Jonah's journey

(18.) PRE Chapter 10, Tanhuma. Rabbi Natan's remarks about Jonah, Mekilta lines 103-104.

(19.) Midrash Lamentations Rabbah (comment on Lamentations 3:43); see also The Midrash on Psalms 65.4.

(20.) Midrash Genesis Rabbah 5.5; The Midrash on Psalms, 8.7; see also PRE Chapter 10.

(21.) PRE Chapter 10, Tanhuma.

(22.) PRE, Chapter 10, Tanhuma. Jonah as forerunner or as the Messiah: see Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publications Society, 1968), Vol. 6, notes 31 and 38; Tanna Debe Eliyyahu, Wilham G. Braude and Israel J. Kapstein, trans. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publications Society, 1981), Chapter 18, 257, n. 59 (Eliyyahu Rabbah 98).

(23.) PRE Chapter 10. "The day is short ...": Pirke Avot 2.15-16 (in some editions 2.20-21). Did Rabbi Tarfon really suggest that the fish was created specially for Jonah? Probably not. According to the article on the PRE in the Encyclopedia Judaica, this eight century aggadic work "falsely attributes sayings to many tannaim" and in fact the PRE is described as "a pseudepigraphic work par excellence" (Vol. 13:559). Coincidentally in Midrash Genesis Rabbah 5.5 it is Rabbi Jeremiah ben Eleazar (Amora: c. 250-300) who is credited with the observation about the fish and Jonah.

(24.) Tanhuma: Zohar, Exodus 47b-48a; PRE Chapter 10.

(25.) PRE Chapter 43; Midrash Genesis Rabbah, 44.12; Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah, 3.18.1; Pesikta Rabbati, Piska 52.3.

(26.) PRE Chapter 43; the tradition that Jonah returned to Israel, however, is not rabbinic. It is found in die pseudepigraphic work 3 Macabees 6:8, and in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 9 Chapter 10.

(27.) The Midrash to Psalms, 26.7

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