Big G appears before Jonah, one of his prophets, with a holy mission: go to the city of Nineveh. Hold onto your Bible hats, now. In a surprising plot twist, it turns out God’s mad at them. I know! God wants Jonah to tell the Ninevites that they have angered Him for reasons He chooses not to delve into, and that they have forty days before He destroys the city. In terms of opening opening scenes it's a total grabber, getting a lot of exposition out of the way while hooking you in with the promise of expensive action sequences.

Jonah complies happily with God’s commands, waving and laughing as he walks slowly backward until God's out of sight behind a cloud — at which point he spins on his heel and windsprints to the nearest harbor, where he hops on a ship in the opposite direction. Nice.

The story would have you believe, by the way, that Jonah disobeyed God because of all that stuff we went over last page — as a Person of Judah, he didn’t want to give the "unchosen" Ninevites the opportunity to possibly repent before the 40-day deadline, thus earning them God's love. Seriously, even for the Bible: what a total dick. I should admit, though, that I wouldn't have obeyed God either. Not because I wanted to keep all the good Jesus bulletins to myself — I just have enough self-preservation instincts to know a death mission when I hear one. The city of Nineveh didn't actually believe in Jonah’s God, keep in mind. Imagine hopping on a plane right now and waltzing down a main street in Iran, telling everyone how angry Jesus is and that they’ve got a month to shape up before He kills them all. You don't have to be a xenophobic prick like Jonah to realize you'd be about one “Let me hear you say ‘Oh! Oh! Ohhhhhhh!’ if you know God hates Nineveh! Just the ladies!” from being strung up by your testicles and beat like a Jew-piñata.

Motivations aside, Jonah boards a ship bound for Tarshish and sails away as fast as the wind will carry him. You know, 'A' for effort to Jonah for having the stones to get direct orders from God and make a run for it anyway, but I’m subtracting marks for strategy. If you’re going to go on the lam from someone, I think it’s wise to check if they’re omniscient first. If they’re, say, God, for instance, that makes them very omniscient. Might be best to go right to plan B and save the gas money.

It takes Big G all of five seconds to (a) place the city of Nineveh on a map and (b) notice Jonah heading rapidly in the opposite direction. God takes a big hit off His omniscient detective pipe and puts the pieces together. Furious, Big G conjures a violent seastorm that threatens to swamp the ship. Hmm. Conjuring up violent seastorms to shipwreck sailors seems more up Neptune’s alley, really. Maybe Big G subcontracted the job out.