Amos: "in the interest of the individual and the community"

The prophets were community builders. So was the apostle Paul.

In his letter to the church in Rome (Romans 12: 9) Paul writes "Let love be without dissimulation". (The dictionary says that dissimulation means pretence or hypocrisy.)

Amos's message to the Israelites is on the same track. They are hypocritical and they have their priorities wrong. They claim they are God's chosen people, but they've lost perspective. Their actions have been neither righteous nor just. Dissimulation, you surmise?

God has tried to get the message to them to "do what is good and run from evil... [that] then the Lord God of Heaven's Armies will be [their] helper" (Amos 5: 14 NLT). 

But obviously something is out of sync because trouble keeps re-appearing: "...you will be like a man who runs from a lion -- only to meet a bear. Escaping from the bear, he leans his hand against a wall in his house -- and he's bitten by a snake" (Amos 5: 19 NLT). 

Today we might describe it this way, when trouble seems heaped upon us: "there's a lot happening right now" or "there's been just one thing after another". 

Happily, Amos has a solution--a river. Here's what he says:  

"...I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living" (Amos 5: 21 NLT).

Bearing in mind the role of the river in Naaman's healing (II Kings 5: 1-14) and the definition of river in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 593) as a "channel of thought", it might be concluded that  Amos is suggesting a distinctly changed thought from this community.

In a stirring article titled: Biblical Community: Lessons for Today in The Christian Science Journal November 2010, Madelon Maupin describes Amos' work thus: "Amos ... embodied [the] necessity for collective self-examination, addressing spiritual lethargy and its deadening effects..." 

Madelon concludes her article: "One helps many. Many bless one. The story of community. Then we echo Mary Baker Eddy's words: "I can use the power that God gives me in no way except in the interest of the individual and the community"" (Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 31).

This has given me much to ponder. How does a community engage in "collective self-examination"? What is "spiritual lethargy"? Is my community fired up with spiritual energy and action? Is my community demonstrating true justice and righteousness?  What about my role: Am I stuck in self-righteousness, self-justification, and self-will? How am I contributing to the greater good of my community? Is love without dissimulation?

Julie Swannell

PS. Readers may enjoy this short video explanation of the book of Amos. 

"Close" reading captures the meaning

You may have heard the phrase "a close reading". I believe it means to find the author's method of communicating the message to the reader; to not just read the words, but to discover the underlying message. A book I recently purchased is helping me do this. It's "Giving the sense: how to read aloud with meaning" by Nedra Newkirk Lamar.

Lamar writes (p. 15): "When we speak, we naturally emphasize each new idea, and subdue the old. It's automatic." 

Here's her first example:

"Suppose you said to a newly-arrived visitor: 

    Here is a very comfortable chair. Please, sit in this chair.

Probably you would slightly stress comfortable and chair in the first sentence. Would you stress chair in the second sentence? Certainly not.

In the first sentence, chair is the new idea. In the second sentence, sit is the new idea, while chair is an old idea and does not need to be emphasized, but rather, subdued."

That example is very clear. But Lamar goes on to give us some harder-to-analyse examples. Here's one from the Bible (page 17:)

[5] And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. [6] He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. [7] And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; (Matt. 28)

Lamar explains: "In the last verse, is that he is risen from the dead new? Isn't it all old from verse 6? Isn't the new idea disciples? So wouldn't you need a good stress on disciples, going up high enough in pitch so that you could then drop your pitch and subdue the entire phrase that he is risen from the dead?"

So, this has helped me to understand Amos. My first reading brought a sigh: so much repetition. Unintelligible. Then I tried looking for the new idea. Ah. Lightbulb. The book does indeed repeat the theme of sinning. But the new idea is who the author is identifying as having sinned, i.e. "the people of Damascus" (Amos 1: 3), "the people of Gaza" (Amos 1: 6), "the people of Tyre" (verse 9), etc. Once I saw that there is a pattern here, I could sift through all those words and find the author's purpose and strategy.

I love this enabling way of reading, especially of reading sacred texts, and I'm having fun trying this method to my reading aloud too!

Julie Swannell

Two years before the earthquake

Amos has an attention-getting method of dating his era – “...two years before the earthquake” (Amos 1: 1). I had to look into that!

My Commentary on the Bible (Dummelow) has a very detailed introduction which is worth a read to get an all-over picture of the book of Amos. Dummelow (first printing 1908) states that the earthquake cannot be dated. However, on consulting the internet we will find in International Geology Review July 2010 (Title: Amos’s Earthquake: An Extraordinary Middle East Seismic Event of 750 B.C.) that modern archaeology can date it at 750 B.C. They say the epicentre was probably north of present-day Israel in Lebanon, and that the intensity was likely 8.2.

Amos is classified as a Minor Prophet. There were twelve of these, formerly written on a single scroll: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Amos seems to be classed as the first of them.

