Reading Stories: Jonah, Ruth, and Esther

I just posted my interview with Bruce Epperly about his new book Jonah: When God Changes on the Energion Discussion Network. I’m going to embed it here as well. I want to call attention to it along with Bruce’s next most recent (!) book Ruth & Esther: Women of Agency and Adventure.

Sometimes we get different pictures of God from the narratives of scripture than we do from the affirmations. I don’t think the narrative should be neglected. We often geld the narrative in order to keep it from challenging our existing perceptions of God. But those perceptions frequently are desperately in need of a challenge.

What happens when the good guy finds himself on the wrong side of everything (Jonah)? What if two Jewish characters survive in a foreign court in completely different ways (Daniel and Esther)? What if there’s a woman in David’s genealogy (and in Jesus’s) that really shouldn’t be there? Can a perfect, sovereign God regret things? If not, what actually happens at the beginning of Genesis 6?

Here’s my interview with Bruce Epperly:

And here’s Louis Armstrong’s Jonah and the Whale, just for fun: