblical Theology volume concludes with an injunction for scholars and lay readers to approach Jonah as a book written to facilitate spiritual change in the reader. Addressing key issues in biblical theology the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.
language: English
title: A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah
publisher: IVP Academic