"Just A Story"

A little context: this comes from a conversation about reading scripture seriously.  We're talking about the fact that the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament comes to us as imaginative literature, as story.

From the Mailbag:

I was moving on to other places like the Book of Jonah, for instance. I've heard the book of Jonah referred to as 'just a story'.

The word "just" always strikes me as proof-positive that whoever is talking doesn't quite grasp how the mind and imagination really work. "Just" a story? By "just" do we mean, "Not true"? When we tell our kids stories ("How mom met dad," "How grand-dad lost his left eye") are we "just telling stories"? Are we telling pure fact? Probably not. Stories are who we are, and it's only in the age of news-broadcasts and hand-held digital cameras that "just a story" can be equivalent to "not true."

Jonah IS a story. Is it "just" a story? Jesus refers to it, and he doesn't then add, "But it's just a story." Nor does he insist, "Oh, and this HAPPENED, I'll trouble you!" He tells the story. It told him what God was like, who he was, and what Israel's role in the history of the world would be, and so it was true.