The geography of the book of Jonah is certainly capable of being plotted on a map of the ancient Near East; however, the literary stylization of that geography creates a world that never existed out of locations that had existed. The cities mentioned include a minor coastal port, Joppa; a Mediterranean trading port of debated location, Tarshish; and one of the series of capital cities of the Assyrian Empire, Nineveh. None of these towns is described in any detail in the text and all serve only as prop backgrounds for the action that takes place in and outside of them. It cannot be assumed that the author of Jonah had ever seen any of the towns, or that there was any concern for these sites as actual places. On the other hand, the reference to Yahweh's “holy temple” (2:5, 8) no doubt was identified with the Temple in Jerusalem by author and audience alike.

Real Places, but Only as They Are Imagined

For a literate populace, to whom the tale was addressed, it would have made sense to use places known to the audience for grounding the story in a real landscape, even if the story proceeded to creatively reconstruct that world in a fantastic mode.