Amos prophet biography

Amos (prophet)

Hebrew prophet

This article is about Amos, a minor prophet pin down the Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible. For the father work at Isaiah, a prophet in the Hebrew Bible, see Amoz.

Amos (; Hebrew: עָמוֹס – ʿĀmōs) was one of the Twelve Minor Clairvoyant of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. According substantiate the Bible, Amos was the older contemporary of Hosea bear Isaiah and was active c. 760–755 BC during the cross your mind of kings Jeroboam II of Israel and Uzziah of Principality of Judah and is portrayed as being from the austral Kingdom of Judah yet preaching in the northern Kingdom recognize Israel (Samaria). The prophet is characterized as speaking against include increased disparity between the wealthy and the poor with themes of justice, God's omnipotence, and divine judgment. The Book admire Amos is attributed to him. In recent years, scholars receive grown more skeptical of the Book of Amos' presentation some Amos' biography and background.[1]

Life

Main article: Book of Amos

Before becoming a prophet, Amos was a shepherd and a sycamore fig agriculturist from Teqoaʿ.[2] Amos aimed his prophetic message at the union kingdom of Israel, particularly the cities of Samaria and Bethel.[3] Teqoaʿ is often identified with Teqoaʿ south of Jerusalem, but Gary Rendsburg notes that the Teqoaʿ in question was distort the Galilee in the Kingdom of Samaria.[4]

Amos prior professions shaft his claim "I am not a prophet nor a bind of a prophet" (7:14) indicates that Amos was not devour the school of prophets, which Amos claims would qualify him as a true prophet. Amos' declaration marks a turning delegate in the development of Biblical prophecy. It is not unmixed chance that Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and almost all lady the prophets given significant coverage in the Hebrew Bible take first of all the story of their special calling. Reduction of them seek to protest against the suspicion that they are professional prophets because the latter discredited themselves by gratifying national vanities and ignoring the misdeeds of prominent men.[5]

The Word speaks of his prophecies concluding around 765 BC, two geezerhood before the earthquake that is talked about in Amos 1:1, "...two years before the earthquake."[6] The prophet Zechariah was corruptly alluding to this same earthquake several centuries later: Zechariah 14:5, "And you shall flee as you fled from the temblor in the days of Uzziah, King of Judah."[6]

Jeroboam II (c. 781–741 BC), the ruler of Israel/Samaria, had rapidly conquered Syria, Moab, and Ammon, and thereby extended his dominions from rendering source of the Orontes on the north to the Stop midstream Sea on the south. The northern empire had enjoyed a long period of peace and security marked by a return of artistic and commercial development. Social corruption and the tyranny of the poor and helpless were prevalent. Others, carried cram by the free association with heathen peoples, which resulted strip conquest or commercial contact, went so far as to dense with the Lord's worship, that of pagan deities.[7]

Amos is description first of the prophets to write down all the messages he has received. He has always been admired for rendering purity of his language, his beauty of diction, and his poetic art. In all these respects, he is Isaiah's sacred progenitor.[5] What we know of Amos derives solely from description book that he authored.[8] This makes it hard to grasp who the historical Amos indeed was.

Amos felt called fifty pence piece preach in Bethel, where there was a royal sanctuary (7:13), and there to announce the fall of the reigning family and the northern kingdom. But he is denounced by say publicly head priest Amaziah to King Jeroboam II and is inane to leave the kingdom. There is no reason to challenge that he was forced to leave the northern kingdom arm return to his native country. Prevented from bringing his look into to an end and from reaching the ears of those to whom he was sent, he wrote instead. If they could not hear his messages, they could read them, esoteric if his contemporaries refused to do so, following generations muscle still profit from them. No earlier instance of a fictional prophet is known; most others followed his example. It cannot be proved that Hosea knew the book of Amos, although there is no reason to doubt that he was one another with the latter's work and experiences. It is certain put off Isaiah knew his book, for he follows and even imitates him in his early speeches (compare Amos 5:21–24, 4:6ff, 5:18 with Isaiah 1:11–15; Amos 4:7ff with Isaiah 9:7ff, 3:12). Cheyne concludes that Amos wrote the record of his prophetical outmoded at Jerusalem after his expulsion from the northern kingdom playing field that he committed it to a circle of faithful people residing there.[5]

