Amos: A Commentary on the Book of Amos (review)

Book Reviews 145 To Each Its Own Meaning is a valuable book, however. For one thing, its editors have seen to a general excellence of clarity among the essays. Moreover, because all essayists were asked to relate their assigned methods to the others and to take seriously the weaknesses and drawbacks of each, the work has a thoroughness and humble integrity to it which many methodological discussions lack. In sum, this volume will serve for the next few years as a very useful resource for those who wish to have an overall picture of what's going on in biblical studies these days. Frederick A. Niedner Department of Theology Valparaiso University Amos: A Commentary on the Book of Amos, by Shalom M. Paul. Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible. Minneapolis : Fortress Press, 1991. 409 pp. $44.95. The new Hermeneia commentary on Amos by Shalom M. Paul is an extremely sophisticated piece of scholarly work. Professor Paul's command of scholarly literature in English, French, German, and modern Hebrew is quite impressive, and his knowledge of primary and secondary literature on the Ancient Near East is comprehensive. Virtually every page is packed with voluminous footnotes. And scattered throughout are detailed analyses of Ancient Near Eastern texts which Paul considers to be valuable for our understanding of Amos. It is rare indeed to find a commentary which grasps so thoroughly nearly all the avenues of approach to a biblical book as this volume. This commentary differs from its counterpart by H. W. Wolff principally by its contention that virtually every passage in the book comes from the eighth-century prophet himself. Paul believes that arguments for "later interpretations and relations" are "based on fragile foundations and inconclusive evidence" (p. 6). The Tyre, Edom, and Judah oracles in Amos 1:3-2:16, for example, are not Deuteronomistic. The alleged Deuteronomistic language in these oracles is by no means unique to Deuteronomic/ Deuteronomistic literature, Professor Paul argues. Moreover, the differences in structure between these three and the remaining oracles against the nations is not a sign of inauthenticity but may be attributed instead to the stylistic variations which are a part of the "spice" of the prophet'S style (pp. 26-27). Or, to cite another example, Paul admits that the language of Amos 3:7 is similar to that of the Deuteronomistic school, but he contends 146 SHOFAR Summer 1994 Vol. 12, No.4 that the similarities between 3:7 and Deuteronomistic literature is an example of the Deuteronomists' having taken over an earlier linguistic expression and developed it into stock phraseology of the Deuteronomistic literature. Perhaps the most controversial is Paul's insistence that Amos 9:11-15 comes from Amos himself. Opposing the prevailing view that these verses are exilic or postexilic, Paul contends that the promise to "raise up the fallen booth of David" reflects the eighth-century Judahite prophet's concern for the restoration of the United Kingdom which had been rent asunder after Solomon's death. The argument that virtually everything in the book came from Amos himself is a healthy challenge to the dominant theories which assume a growth process over a long period of time. Yet Paul's argum_ents concerning original setting for the literature tend not to be develop&a sufficiently. His tendency to argue that a passage could be understood as originating with Amos is not the same as showing why it is more probable that it originated with Amos than at a later time. It is certainly possible, for instance, that the phrase "his servants the prophets" in Amos 3:7 originated with Amos and that the Deuteronomists took that phrase and made it into a stock expression which they used relatively frequently. And it is possible also that the Deuteronomists coincidentally employed a phrase which Amos had used. But is it more probable that one of these is so, or is it more likely that the presence of an expression so often used by the Deuteronomists is a sign of a Deuteronomistic redactor? Paul's failure here (and elsewhere as well) to examine questions of probability with sufficient rigor weakens the case for an interesting (and perhaps viable) point...