SOURCE: Wolff, Hans Walter. “Introduction.” In Obadiah and Jonah: A Commentary, translated by Margaret Kohl, pp. 75-93. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986.

In the following excerpt, first published in German in 1977, Wolff examines Jonah's place in the Hebrew canon and considers problems involving textual history and the difficulty of assigning the book to a particular genre.

1. the Book of Jonah in the Canon

At the beginning of the second century b.c., the book of Sirach refers to Isaiah (48:22), Jeremiah (49:6f.), Ezekiel (49:8), and Job (49:9), and then goes on to mention the twelve prophets (“May the bones of the twelve prophets revive from where they lie” [49:10]). This summary can best be explained if we assume that “The Book of the Twelve Prophets” was already in existence at that time. The Book of Jonah must therefore then already have been assigned to the prophetic writings, even though it differs from...