Reimagining Jonah
A Flight to Freedom

What would cause a proclaimed prophet to run away from everything he called home and dodge theunyielding God of his tribe? Devoted to an uncompromising commitment to selfhood, Dr. Doug Wheelerchallenges the traditional assumption that Jonah was a miserable coward by examining him as a deeplyconflicted, courageous, and soulful man. With a poetic flair, Reimagining Jonah provokes and confoundswith language flavored by trauma and empathy, producing a richly contemplative and profoundly humanversion of this well-known tale.
“Here is the story of Jonah like you have never heard it before! Doug Wheeler brings to his writing hislong wise years as a pastoral therapist. He knows that every story we tell — including Jonah’s — is thickwith subterranean transactions and freighted with background. It turns out that the story, in his giftedartistry, is an account of being “born again” in freedom as a true self, engaged with the real world, andpartnered with the holy God who is well beyond all of our idols. Wheeler insists in an inescapable way onour being participants in the narrative, with an earnest of good outcomes for our role in the story that is ascontemporary as it is ancient.”— Walter Brueggemann, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary