Biblical Archaeology Review

Jeremiah 32:2 ff., 37:15 ff.

Amos 7:12 f.

Such is the view, for example, of E. W. Heaton, The Hebrew Kingdoms (London, 1968), p. 276.

Hardly atypical is Adam C. Welch’s characterization of Amos as an “individual with his personal conviction.” Kings and Prophets of Israel, N. E. Porteous, ed. (London, 1952), p. 117. Obviously the statement was not intended as a truism.

J. Lindblom conjectures that Amos “joined the sanctuary staff at Bethel.” Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford, 1962), p. 208. Of the others we know nothing. Some claim on the basis of passages like Isaiah 8:2 that Isaiah was a nobleman, but this is just a guess. Lindblom’s assertion (loc. cit.) that Isaiah “seems to have been a prophet of the non-sacral type” and that “Micah was a man from the country-side, perhaps a small freeholder” falls into the same category.

Jeremiah 1:1.

Recognizing this fact, Max Weber remarks that “the pre-exilic prophets … from Amos to Jeremiah and Ezekiel, viewed through the eyes of the contemporary outsider, appeared to be, above all, political demagogues … ” Ancient Judaism (Glencoe, 1952), p. 267.

Considerable light on divergent political positions has been shed by analyses of revolutions. For an overview and bibliography, see W. Laqueur, “Revolution,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 13, pp. 501–507. Such analysis is a sine qua non for the understanding of the Biblical world and its faith. Regrettably, neither Laqueur nor most other social and political scientists pay enough attention to pre-modern revolutions. The ancient period is woefully neglected.

B. Thorogood, A Guide to the Book of Amos (London, 1971), p. 65; cf. J. Bewer, The Prophets (New York, 1949), p. 197.