Septuagint: Amos

By Scriptural Research Institute

The Book of Amos is generally considered one of the older surviving books of the Hebrew Scriptures, with most scholars dating it to before the Torah was compiled, or at least heavily redacted in the time of King Josiah. Most scholars accept that Amos was written by a prophet called Amos between 760 and 755 BC, who was most likely from the town of Tuqu, in the Kingdom of Judea, in the southern region of the modern Palestinian West Bank. His world was very different from the later Kingdom of Judea that emerged in the 2nd-century BC, as the Israelites of his time were still polytheistic, worshiping the Canaanite Elohim, as well as statues of Iaw (Masoretic Yahweh), the God the Jews and Samaritans would later worship. While the Book of Amos and the rest of the Twelve Prophets, with the possible exception of Jonah, are accepted by many as dating to the 8th-century BC, the oldest fragments of it to survive to the present are Hebrew fragments of the Twelve found among the Dead Sea Scrolls written in the Assyrian script, dating to the Hasmonean era, and fragments of the Septuagint's Twelve, dating to the same era.

The Book of Amos is believed to have been translated into Greek around 180 BC with other Twelve Prophets, however, there is a significant difference between the Septuagint's and Masoretic version of the Book of Amos. The Masoretic Version is the Book of Amos which copied by a group of Jewish scribes called the Masorites between 400 and 1000 AD. The major difference between the Books of Amos is the god that Amos was the prophet of. The Masoretic version refers to his god as Iaw (Yahweh), or Iaw Sabaoth, or Lord Iaw, however, the Septuagint's version of Amos appears to have only listed Lord Iaw a couple of times, along with Lord El, and most significantly Lord El Shaddai. An obvious example of the Hasmonean redaction of the Pre-Masoretic Amos is the fact that the Lord Sabaoth is missing from the Septuagint's Amos, yet Tzevo'ovs Yahweh is found in the Masoretic Amos. In most places where the Masoretic Texts have Tzevo'ovs Yahweh or some variant, the Greeks translated Lord Sabaoth.

In the Septuagint, Amos' god was repeatedly named as 'Lord God Almighty' in the Septuagint, which translated back into Hebrew would be 'Ba'al El Shaddai.' The term theos ho pantocratôr was the translation used in other books of the Septuagint for El Shaddai. For example, the Book of Job, which was translated into Greek between 190 and 180 BC, the names El Shaddai or Shaddi shows up 33 times in the Masoretic Texts, and is translated as Lord God Almighty in the Septuagint. The differences between the Septuagint and Masoretic Books of Amos is not limited the question of whether Amos' god was Lord El Shaddai or Yahweh Sabaoth, as several other gods were also mentioned in the Greek translation that disappeared during the Hasmonean redaction, including Lord El, Qetesh, and Moloch. The Temple of El in Shiloh, the capital of ancient Samaria is mentioned repeatedly, including a story about Amos being kicked out of the temple and Samaria itself by the high priest Amaziah, for prophesying against the king.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
• Release date: Jul 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781989852439

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Copyright

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

SEPTUAGINT: AMOS

First edition. July 20, 2020.

Copyright © 2020 Scriptural Research Institute.

ISBN: 978-1-989852-42-2

The Septuagint was translated into Greek at the Library of Alexandria between 250 and 132 BC.

This English translation was created by the Scriptural Research Institute in 2020, primarily from the Codex Vaticanus, although the Codex Alexandrinus was also used for reference. Additionally, the Leningrad Codex of the Masoretic Texts, and the Dead Sea Scrolls 4QXIIc, 4QXIIg, 5QAmos, and MurXII were used for comparative analysis.

The image used for the cover is a colorized version of ‘The Prophet Amos’ drawn by Gustave Doré, in 1866.

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In the mid-3rd century BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt ordered a translation of the ancient Hebrew scriptures for the Library of Alexandria, which resulted in the creation of the Septuagint. The original version, published circa 250 BC, only included the Torah, or in Greek terms, the Pentateuch. The Torah is the five books traditionally credited to Moses, circa 1500 BC: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. According to Jewish tradition, the original Torah was lost when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple of Solomon and was later rewritten by Ezra the Scribe from memory during the Second Temple period. The life of Ezra the Scribe is estimated to have been between 480 and 440 BC, which is around the time that scholars generally believe the current form of the Torah was written.

The second edition, which added the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, later dubbed the Octateuch, was published circa 225 BC, and carried south into Kush by the ancestors of the Beta Israeli community as they escaped Egypt in the aftermath of the Rebellion in Judea, circa 200 BC, and ultimately became the Orit, central holy book of the Beta Israeli community. The books of Job and the Twelve were added between 200 and 175 BC, and by 132 BC most of the Septuagint had been translated. Some scholars debate whether the Prophets Section was in the version published in 132 BC, and suggest it may have not been added until the early 1st-century BC, however, the Twelve ‘minor’ prophets, as Christians call them, appear to have been translated into Greek circa 180 BC, after circulating as a collection in the Canaanite (Paleo-Hebrew) script since the late-Persian era, before 332 BC. The general consensus is that the twelve books were written, or redacted into their current form during the Persian era, between 538 and 332 BC, although some scholars believe Jonah was written later in the early Greek era as it contains no prophecies, and reads more like a Greek adventure poem. The twelve books are set during the decline of the old Samaritan and Judean Kingdoms, parallel to the histories contained in the Septuagint's books of Kingdoms and Paraleipomenons (Masoretic Samuel, Kings, and Diḇrê Hayyāmîm).

The books of Hosea, Amos, and Micah are set during the 8th-century BC, when the kingdom of Samaria fought a series of wars against its more powerful northern neighbor Assyria, ultimately being conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire circa 722 BC. The books of Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah follow, although their exact settings are not clear. The books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah follow, set in the 7th-century BC, as the Kingdom of Judea struggled for its survival between the powers of the time, Assyria to the north, Egypt to the south, and Babylon rising to the east, ultimately falling to the Neo-Babylonian Empire circa 586 BC. There is a gap in the prophets during the era when Babylon ruled Judea,