The Book of Jonah

This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to sign up for this event, go to: https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe/events/303553350

The Book of Jonah is one of the most recognizable, most curious, and most strangely compelling in the Bible. For centuries, it has inspired sermons, art, literature, music, and debate (including debate about whether the story is history, parable, allegory, or satire). Despite its familiarity and antiquity, it is filled with surprises and themes that are still relevant.

As sacred text, it serves as a source of revelation and wisdom about the divine. But Jonah is a paradoxical figure: he is a prophet almost without a message and nearly lacking the courage to convey it. And the Book's brevity--"one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures"--belies its rapid shifts in scene and plethora of challenges to the hero. Besides the famous "great fish" (or whale, in fact a small part of the narrative) it features storms and sailors, rebellion and rescue, preaching and protest, and a miraculous plant and miraculous worms that devour it.

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."