Jonah - (Earth Bible Commentary) by Jione Havea (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Jione Havea analyses the Book of Jonah through the lens of climate change, using this present situation to reconsider the significance of Jonah for contemporary struggles and contexts, and tapping into traditional practices of commentary to draw out the meaning of the biblical text. Havea takes Jonah 3:10 as a starting point, in which God repents and rethinks (decides not to destroy), taking this as a challenge and an opportunity for biblical scholars to reflect on the realities of climate change.

Havea builds on this opportunity in two ways: first, by reading Jonah forward, giving special attention to the orientation of the narrative toward the sea and Nineveh, and then backward, highlighting the significance of sea and (is)land lives to the flow of the narrative. Second, by looking at the other figures in the narrative, rather than focusing on the narrator's obsession with Jonah and his God. Havea reminds readers that the fish, plant, worm and other beasts are also crucial in this narrative, and considers how this can change our reading of the text.

Review Quotes

A commentary for people who distrust commentaries, this book is profound, incisive, and fun. With writing that ebbs and flows backwards and forwards- through time, around Pasifika, across canonical bounds-Havea weaves his audience into a conversation about and around Jonah; and alongside his artful storytelling, we must rethink ourselves, the stories we tell, and the time and space (and very meaning) of ecological justice. Plunge in and let go.
JACQUELINE M. HIDALGO, Williams College, USA

An excellent and ground-breaking volume from Jione Havea! Here is a timely invitation to journey beyond Jonah and Jonah's God, entering the ebb and flow of biblical "tidalectics", and daring to take a deep plunge in, through, and beyond the sargassum deluge of interpretative attempts that drowns out the key earth(ed) players in the story. The most urgent challenge before us - climate change - demands nothing less. This is bible commentary, riding the waves, at its best.
MICHAEL JAGESSAR, The United Reformed Church, UK

With this brilliantly innovative commentary on Jonah, Jione Havea has succeeded not only in "rocking the boat" of the biblical commentary enterprise, but he may very well have overturned it! His fresh analysis of Jonah using "native, sea and (is) land orientations" steers the commentary boat away from the conformity and compliance paradigms that characterises so much of this genre of scholarship. An invaluable resource for students and scholars who are embracing a de-colonial turn.
SAROJINI NADAR, University of the Western Cape, South Africa

About the Author

Jione Havea is a native Methodist pastor from Tonga, a Research Fellow at Trinity Theological College, Aotearoa New Zealand, and an honorary researcher with the Public and Contextual Theology centre of Charles Sturt University, Australia.