Etiese gesigspunte in die boek Jona

Abstract: The Bible contains not onJy the will of God, but also a collection of traditional materials that gradually emerged from the people of ancient Israel and early Christianity and which eventually became their authoritative statements about their God, the nature of their existence and their customs. Morality and ethics are observable in this literature (Knight 1982:56). From this point of departure an attempt has been made in this study to identify the ethical aspects contained in the book of Jonah. In order to do justice to the subject, it was necessary at the outset to define ethics. While taking cognisance of the fact that there is no generally accepted definition of the field of ethics, it seemed appropriate to consider the origin of the term "ethics". The term "ethics" is derived from the Greek word "ethos" and ethics is concerned with the study of the concentrated ethos of a society or period and entails conscious reflection on moral usages and custom (Bosman l983a:98; 1983b:10-12). This essay is therefore concerned with the study of the concretised ethos of the societies (Israel, the heathen sailors and the Ninevites) referred to in the book of Jonah. The purpose of the study is to identify these ethos and to deduce ethical aspects from the book by means of Barton's three types of presuppositions, namely (a) obedience to God's revealed will, (b) conformity to a pattern of natural order, (c) imitation of God (Barton 1978:59, 60). It was important to determine the literary category of this book, and various suggestions concerning its literary form. When the different literary categories were explored, the most appropriate classification of the book of Jonah seemed hypothetically to be the narrative drama. All the criteria for a narrative drama are applicable to the book...M.A