Apologist Wanted - or Play Apologist - Jonah, Nineveh, Repentance

by berrygerry 6 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  berrygerry

  The great fish aside, what I could never wrap my head around was the repentance of Nineveh.

  A city of 140,000 heard ONE lunatic "prophet" who warned Repent or Die and the ENTIRE city from the king to the least repented in ashes.

  Insight says this was during Jeroboam II - 844 BC to 803 BC.

  And yet, scant decades later, in 740 BC, God used these, the ultimate of cruel, sadistic barbarians to destroy Israel.

  1. Why would God ask this depraved city to repent, and not ask others, including Sodom and Gomorrah, to repent?

  2. Can one honestly believe that, with God as the one reading all of their hearts, ALL of 140,000 people sincerely repented?

  3. Insight describes the Assyrians, in 740 BC, as being of unparalleled cruelty. How can this then be earlier written as genuine repentance?
  
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  Divergent

  I could never understand it myself. All Jonah did was to proclaim: "In just 40 days more, Nineveh will be overthrown." Not a single miracle, no display of supernatural power, nothing!

  How the bloody hell is that supposed to be convincing???

  And we are expected to believe that he was not harmed in any way by the bloodthirsty & barbaric Assyrians??? They allowed him to insult them before their very faces??? I'm certain that he would definitely have been put to death if this was an actual event...
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  Divergent

  This story sounds fishy... (pun intended) ;)
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  cofty

  The book of Jonah is a parable. It was never meant to be read literally.

  The big fish is an amusing aside but it is the only thing most people know about the story.

  The idea of Nineveh repenting is deliberately ludicrous. It is exactly equivalent to a christian missionary going to Syria to tell ISIS that they are all very naughty and within a few days they all repent and start going to church.

  The real point of the story is the contrast between Jonah's grief about the death of a tree and his disappointment that thousands of Assyrians are not to be destroyed after all. It is a tale about compassion for humanity, even for your enemies.

  It was probably written post-exile as a protest against the xenophobic ravings of Ezra's "reforms". The book of Ruth is a similar genre, where the loyalty of a foreigner - who Ezra was ethnically cleansing - was greater than that of a native Israelite.
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  Divergent

  The idea of Nineveh repenting is deliberately ludicrous. It is exactly equivalent to a christian missionary going to Syria to tell ISIS that they are all very naughty and within a few days they all repent and start going to church.

  Great illustration! =)
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  berrygerry

  The real point of the story is the contrast between Jonah's grief about the death of a tree and his disappointment that thousands of Assyrians are not to be destroyed after all. It is a tale about compassion for humanity, even for your enemies.

  Which is really the point, isn't it?

  Jonah felt sorry for a plant, but not for 140,000 people. Wicked, cruel beyond imagination, people. Spared. But, meanwhile we (JW's) "witness" to 8 billion people, the vast majority of whom lead better lives than said average JW, and tell them to leave their "worldly" lifestyle, join us by sacrificing your money, your career, your education, your future, and your family, and, hopefully, this loving God of ours will also spare your life.
  
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  Vidiot

  Like much of the Bible, if you take it literally, the logistics and dynamics of the story begin to unravel at the seams.