Editing Jonah (section)

==Suggested connections to legends==
[[File:Chapiteau Mozac Jonas 1.JPG|thumb|Jonah being swallowed by a great toothed sea-monster. Sculpted column capital from the nave of the abbey-church in [[Mozac]], France, 12th century.]]
===''Epic of Gilgamesh''===
[[Joseph Campbell]] suggests that the story of Jonah parallels a scene from the ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'', in which [[Gilgamesh]] obtains a plant from the bottom of the sea.{{sfn|Campbell|1988|pages=90–95}} In the Book of Jonah, a [[worm]] (in Hebrew ''tola'ath'', "maggot") bites the shade-giving plant's root causing it to wither;{{sfn|Campbell|1988|pages=90–95}} whereas in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', Gilgamesh ties stones to his feet and plucks his plant from the floor of the sea.{{sfn|Campbell|1988|pages=90–95}}{{sfn|Dalley|1989|pages=118–119}} Once he returns to the shore, the rejuvenating plant is eaten by a serpent.{{sfn|Campbell|1988|pages=90–95}}{{sfn|Dalley|1989|page=119}}

===Jason (Greek mythology)===
Campbell also noted several similarities between the story of Jonah and that of [[Jason]] in Greek mythology.{{sfn|Campbell|1988|pages=90–95}} The Greek rendering of the name Jonah is ''Jonas'' (Ἰωνᾶς), which differs from ''Jason'' (Ἰάσων) only in the order of sounds—both ''o''s are [[omega]]s suggesting that Jason may have been confused with Jonah.{{sfn|Campbell|1988|pages=90–95}} Gildas Hamel, drawing on the Book of Jonah and [[Greco-Roman world|Greco-Roman]] sources—including [[Pottery of ancient Greece|Greek vases]] and the accounts of [[Apollonius of Rhodes]], [[Gaius Valerius Flaccus]] and [[Argonautica|Orphic Argonautica]]—identifies a number of shared motifs, including the names of the heroes, the presence of a dove, the idea of "fleeing" like the wind and causing a storm, the attitude of the sailors, the presence of a sea-monster or dragon threatening the hero or swallowing him, and the form and the word used for the "gourd" (''[[kikayon]]''). Hamel takes the view that it was the Hebrew author who reacted to and adapted this mythological material to communicate his own quite different message.<ref name=Hamel2015>{{cite journal|last=Hamel|first=Gildas|title=Taking the Argo to Nineveh: Jonah and Jason in a Mediterranean Context|journal=Judaism|volume=44|issue=3|pages=1–21|date=25 April 2015|orig-year=1995|url=https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.ucsc.edu/dist/9/20/files/2015/06/Jonah.pdf}}</ref>