Hello and welcome to the podcast, The Scriptures are Real. This is the podcast where we talk about elements of the scriptures that have made them become more real to us, and that allows us to draw more power out of them and we need that power in our lives.

I'm your host, Carrie Mielstein and in this episode, we're going to talk about the origins of

the Book of Jonah and how the story came together. And then we're going to emphasize the

artistry that comes from that story and the literary elements of the story. And that will allow

us to say, what do the literary elements of the story. And that will allow us to say,

what do these literary elements teach us about prophets? And we'll also explore connections with

Canaanite mythology and how the story is used elsewhere, such as how Jesus uses it. In order

to help us with that, I'm so excited to have our guest, Stephen Smoot. He's been with us before when we talked

about the Exodus. And so we introduced Stephen a little bit there. I've done a lot of work with

Stephen. We've co-authored a number of things and we work on projects together. He's just

finishing up a PhD in Egyptology at Catholic University. He did a master's in Egyptology at the

University of Toronto. So welcome, Stephen, and tell us a little bit more about yourself. Well, thank you for having back on the show, Kerry. I appreciate that. I'm glad that I didn't say anything last time that was so egregious or embarrassing that you, you know, kicked me off the show. So happy to be back here. There we go. There we go. Yes.

This is my rejection. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that was fantastic. Well, thank you. I had a good time

then, and I'm looking forward to our discussion of Jonah. So yeah, I guess just a little bit about me.

You've kind of hit the highlights. I'm currently a PhD student. I just have to correct you just

slightly. My doctorate is in specifically

Semitic and Egyptian languages and literature at the Catholic University. That's okay. It's a long,

fancy title, right? For basically, you're right. I do Egyptology. I also do biblical studies,

but my program specifically has a little bit both in the mix right of the two so just a slight

correction there but yes i'm at catholic university uh pursuing uh my doctoral work there and i'm i'm right

now working well in the same department as you are as adjunct faculty at religious education

at bi u which i'm having a tremendous time doing i'm having a lot of fun there. And I'm trying to think what else. Yeah, I've got several nice fun projects in the works. You and I have something in the works to get a little spoiler-free, you know, heads up to your listeners to look forward to something you and I and others will have coming out here in the near future. And so I'm just sort of living. I think we can say it's on the book of Abraham. Sure, yeah. Your listeners can probably guess, right? Yeah. So Carrie and I and John Guy and John Thompson, two other Latter-day St. Egyptologists, we have a book coming out here in the near-ish future, probably looking sometime in early or mid-20203, probably we're looking at.

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