Amos was a chap of modest means; Dummelow says his possessions consisted of a few sycamore trees and a small flock of sheep of a peculiar breed, ugly and short-footed, but valuable for the excellence of its wool. He was independent and probably had a lad to look after the sheep while he was off prophesying. He was of the lower kingdom of Judea (in the time of the divided kingdom), and he saw the bad things that were happening in Israel, the northern kingdom. He saw that luxury, impurity and intemperance were rife and the poor were treated as chattels not as men.

He got a call from God. He must do something about it. There had been warnings by drought, locusts, famine, and pestilence, but they went unheeded. Dummelow says that Amos was conscious of a direct call from heaven even as Paul was in New Testament times.

No doubt it is time that I actually read the text of Amos!

Joyce Voysey

Amos calls out social injustice and religious arrogance

In reading the Introduction to Amos in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the big fact that took my attention was the fall of the state of Israel and the fact that it was never revived until 1948.

The NRSV commentary suggests that Amos predicted that fall, citing their “social injustice and religious arrogance” as the reason for Israel’s demise.  One point raised in the Amos Introduction is that the Lord expected from them justice and righteousness.

The time-line below tells us that the first aliya (large scale immigration) from Europe was from Russia between the years 1882 and 1903. I didn’t count the aliyas, but the really big one was from Europe and Arab countries (1948-52) after the Holocaust. What drove those aliyas? 

Were the Jews suffering from persecution, social injustice and religious arrogance inflicted on themselves?

Is Israel (Ed. and other nations and groups) again showing signs of “social injustice and religious arrogance”? Is there an Amos of the present-day who is warning us of a similar fall?

Joyce Voysey

Here is a slightly abridged time-line history of Israel from the 17^th century BCE to current times, published under Israel: Mission of Israel to the UN in Geneva –

TIMELINE OF HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS 17th-6th C. BCE BIBLICAL TIMES   (BCE - Before the Common Era) c.13th century Exodus from Egypt: Moses leads Israelites from Egypt, followed by 40 years of wandering in the desert. | Torah, including the Ten Commandments, received at Mount Sinai. 13th-12th centuries Israelites settle in the Land of Israel c.1020 Jewish monarchy established; Saul, first king. c.1000 Jerusalem made capital of David's kingdom. c.960 First Temple, the national and spiritual center of the Jewish people, built in Jerusalem by King Solomon. c. 930 Divided kingdom: Judah and Israel 722-720 Israel crushed by Assyrians; 10 tribes exiled (Ten Lost Tribes). 586 Judah conquered by Babylonia; Jerusalem and First Temple destroyed; most Jews exiled. THE SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD 538-142 Persian and Hellenistic periods 538-515 Many Jews return from Babylonia; Temple rebuilt. 332 Land conquered by Alexander the Great; Hellenistic rule. 166-160 Maccabean (Hasmonean) revolt against restrictions on practice of Judaism and desecration of the Temple 142-129 Jewish autonomy under Hasmoneans. 129-63 Jewish independence under Hasmonean monarchy. 63 Jerusalem captured by Roman general, Pompey. 63 BCE-313 CE Roman rule 63-4 BCE Herod, Roman vassal king, rules the Land of Israel; Temple in Jerusalem refurbished (CE - The Common Era) c. 20-33 Ministry of Jesus of Nazareth 66 Jewish revolt against the Romans 70 Destruction of Jerusalem and Second Temple. 73 Last stand of Jews at Masada. 132-135 Bar Kokhba uprising against Rome. c. 210 Codification of Jewish oral law (Mishna) completed.     FOREIGN DOMINATION 313-636 Byzantine rule c. 390 Commentary on the Mishna (Jerusalem Talmud) completed. 614 Persian invasion 636-1099 Arab rule 691 On site of First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, Dome of the Rock built by Caliph Abd el-Malik. 1099-1291 Crusader domination (Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem) 1291-1516 Mamluk rule 1517-1917 Ottoman rule 1564 Code of Jewish law (Shulhan Arukh) published. 1860 First neighborhood built outside walls of Jerusalem's Old City. 1882-1903 First Aliya (large-scale immigration), mainly from Russia. 1897 First Zionist Congress convened by Theodor Herzl in Basel, Switzerland; Zionist Organization founded. 1904-14 Second Aliya, mainly from Russia and Poland. 1909 First kibbutz, Degania, and first modern all-Jewish city, Tel Aviv, founded. 1917 400 years of Ottoman rule ended by British conquest; British Foreign Minister Balfour pledges support for establishment of a "Jewish national home in Palestine" 1918-48 British rule 1919-23 Third Aliya, mainly from Russia 1921 First moshav (cooperative village), Nahalal, founded. 1922 Britain granted Mandate for Palestine (Land of Israel) by League of Nations; Transjordan set up on three-fourths of the area, leaving one fourth for the Jewish national home. 1924-32 Fourth Aliya, mainly from Poland. 1925 Hebrew University of Jerusalem opened on Mount Scopus. 1933-39 Fifth Aliya, mainly from Germany. 1939 Jewish immigration severely limited by British White Paper. 1939-45 World War II; Holocaust in Europe. 1947 UN proposes the establishment of Arab and Jewish states in the Land.     STATE OF ISRAEL 1948 End of British Mandate (14 May); State of Israel proclaimed (14 May). Israel invaded by five Arab states (15 May). Israel Defense Forces (IDF) established. War of Independence (May 1948-July 1949). 1956 Sinai Campaign 1962 Adolf Eichmann tried and executed in Israel for his part in the Holocaust. 1964 National Water Carrier completed, bringing water from Lake Kinneret in the north to the semi-arid south. 1968-70 Egypt's War of Attrition against Israel 1973 Yom Kippur War 1975 Israel becomes an associate member of the European Common Market. 1977 Likud forms government after Knesset elections, end of 30 years of Labor rule. Visit of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem. 1978 Camp David Accords include framework for comprehensive peace in the Middle East and proposal for Palestinian self-government. 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty signed. Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat awarded Nobel Peace Prize. 1981 Israel Air Force destroys Iraqi nuclear reactor just before it is to become operative. 1984 National unity government (Likud and Labor) formed after elections. Operation Moses, immigration of Jews from Ethiopia. 1985 Free Trade Agreement signed with United States. 1987 Widespread violence (Intifada) starts in Israeli-administered areas. 1988 Likud government wins elections. 1989 Four-point peace initiative proposed by Israel. Start of mass immigration of Jews from former Soviet Union. 1991 Israel attacked by Iraqi Scud missiles during Gulf war. Middle East peace conference convened in Madrid; Operation Solomon, airlift of Jews from Ethiopia. 1992 Diplomatic relations established with China and India. New government headed by Yitzhak Rabin of Labor Party. 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements for the Palestinians signed by Israel and PLO, as representative of the Palestinian people (Oslo Accords). 1995 Broadened Palestinian self-government implemented in West Bank and Gaza Strip; Palestinian Council elected. Prime Minister Rabin assassinated at peace rally. Shimon Peres becomes prime minister. 1996 Fundamentalist Arab terrorism against Israel escalates. Binyamin Netanyahu elected prime minister.  1998 Israel celebrates its 50th anniversary. Israel and the PLO sign the Wye River Memorandum to facilitate implementation of the Interim Agreement. 2000 Visit of Pope Paul II. Israel withdraws from the Security Zone in southern Lebanon.  Renewed violence (Second Intifada). Prime Minister Barak resigns. 2001 Ariel Sharon (Likud) elected Prime Minister; 2002 Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield in response to massive Palestinian terrorist attacks. Israel begins building the anti-terrorist fence to stop West Bank terrorists from killing Israeli citizens.  2003 Right-of-center coalition government formed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. 2005 Israel carries out the Disengagement Plan, ending Israel's presence in the Gaza Strip.  2006 After Prime Minister Sharon suffers a stroke, Ehud Olmert becomes acting prime minister. Following elections on 28 March, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert forms new government led by the Kadima Party.  The Second War in Lebanon, during which Israel carried out military operations against Hizbullah 2007 Shimon Peres elected President by the Knesset. Israel declares Gaza "hostile territory" following Hamas violent takeover of Gaza Strip. 2008 Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary. Israel launches its Gaza Operation (Operation Cast Lead) in response to the barrage of over 10,000 rockets and mortars fired from the Gaza Strip. 2009 Benjamin Netanyahu is elected Prime Minister The city of Tel Aviv celebrates its 100th anniversary. 2010 Israel joins the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Ed. No political commentary is intended, but biblical lessons are presented for pondering by those of all nations. Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 497:3) - "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life."

