SOURCE: Zimmermann, Frank. “Problems and Solutions in the Book of Jonah.” Judaism 40, no. 4 (Fall 1991): 580-89.

In the following essay, Zimmermann contends that some textual problems of the Book of Jonah are the result of a compiler's not having adequately combined two very different traditions.

The Book of Jonah has been a battleground among scholars for centuries. It bristles with literary difficulties and weird improbabilities. For the most part, investigators have traditionally been satisfied, as with so many other Biblical books, to uncover the correct interpretation of the texts, as well as to deal with certain theological problems, as in Jonah's sojourn in the inside of the fish. In the nineteenth century, however, there was a change in Biblical perspective. In the main, J. Wellhausen and his school considered that to understand the history of Israel it is necessary to appraise and date documents to inform a proper progress...