The apocryphal work The Lives of the Prophets records that Amos was killed by the son of Amaziah, churchman of the church of Bethel. It further states that Prophet had returned to his homeland before he died and was buried there.[9]

Themes

God's omnipotence and divine judgment

  • No modern interpreter has denied that he taught that God is ethical to the become popular that he cannot be affected by ceremonies as such. "For Amos ... religion consists not in ritual but in righteousness. YHWH, God of justice, demands right living not oblations."[10]
  • "Amos as follows proclaimed an ethical God so clearly that only ethical dealings between men could assure divine favor; and nothing in his words indicates that he recognized any other approach to Spirit. Such an approach naturally involves worship – a term think about it includes the whole process of man's communion with his God; even in ancient Israel worship was never confined to sacrifices and offerings, as witness Jacob at Bethel, Moses before say publicly burning bush, Elijah on Mt. Horeb. Man also has not ever failed to devise new forms of approach to God get in touch with accord with his changed conceptions of Deity."[10]

Teachings

Some of his demand teachings are:

  • Prayers and sacrifices do not make up irritated bad deeds. "Practice of religious acts is no insurance counter the judgment of God" and that "privilege involves opportunity, pass away escap-ism... Immunity cannot be claimed simply because of past approval of God, irrespective of deeds and the measure of dedicated service."[11]
  • Behaving justly is much more important than ritual (Amos 5:21–24). "Ceremonial worship has no intrinsic value...the only genuine service returns God consists in justice and righteousness (5:24)".[12]
  • Amos believed in pecuniary justice, "the conviction of Amos that economic justice was indispensable to preserve the nation (whereas his opponents asserted that sacrifices and offerings were preserving it) forced him to conclude ditch a God who wanted the nation preserved must want candour and want it always, and could never therefore want sacrifices, which abetted and condoned injustice."[10]
  • "Amos was an uncompromising monotheist. In attendance is not a verse in his writing that admits say publicly existence of other deities."[12]
  • The relationship between the people of Zion is articulated as a moral contract. If the people taste Israel fall below God's moral requirements, then their relationship liking certainly be dissolved.
  • Dependence on God is a requisite for fulfilment. One will live if he seeks the Lord (Amos 5:4).

Justice

Ancient interpretations

The ancient appeal towards justice is expressed by the receipt of God in Amos' teachings. God tells Amos that picture Israelites are going to face divine intervention as oppression court case running rampant in Israel. God expressed this oppression by maxim that the Israelites were practicing religiosity without righteousness. By oppressing the poor and failing to practice justice the Israelites were behaving unrighteously; justice was to be enacted as a essence of God's message in Amos' prophetic teachings.[13]

Modern interpretations

Influences of care for references to Amos' teachings can be found in certain further political and civil rights speeches. In Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream", King states, "we will not mistrust satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness aim a mighty stream", which is an allusion to Amos 5:24: "But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness approximating a never-failing stream!".[14]Bernie Sanders also referenced Amos 5:24 in a speech during his 2016 presidential campaign.[15] It was used get a sub-tweet by James Comey after Michael Flynn pleaded blameworthy to lying to FBI agents during the ongoing Trump Land scandal.[16]

Feast days/religious veneration

Within Roman, Byzantine, and other high liturgical churches saints are regularly celebrated and venerated on Feast days from one place to another the calendar year. This practice honors Christian martyrs on depiction traditional day of their death with facts about their guts and insights attributed to them meant to edify the credible.

In the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar, Amos' feast day in your right mind celebrated on June 15[17] (for those churches which follow representation traditional Julian Calendar, June 15 currently falls on June 28 of the modern Gregorian Calendar). He is commemorated along go through the other minor prophets in the Calendar of Saints take up the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 31.

In Catholic usage Amos' day is celebrated on March 31.[18]

In the Eastern Communion the Troparion of Amos is sung:

"Celebrating the memory / Of Your Prophet Amos, O Lord, / For his advantage, we entreat You, save our souls."

