The Merciful and Compassionate God: A Biblical Theology of Jonah in the Context of Islam

Abstract

This dissertation aims to develop a biblical typological theology of the book of Jonah in the context of lslam. As the research is focused toward this goal, a reception history approach will be employed to investigate how the book of Jonah was received by Jesus and Muhammad' s community. Both communities, as will be argued by this study, distinctively read the narrative of Jonah typologically. For Jesus' community as reflected in Matthew's and Luke's writings, Jonah functions as a type of a suffering prophet and preacher of a prophetic ministry of judgement. For Muhammad's community as reflected in Islamic literature, Yiinus functions as a man of prayer, an impatient yet repentant prophet. Informed by such a conclusion, this study moves to read the book of Jonah typologically following three major hermeneutical endeavours: analysing the book of Jonah exegetically in its own context in light of the character of God as it is revealed in Jonah 4:2; interpreting the text typologically in light of God's redemptive work in history in both Testaments; and finally, engaging with the context of lslam through the typological reading of lslamic literature of the narrative of Yunus. The hermeneutical spiral between all these elements will be present throughout this study.