About this project
The book of Amos is engaged in an ongoing theological conversation about the nature of YHWH, and the nature of the people’s commitments to YHWH, articulated especially in terms of treaty and loyalty oath conventions, including the curse material that normally accompanied these agreements. This genre, and the comparative material that establishes its parameters provides one of the primary frames of reference for the commentary. Amos’s use of this material was provoked in part by growing exposure to Neo-Assyrian culture and political protocols, but also informed by native and southern Levantine forms. The commentary places Amos in the context of other biblical material attesting to these traditions and uses this treaty-and-loyalty-oath framework to draw out the connection that Amos makes between theology and politics (in the broad sense, referring to all aspects of corporate life). The commentary also draws attention to the book's existence in multiple versions, especially the Greek Septuagint—not only as witnesses to the text and its transmission but as alternative canonical forms of the book, breaking down common assumptions about the fixedness of the text and inviting readers to approach its interpretation with greater imagination and fluidity.