Changing Subjects: Gender, Nation and Future in Micah (review)

Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 343 Reviews rather than their figs. In antiquity the sycomore was valued more for its wood than its fruit. Amos can be understood as a “nāqidu ša s .ēni u lâti who did a little farming on the side” (p. 110). Given the location of the Tekoite organization of stockmen, many of its animals were bought to be used as Temple sacrifices . Amos’ herdsman background influences images in his prophecy, as in, for example, Amos 1:2 and 3:12 (p. 117). The book’s major theme of sympathy for the poor implies that the prophet “was a traitor not only to his class but also to his collective,” referring to the organization of Tekoite stockmen (p. 118). Since their livelihood depended on the continuation of Temple sacrifices , Amos’ claim that God has rejected the sacrifices of Israel (Amos 5:22) was not “good for business” (p. 119). The monograph ends with a brief summary of its conclusions. This is a successful book. One can learn a great deal from it, and the author is to be commended for the breadth of his research. The volume is highly useful as a synthesis of earlier reflections on Amos’ occupations. The book is scrupulously devoted to the realia of Amos’ professions before his call, and the philological background of terms relevant to this issue. There is less emphasis on how the occupations of Amos impact the interpretation of his prophecy. For example, the question of why Amos brings up this topic when speaking with Amaziah is not explored. It is reasonable to link Amos’ professions involving sycomores and livestock, as Steiner and other commentators do, since the two are together in Amos 7:14. Steiner’s wide lens of inquiry shows that Amos 7:14–15 is a crux interpretum with which readers have struggled for centuries. With that in mind, the author’s conclusions can in general be understood as plausible and judicious assessments of ambiguous evidence. Matthew Goff Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA 30460 goff@georgiasouthern.edu CHANGING SUBJECTS: GENDER, NATION AND FUTURE IN MICAH. By Erin Runions. Playing the Texts 7. Pp. 295. Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. Paper, $25.00. This book is a theoretical work consisting of two main parts. The main purpose of the study is “to look carefully at the shifting signs of gender, nation and future vision in the book of Micah in order to suggest that readers’ negotiation with text’s ambiguities might be able to reposition, or reconfigure, Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 344 Reviews their subject positions” (pp. 12–13). This purpose is articulated in light of textual difficulties and differences arising from the indeterminacy of text. Part 1: “Theory” is the theoretical basis of the discussion wherein Runions situates the work in biblical studies and provides the various scholarly discourses that inform her ideological and methodological concerns. Chapter 1 addresses the nature of the text and its potential for affecting its readers. While identifying various scholars who have analyzed the coherence of the text of Micah, Runions asserts that her goal is to focus on difficulties and textual differences in order to discern or construct a coherence. Her goal raises several questions such as: Since identifying difficulties and difference suggests normitivity, what is the norm in the text against which these are discerned? H. K. Bhabha’s (Location of Culture [London: Routledge, 1994]) understanding of difference is the basis of Runions’s understanding of difference (cf. p. 39 and chap. 3). Additionally, in the analysis of the nature of the text and its “indeterminacy,” Runions engages the discourse of several scholars, (e.g., P. Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Science [trans. J. B. Thompson; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1981] and T. K. Beal, “Ideology and Intertextuality: Surplus of Meaning and Controlling the Means of Production ,” in Reading Between Tests: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible, ed. D. N. Fewell [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992], pp. 27–39). The goal of chapter 2 is to understand how texts may affect a reader’s positioning in ideology. Her discussion builds on L. Althusser (Essays on Ideology [London: Verso, 1984]), S. Zizek (The Sublime Object of Ideology [Phronesis; London...