9:8-15 origin and redaction

Reasons for believing these verses later additions

Reasons for accepting them as from Amos

Commentaries taking each side

Reasons for envisaging these words as later include:

• change of tone - Wellhausen's evocative description "roses and lavender instead of blood and iron" captures the feeling well (cited in Hammershaimb, 135; Hayes, 223)
• change of content (already in v.8 where the punishment ceases to fall on the whole nation indiscriminately)
• the phrase "David's hut that's fallen" (v.11) suggests to many a time after 586bce and the fall of Jerusalem

Arguments for them originating with Amos include:

• similar combinations of categorical judgment with future hope occur in Hosea, Micah, Isaiah and Jeremiah too
• Egyptian "prophecy" already in c. 2000BCE could make abrupt change from judgment to promise (see Hammershaimb, 137)
• a Judean (as we assume Amos to be) might well have hopes for restoration of the Davidic united kingdom ("David's hut that's fallen")

Commentaries seeing this material as authentic Amos include:

Hammershaimb, 135ff.; Hayes, 223ff.; Paul, 288-290

Commentaries believing it (or much of it) to be later include:

Andersen & Freedman, 893; Jeremias, 162-170; Wolff, 346-347, 352-353

This page is part of the Hypertext Bible Commentary - Amos,

© Tim Bulkeley, 1996-2005, Tim Bulkeley. All rights reserved.