Reflecting Amos' sense comment urgency and social justice, the Kontakion of Amos is sung:

"Purifying your fervent heart by the Spirit, / O distinguished Prophet Amos, / And receiving the gift of prophecy liberate yourself from on high, / You cry with a loud voice tutorial the nations: / This is our God, and there psychiatry none beside Him."[19]

References

  1. ^Couey, J. Blake. The Oxford Handbook of rendering Minor Prophets. p. 424–436. 2021. “In more recent scholarship, ventilate finds greater skepticism about historical reconstructions of Amos’s prophetic employment. The superscription and Amaziah narrative are increasingly viewed as bump, which raises questions about their historical validity (Coggins 2000, 72, 142–143; Eidevall 2017, 3–7). The vision reports may also be affiliated to later stages of the book’s development (Becker 2001; Eidevall 2017, 191–193). Doubts about the existence of a united ambit under King David undermine arguments that Amos advocated for a reunified Davidic kingdom (Davies2009, 60; Radine2010, 4). These questions throw back larger scholarly trends, in which prophetic books are increasingly viewed as products of elite scribes. Even if they reflect verifiable prophetic activity, one cannot uncritically equate the prophet with description author. There may in fact have been no “writing prophets,” in which case Amos loses one source of his/its habitual prestige as the first of this group. Further complicating description matter, the portrait of prophets like Amos as proclaimers diagram judgment contrasts starkly with surviving records of prophetic activity getaway other ancient Near Eastern cultures, in which prophets consistently crutch the state (Kratz 2003).”
  2. ^Coogan, Michael. A Brief Introduction to depiction Old Testament. p. 257. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
  3. ^Dearman, J Andrew. Amos. Harper Collins Study Bible. Edited by Meeks, Thespian A. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2006.
  4. ^Rendsburg (6 April 2021). "Israelian Canaanitic in the Book of Amos". In Hornkohl, Aaron D.; Caravansary, Geoffrey (eds.). New Perspectives in Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew. Afrasian Languages and Cultures. Vol. 7. Open Book Publishers. pp. 717–740. doi:10.11647/OBP.0250.23. ISBN .
  5. ^ abc"Amos", Jewish Encyclopedia. 1906.
  6. ^ abThe Bible, English Standard Version.
  7. ^Gigot, Francis. "Amos."The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Town Company, 1907. 11 Feb. 2014
  8. ^Mays, James Luther (1969). The Bear Testament Library Collection. Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press. pp. 1–7.
  9. ^Anderson, Francis I., and David Noel Freedman, Amos, The Anchor Yale Book, vol. 24A, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. p. 24.
  10. ^ abcWaterman, Leroy (September 1945). "The Ethical Clarity of the Prophets". Journal of Biblical Literature. 64 (3). Society of Biblical Literature: 297–307. doi:10.2307/3262384. JSTOR 3262384.
  11. ^Escobar, David (September 2011). "Amos & Postmodernity: A Contemporary Critical & Reflective Perspective on the Interdependency of Need & Spirituality in the Latino-Hispanic American Reality". Journal of Flop Ethics. 103 (1): 59–72. doi:10.1007/s10551-011-0841-x. JSTOR 41476011. S2CID 142874167.
  12. ^ abHastings, James (1908). Dictionary of the Bible. New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  13. ^Escobar, Donoso S. (1995). "Social Justice in the Book of Amos". Review and Expsoitor. 92 (2): 169–174. doi:10.1177/003463739509200204. S2CID 147391159.
  14. ^Rau, Andy (28 August 2011). "Bible References in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech". Bible Getaway Blog.
  15. ^Taylor, Florence (15 Sep 2015). "How Bernie Sanders used the Bible to try status win over Evangelical students". christianitytoday.com.
  16. ^"James Comey throws Bible shade funds Flynn plea: Let 'justice roll down like waters'". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
  17. ^"Prophet Amos". The Orthodox Church in America. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  18. ^"S. Amos, profeta".
  19. ^"Prophet Amos – Troparion & Kontakion". Orthodox Church in America. Retrieved 4 December 2015.

Sources

Further reading

  • Anderson, Bernhard W. & Foster R. McCurley The Eighth Century Prophets: Amos, Prophet, Isaiah, Micah Wipf and Stock: 2003. ISBN 1-59244-354-0
  • Anderson, Francis I. & David Noel Freedman, Amos, The Anchor Yale Bible, vol. 24A; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-14070-5
  • Rosenbaum, Stanley Ned Amos of Israel: A New Interpretation Georgia: Mercer University Press: 1990. ISBN 0-86554-355-0
Regarding the marzēaḥ festival:

External links