I. Amos
I. Amos(TOC)
We begin our review with the Book of Amos. The first passage that comes under consideration is chapter 1:2 : "Jehovah roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem." The prominence here given to Zion and Jerusalem is obnoxious to the critics, because, on their hypothesis, the temple did not obtain its prerogative of being the central sanctuary and the one dwelling-place of Jehovah until after the Deuteronomic reform. Hence the verse is suspected by some,[10] while others attempt to put upon it a weakening interpretation. Wellhausen thinks that, as a Judean, Amos would naturally select Zion as the place from which Jehovah's judgment proceeds. From the standpoint of the critics themselves there is a serious objection to this. If, as is continually asserted, the temple on Zion was the seat of a cult not essentially different from nor better than that practiced at such shrines as Bethel, Gilgal, Dan, Beersheba and against which Amos so sharply polemicizes, it must have been simply impossible for the prophet to identify Jehovah in any way with this center of idolatry.[11] For, according to verse 5, Jehovah is not to be found at Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba. For this reason no other interpretation will suit than that which finds in the words a reference to Zion, not as one among the many high places of the land, but as the divinely chosen sanctuary, whence the foreign nations, and even the northern Israelites, had to expect the advent of Jehovah for judgment.[12] It cannot be denied, therefore, that the passage is a stumbling-block to the critical theory, and Cheyne may well express surprise at Wellhausen's accepting it in 1892 without question. But it is equally impossible to eliminate the verse as it is to weaken the sense, for the suffix in wnby#), wherever it occurs in the subsequent verses, would then remain without antecedent.[13] Besides this from the later standpoint the contents and form of the statement are too innocent for an intentional interpolation.
Greater unanimity prevails among the critics in regard to the late insertion of chapter 2:4, 5, the indictment of Judah. This passage has been thrown out by Duhm,[14] Oort,[15] Stade,[16] Cornill, [17] Wellhausen,[18] Cheyne.[19] The case is a highly instructive one, because more openly than elsewhere the motives of the excision are here professed by the critics. Oort says: "Of the Thorath Jahwe, not in the sense of Jahwe'sinstructionbut of hislaw, no mention can have been made until after Deuteronomy, and Khezabhim, 'lies,' did not acquire the sense of 'idols,' until after monotheism had become prevalent. ... The expression has no meaning until after the exile." Here then are two facts at variance with the modern hypothesis—a reference to the Thora as the recognized rule of national life, and a reference to polytheism in language which clearly implies that the unreality of all gods besides Jehovah was no longer a novel perception in Amos' day. It might be said, perhaps, that in regard to the former of these the newest critics are somewhat oversensitive, for it is quite possible, although not natural, to limit the sense of Thora here to "ordinances of civil righteousness," as Robertson Smith does,[20] or to prophetic instruction, as others propose, and so to reconcile the genuineness of the passage with the modern view. Kuenen even admits that the words are most naturally understood of a written Thora, and yet professes to find no reason for denying them to Amos.[21] This might be a tenable position if the prophet did not explicitly refer to the Thora as the rule of Judah's national life, from which the fathers already had departed; for the two clauses of his indictment are obviously parallel. There is surely no place in the critical hypothesis for the recognition of so ancient a written law, with such unqualified claims on national obedience. And, as regards the second phrase, "the lies after which their fathers did walk," it is inadmissible to give this the sense of "deceitful superstitions in general," as Robertson Smith again is inclined to do; for the expression "to walk after" is regularly used of the service either of the true or of foreign gods,[22] and "lies" is synonymous with )w#, and lbh, and wht, and lyl), all designations of idols expressive of their unreality. It should be observed that the prophet employs the term without explanation, evidently expecting it to be understood of itself, which excludes his having coined it for the first time; and terms of this sort do not as a rule become common property until the conception they express has been thoroughly assimilated by the popular consciousness. There is no denying, then, that in regard to this passage also those critics who reject it are the most consistent and clearly in the right within the limits of the hypothesis. Its most plausible interpretation is such that the modern view will not bear it. And yet it is equally undeniable that these verses are not only in their place here, but cannot be removed without disturbing the context. The meaning of Amos' introductory discourse is that Jehovah will punish Israel more than the heathen, according to chapter 3:2. This applies both to Judah and Ephraim, but, as between these two, Judah is the relatively less sinful, and, therefore, fitly receives its place in the indictment between the heathen nations and northern Israel, for which latter the climax of the charge is reserved. It was impossible for the prophet in this connection to pass over Judah entirely, for Oort's view that its condemnation was implied in that of Ephraim and needed no separate mention is rendered improbable by chapter 3:1, 6:1, 2, 9:11—passages of which the two former at least are critically beyond suspicion. Finally, not a single reason of any weight, literary or otherwise, has been produced, except the above-stateda prioriones, to impugn the genuineness of the passage. Wellhausen, to be sure, thinks that a rejection of the Thora of Jehovah is not a sufficiently concrete sin to be referred to in connection with the phrase, "three transgressions or four." But it is self-understood that the rejection of the Thora involved a series of single acts of transgression.
