A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah

Book Description:

New Studies in Biblical Theology series  - Volume 26

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 nations-including the question of mission-and 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.

Author:

Daniel C. Timmer is associate professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary. Previously he served as dean and professor of biblical studies at FAREL Reformed Theological Seminary in Montreal, Canada. He is the author of Creation, Tabernacle, and Sabbath (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht).

Endorsements:

"Daniel Timmer's volume is exceptional: it engages in a close reading of much of Jonah, but keeps one eye peeled for legitimate canonical ties with what we would today call the mission of God. Dr. Timmer thinks and writes clearly and succinctly, and biblical and theological issues come alive. This is a book to cherish."
--D. A. Carson

"This book is highly recommended for laypeople, students, and ministers who desire to move beyond the flat reading of Jonah found in much popular-level Christian literature."
--Jerry Hwang, ThemeliosNovember 2012

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