Abstract
Tucker teaches at Baylor University. His research focuses on the Psalter and Hebrew poetry. The Jonah Handbook originally appeared in 2006 as the first volume of the Baylor Handbook on the Hebrew Bible series. Subsequent publications in this series, including the prominent work of R. Holmstedt (see the Handbooks on Ruth, Esther, and Qoheleth), are a key factor in Tucker revising the Jonah Handbook. Tucker explains that his methodology changed from Longacre’s discourse analysis (2006) to a generative linguistics approach followed by most of the authors of this series (2018; p. 1).
Insights from discourse analysis remain in the Handbook, however. For example, the lexical switch, from המלחים to האנשׂים in 1:10 (also in 1:13 and 1:16) serves to “flatten” the difference between Jonah and the sailors (p. 35). Additionally, the singular שׂאי collectively describes the sailors in 1:5 and 1:7, while the sailors refer to Jonah as האישׂ הזה in 1:13. In other words, the narrator shows that the sailors and Jonah are in the same boat, literally and lexically. Also, the use of טול in 1:4 and 1:15 forms an inclusio around the sea section (p. 43), as does the employment of prosopopoeia in 1:4 (p. 23) and 1:15 (p. 43).
As a reader of the earlier edition, I can testify that this version is a substantial revision and expansion. The discussion of clausal constituents (p. 2-3), verbal valency including complements and adjuncts (p. 4), and topic and focus fronting (p. 7), aligns this work with the most recent Handbooks in this series (e.g., Qoheleth by R. Holmstedt, J. Cook, and P. Marshall and Hosea by E. Tully).
The elucidation of every syntactic element in the Hebrew text remains the strength of this series. For example, the discussion of the irregular noun גורל (p. 29), the strange feminine form דגה (p. 48), the use of different forms of the relative, אשׂר and שׂ, by the same person in 1:7–8 and 4:10–11 (p. 11–14, 31–32; see the article by Holmstedt and Kirk in 2016), internal adjuncts (p. 35, 44, 65, 83, 95), poetic enjambment based on the work on F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp (p. 51–54, 56, 58–61), double entendre (p. 28, 40, 94, 95), and the Janus function of חרה in 4:1 (p. 84), are a few examples of the detail of this Handbook and the series in general.
The Jonah Handbook retains a balance between accessibility and detail. The outcome yields a helpful grammatical, lexical, and linguistic portrayal of the Hebrew text of Jonah. The intended reader is the beginning to intermediate Hebrew student who is first stepping into the text of the Hebrew Bible by reading Jonah. It would be an ideal text for a Hebrew reading course in both undergraduate and graduate settings. Particularly helpful for the beginning student is the fact that the Handbook provides an explanation of a form on its every occurrence within the book (e.g., the apocopated form of III-ה verbs in wayyiqtol on p. 92, 93, 96), thereby fortifying the concept in the student’s mind. Tucker should be commended for his revision of both the Handbook and his methodology.