The paper discusses the thesis of U. Mell, that the book of Jonah originated in prehellenistic Jewish circles of the 3rd century B.C, who belonged to the same movement of Hellenistic Reform-Judaism as those who supported the religious reforms of Antiochus IV. While Mell thinks that the aim of the book is to propagate a kind of ethic monotheism joining all people regardless of their concrete religion, the paper wants to show that the Book of Jonah stresses the particularity of Israel amoung the people. There seems to be no common basic position between Jonah and the prohellenistic reformers of the time of Antiochus.