Teaching the Bible to university students

This month, we return to the Bible with the book of Amos. I for one, am rather ignorant of Amos, so this opportunity is welcome.

Here's a lovely story about one Sunday school teacher's experience of teaching the Bible. It’s recorded in the September 22, 1945 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel, under the title of Teaching the Bible in the Sunday School where Edyth S. Armstrong writes -

Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, was truly cognizant of the vital contribution of the Bible to successful living...

It is therefore important that opportunity be given for Sunday school students to know the Bible better...

Some superintendents have found it very helpful to set aside twenty to thirty minutes at every monthly teachers' meeting for the presentation of Bible backgrounds by a member chosen in advance... The teachers thus become well grounded in Scriptural backgrounds and are better prepared to answer the many questions of their pupils...

...One teacher told of a group of college men who, after she had appeared the second Sunday as their teacher, asked her if she was to be their new teacher. When she replied in the affirmative, their next question was, "Are you going to be regular?" This time she answered affirmatively and with a fervent prayer of consecration that she might fulfill her promise. Almost immediately she was asked, "Will you teach us something of the Bible?"

As they explained this request, they told her that they were college students, but that in all their years in Sunday school they had never learned enough about the Bible as a book to speak intelligently on the subject or to defend it should it be attacked in class. "If you will give us ten minutes on the Bible every Sunday we will come to your class. Otherwise we are not interested." they finished. Naturally the teacher responded to their request!...

...a simple introduction, varied for different books, will do much to make Jeremiah. Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea real people to the students in Sunday school.

How good to be learning about the Bible as a book of books and thus equipping ourselves for teaching a new generation.

Julie Swannell