My pastor is preaching a series on Jonah which made me think about this. Tarshish, of course, is where Jonah tries to flee to when he runs from God instead of going to Nineveh.
It has been speculated that Tarshish is part of modern-day Spain or Sardinia, as my pastor suggested and as this article also says.
Anyone heard any other theories? It’s so fascinating to look into the settings of these biblical stories. I love how learning about history can help me understand Scripture better!
There’s something kind of poetic in how Tarshish sits in that hazy zone between data and imagination.
The scholarship is all over the map, Spain (near Tartessos), Sardinia, even a few arguments for far-flung trading ports the other direction, but what sticks out isn’t just the coordinates. it’s how “Tarshish” functions in the story.
to Jonah it’s “the edge of the map.”
the furthest plausible exit.
almost like: “anywhere but the place obedience would take me.”
sometimes the exact dot on the globe matters less than what the name symbolizes — distance, escape, a bid for control.
and that makes me pause more than the geography.
when a place in Scripture shows up primarily as a vector of avoidance… the location starts to feel like a mirror.
I think you’re onto something, for sure. I think it’s a trap we often fall into–zoning in with laser focus on a detail mentioned in the Bible and essentially missing the forest for the trees.
I agree that the Bible is much more full of symbolism, metaphor, and other poetic devices than we often give it credit for! It’s often a lot richer to read it that way. Not that what it says is fictional, but it’s truth that goes beyond facts.
Tarshish being a literal place but also a stand-in for our own avoidance of God and his calling is an example of why all of Scripture is still so applicable to us today.
The role of Tarshish in Jonah is probably more important than its actual location.
Though we can probably safely assume that Tarshish was a real place. Throughout history people have been trying to make their best educated guess. Some have thought Tarshish referred to Tarsus, others that Tarshish refers to a place in Spain. From what I can gather, the most common opinion is Sardinia–an island which has historically been famous for its ore, especially silver; which would have made it a wealthy and important location for civilizations and societies throughout the Mediterranean, including the Levant. Sardinia was very far from Israel (let’s try to imagine ourselves in the ancient world where even a short distance for us today would be seen as a far distance back then)–so if Sardinia is Tarshish, that would definitely make the idea of Tarshish as “the farthest place imaginable” sensible. Jonah wants to go to the opposite side of the world, in effect.