Читать книгу Jonah Through the Centuries - Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer - Страница 14

Due to the prevalent and often very anti-Jewish quality of much Christian interaction with the Book of Jonah, many Jewish interpreters reacted to this polemic. For instance, many Jewish interpreters problematized the typological interpretations of the sailors by turning them into either Jewish converts or persecuting Christians. Likewise, Jewish interpreters responded to the Christian praise of the Ninevites by casting doubts upon the sincerity and longevity of their repentance. This line of exegesis receives support from a comparative reading of Jonah and Nahum, where the latter book describes Nineveh’s historical destruction in 612 bce. It gains further momentum by the references to the fasting animals in Jonah 3:7: according to many rabbis, the Ninevites’ decision to withhold water from innocent animals demonstrated their inherent cruelty (e.g. y.Tan. 2:1).