Jonah's Arguments with God: The Honeymoon is Over!

In this refreshing and thoughtful interpretation of the biblical book of Jonah, T. A. Perry seeks to recover the book's prophetic thrust: how Jonah is cast out from the divine Presence and works his way back--like Elijah--in a love story of rejection and reconciliation. This book explores the role reversal of Eternity and Jonah and suggests the possibility that God can not only change his mind, but even be educated. The deceptively simple tale of Jonah receives in T. A. Perry's hands the complex intellectual reading it deserves. With wide learning, urbane wit, and acute sensitivity to detail, Perry asks engaging questions that are spot-on, giving them remarkably reflective answers that sometimes surprise and often convince. No matter what your interest in Jonah--be it theological, moral, ecological, or aesthetic--you will want to read this masterful book. --Edward L. Greenstein, Meiser Professor of Biblical Studies and Director of the Institute for Jewish Biblical Interpretation at Bar-Ilan University, Israel I rejoice to see the reissue of T. A. Perry's work on Jonah. This volume draws deeply from the available Jonah literature but is deft at re-presenting with a fresh and provocative twist many of the issues to be found in the short biblical book and commentary on it. --Barbara Green, O.P., Professor of Biblical Studies, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at the Graduate Theological Union T. A. Perry (PhD, Romance Philology and Comparative Literature, Yale University) is a Faculty Associate at Hartford Seminary and was recently Corcoran Visiting Chair in Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College. He has also taught at Ben Gurion University, Loyola University, and Hebrew University.…