A Biblical Text and its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in Western Culture

by Yvonne Sherwood

This book charts the mutations of the book of Jonah as it latches onto Christian and Jewish motifs and anxieties, passes through highbrow and lowbrow culture, and finally becomes something of a scavenger among the ruins, as, in its most resourceful move to date, it begins to live off the demise of faith. This book is concerned with those versions of the biblical that escape proper disciplinary it shifts the focus from "Mainstream" to "Backwater" interpretation. It is less a navigation of interpretative history and more an interrogation of larger political/cultural anti-Judaism in Biblical Studies, the secularization of the Bible, and the projection of the Bible as credulous ingenu, naive Other to our savvy post-Enlightenment selves.

Genres: Theology

321 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[KA · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly different way to approach Jonah, reading against the Christian "Mainstream," drawing on the "Backwaters" and "Underbellies" of Jewish and popular readings of Jonah. Sherwood explores Jonah in rabbinic literature, medieval poetry, late Renaissance visual art, and modern painting, poetry, theater, television, and other media. In the final section of the book, she retrieves a Jonah that is both dissident within the overall library of Hebrew Bible texts, while also sharing many themes with other parts of the prophetic literature. I didn't agree with her all the way, and I have some methodological problems with her Jonah reading, but found this book a brilliant, rewarding addition to Jonah scholarship.