In the dynamic interchange between authors, texts, and readers that occurs during the reading process, readers are stimulated by the author to create complex inner representations of the reality presented in a text. The cognitive linguistic approach outlined in the first part of Inner Worlds offers a set of analytical tools that can be instructively applied to the book of Jonah to examine how the text presents its own reality to the reader. Retranslated with an eye to the distinct nuances in the Hebrew, the text of Jonah reveals a range of suggestive dynamic patterns that show the irony of Jonah’s limited perspectives on his misfortunes compared with the transcendent perspective of a gracious God.

Translated by: William V. Dunlap