The NLTSB Meets the ESVSB on The Book of Jonah

I thought I’d try my hand at a comparison between two competing Study Bibles:  The NLT and the ESV.  The NLT SB boasts of “The Truth Made Clear while the ESV SB boasts of “The Most Comprehensive Study Bible Ever Created.”

Well, I decided to put them head-to-head on The Book of Jonah:

Author and Date/Title

NLT SB: The book of Jonah does not identify its author.  The title derives from the name of the main character.  Jonah may have written the book, though whether he wrote it or not does not affect its integrity as Scripture.  If someone other than Jonah wrote the book, it was probably a prophetic associate of his.

ESV SB: The title of the book is the name of the main character, Jonah. The book is anonymous, and there are no indicators elsewhere in Scripture to identify the author. The foundational source for the book was likely Jonah’s own telling of the story after his return from Nineveh.

Both make the same points.

Genre

NLT SB: Unlike other prophetic books, Jonah is almost entirely narrative rather than a collection of prophetic messages.  But is it a historical narrative?  Many have insisted that the book is fictional because it describes miraculous events, and diverse attempts have been made to classify the book according to some non-historical literary genre, the most popular choices being parable and “didactic story.”  Although the author of Jonah did utilize certain literary devices to make his point (the use of poetry, irony, and language common to parables is clear), the book presents itself as a historical account (see 1:1), and it is best understood as a historical narrative whose purpose includes communicating the theological and moral significance of the events that occurred.

ESV SB: The genre of Jonah is debated. The book has been read as an allegory, using fictional figures to symbolize some other reality. According to this interpretation, Jonah is a symbol of Israel in its refusal to carry out God’s mission to the nations…  Another proposal is that the book is a parable to teach believers not to be like Jonah. Like allegories, parables are also based on fictional and not historical characters. Parables, however, are typically simple tales that make a single point, whereas the book of Jonah is quite complex and teaches a multiplicity of themes.

The book of Jonah has all the marks of a prophetic narrative, like those about Elijah and Elisha found in 1 Kings, which set out to report actual historical events.

The story of Jonah is not, however, history for history’s sake. The book is clearly didactic (as the allegorical and parabolic interpretations rightly affirm); that is, the story is told to teach the reader key lessons. The didactic character of the book shines through in the repeated use of questions, 11 out of 14 being addressed to Jonah, and the question that closes the narrative leaves readers asking themselves how they will respond to the story.

I give the ESV SB the slight edge over the NLT SB here.

Study Notes:

NLT SB: 1:2 By Jonah’s day, Ninevah already had quite a long history (see Gen 10:12).  It was a key city in the Assyrian empire until its destruction in 612 BC (see Nah 1-3).  Ninevah’s ruins are located across the Tigris River from the modern city of Mosul, Iraq.

ESV SB: Nineveh sat on the east bank of the Tigris River about 220 miles (354 km) north of present-day Baghdad and over 500 miles (805 km) northeast of Israel.

I give the NLT SB the slight edge here.

NLT SB: 1:3 Tarshish was possibly the port city of Tartessos in Spain, in which case Jonah was attempting to flee as far as imaginable in the opposite direction from Ninevah.  Tarsus in Asia Minor is another possibility.  Some think Tarshish is a general reference to the sea or to any destination accessible by sea.

ESV SB: To Tarshish is repeated three times in this verse to underscore that Jonah is not going to Nineveh. Tarshish, an unknown locale associated with distant coastlands, was somewhere in the western Mediterranean—the opposite direction from Nineveh.

This might be a toss up, though I’m leaning toward the NLT SB on this one.

NLT SB 2:2 From the land of the dead (literally from the belly of Sheol): Sheol was thought to be the abode of the dead (see Isa 14:15; Ezek 31:15-17).  The belly metaphor for Sheol is found nowhere else in the OT; it pictures Jonah’s experience of being delivered from Sheol through the belly of a fish.

ESV SB: Sheol refers to the realm of the dead, which one would enter by going through a gate made of “bars” (see v. 6 and Job 17:16; 38:17; Ps. 9:13). Jonah did not literally pray from Sheol but describes his near-death experience (see Ps. 30:2–3).

I have to give the NLT SB the nod here.

NLT SB: 3:6 The King of Ninevah was either an unknown governor of the city or perhaps the king of Assyria, who might have used Ninevah as a regular seat of government (cp. 2 Kgs 19:9-13).

ESV SB: The “king of Nineveh” was probably not the king of Assyria, since Nineveh was not an Assyrian capital in Jonah’s day; he may have been a provincial governor who ruled from Nineveh.

This could go either way, but the NLT SB gets an extra point for the 2 Kings reference.

NLT SB: 3:10 he changed his mind: Had the people of Ninevah not repented, God would have destroyed them (3:4).  But God was ready to meet their repentance with mercy (see 4:2, 11).  In God’s mind, the change did not reverse his original intention, because his disposition always included the possibility of mercy.  Nor does this change in God’s mind say anything about God’s foreknowledge.  Historically, the churcch has believed that God knows the future fully (see Ps 139:4; Isa 46:10; Dan 2:28-29; Matt 24:36).  Nothing in this account contradicts that belief.

ESV SB: 3:10 evil . . . disaster. Both terms translate Hebrew ra‘ah (see note on 1:2). The use of the same word underscores the close connection between human action and divine response. God did not carry out the threatened disaster because the Ninevites repented of their evil (see note on 3:4). From a temporal perspective, God responds to human action; from an eternal perspective, God chooses the means (human repenting) as well as the end (divine relenting). The repentance of Gentiles contrasts with the repeated lack of repentance on the part of Israel (see note on vv. 7–8).

On this one I must go with the ESV SB.  The NLT SB has almost forgotten about the text to engage the position of open theism.  The ESV SB spends more time with the text.

Now these are just my impressions.