The passages 4:13, 5:8, 9, 9:5, 6, are of one nature and together fall under the critical judgment. They are exscinded for Biblico-theological reasons connected with the development hypothesis, by all the critics quoted above as rejecting 2:4, 5. That these verses break the connection between what precedes and follows is true in so far only as they might be omitted without causing a perceptible gap; but the same is true of a great number of passages whose genuineness is doubted by none. In all three places they serve to lend force to the prediction of judgment by declaring the transcendent greatness of him whose the judgment is.[23] It may be said that 5:8, 9, from this point of view, form the climax of verse 6, from which they are now separated by verse 7. Even if this were conceded, a simple transposition of verses 7 and 8, 9, or the excision of verse 7[24] would have to be preferred to the removal of verses 8, 9. But closely looked at, the case does not call for any of these remedies. The participle Mybphh in verse 7 belongs as descriptive enlargement to the object l)-tybl of verse 6 and is naturally immediately subjoined to the latter, like unto the connection between 2:6 and 7, whereupon the subject of verse 6, hwhy receives a similar descriptive enlargement in verses 8, 9, the whole forming in this way a chiastic construction.[25] The real ground of the exception taken to these passages lies in their advanced doctrine of the nature and attributes of Jehovah, which presupposes a fully-matured and long-established monotheism, thus upsetting the critical notion that the monotheism of the prophets was evolved out of their ethical idealism. Here Jehovah appears as the Creator and Ruler of nature, the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, conceptions which are not supposed to emerge until the exile in Deutero-Isaiah or at the earliest in Jeremiah. The editor, says Cheyne, "had the same conceptions of the divine nature. .. as the later writers in general."[26]
The phrase, "sin of Samaria," in chapter 8:14,[27] is declared a later correction by Wellhausen,[28] whom Cheyne follows.[29] "The sin of Samaria," says the former of these critics, must mean the calf of Bethel. But Samaria, he reflects further, never stands with Amos for Israel. Consequently the prophet cannot have written it. The whole difficulty vanishes if we consider that the cult of Bethel was in a special sense the cult of the royal dynasty and, in so far, of the capital Samaria. This is required by Amos 7:13, and receives confirmation from Hosea 10:5. What actually determines Wellhausen in rejecting the phrase is its inconsistency with his opinion that Amos condemns the sacrificial cultin toto. If this be so, then the prophet cannot have called a single feature, such as the calf-worship, sinful. Would it not be better to reason in the opposite direction, that, since Amos disapproves of this particular part of the cult, he did not oppose it on principle or as a whole?
The conclusion of the Book of Amos is the largest and most important section that has fallen under the condemnation of the newest criticism. Some would remove verses 11-13;[30] others include in the post-exilic addition verses 8-10 and 14, 15.[31] The grounds for this opinion are without exception drawn from the critical hypothesis. They are as follows: (a) The restoration of Judah and the Davidic dynasty is here predicted, and in verse 8 "the sinful kingdom" (= Ephraim) is by implication contrasted with the better kingdom (= Judah). Wellhausen pronounces this "a plump Judaism." The clash with the modern theory arises from this: that the latter makes the comparative estimate placed upon Israel as apostate and upon Judah as in possession of the legitimate cult a product of later historical development, beginning with the Deuteronomic reform, to impute which to Amos would involve from its standpoint a gross anachronism. But, if we place ourselves upon the standpoint of the historical Amos as reflected in his prophecy, there is nothing abnormal in such a comparative judgment. As has been shown, the structure of the introduction to his book likewise presupposes that Judah is less sinful than Israel, and indirectly this is confirmed by the fact that there is no trace in verse 5, or 8:14, of any polemic against the cult and sanctuary of Jerusalem, which is even mentioned in 1:2 as Jehovah's dwelling-place. The whole matter, therefore, simply resolves itself into the question whether the religious and Messianic difference between Israel and Judah is entirely a Judaistic fiction by which the outcome of history was later artificially accounted for, or has a substantial basis in pre-exilic history itself? So long as no other evidence for the late origin of this prophecy is forthcoming, Amos must remain a witness for the latter view and, in so far, against the critical hypothesis.[32] (b) The chief Biblico-theological reason for the attack on these verses is their incompatibility with the conception of Jehovah's righteousness attributed to Amos by the modern theory and said to be found in other portions of his book. The specifically new thing in Amos' prophecy, we are reminded, was his sacrificing the national to the ethical element in Israel's religion. He is believed to have preached for the first time that Israel must perish because Jehovah is supremely righteous. Now in the passage before us the national element, thought to have been discarded, asserts itself with great vigor. Amos, the critics conclude, cannot have thus stultified himself;[33] cannot, to speak with Wellhausen, have made milk and honey flow from the cup of Jehovah's wrath. Obviously, this reasoning has force only if we assume that Amos' conception of Jehovah was so one-sidedly ethical as to leave no room for the exercise of grace beyond the judgment. It would be easy to show that a number of passages, whose genuineness has not been hitherto disputed, bear witness to the contrary. This Amos of absolute logical consistency, to whom grace and righteousness not only cannot go together but cannot even succeed one the other, is a pure philosophical abstraction, and not a psychological reality. There is only this much truth in the critical contention that Amos so exclusively views the judgment as righteous retribution as to lose sight of it almost entirely in its reformatory aspect. Consequently, while fully aware of its limits and unable to close his prophecy without giving an outlook into the better future, he does not bring into causal connection the judgment and the restoration. Righteousness and grace are cleanly separated, whereas with Hosea they interpenetrate, the judgment becoming the instrument of discipline. This is the psychological explanation of the fact that no allusion is found in verses 11-15 to the conversion of Israel. (c) Another feature which has been supposed to indicate the late origin of this section is the individualism expressed in verses 9, 10, in the distinction between the righteous and sinners and in verse 15 in the phrase "thy God."[34] According to the critics, all pre-exilic prophets consider the nation and not the individual the subject of religion. But this trait is fully protected by other passages in Amos,[35] to which no critic has as yet taken exception, so that in order to eliminate all individualism the expurgation would have to be much more thorough. Its occurrence simply proves that the real Amos does not fit into the critical scheme of development.