Life on the rubbish dumb in Mae Sot is "Better than Burma" Amos spoke about justice (photo by Jacob Baynham)

In Understanding the prophets: Part one I spoke about the “Three Cons” as a key to reading the prophetic books of the Old Testament with understanding and in ways which are faithful to their original intention. In this second part we’ll look at an example from Amos 5:18ff. and apply this approach. The result will be an uncomfortable word from God for us today.

Here are the slides from that talk: Understanding the Prophets: Part Two: Amos 5:18ff. There are some podcasts that deal with the book of Amos here and there is a detailed free online commentary with a wealth of background information and pictures here.

Amos 7:14 is a striking problem for interpreters, not least because what Amos is reported as saying to Amaziah seems to contradict what he is reported to be doing in the rest of the book. This makes it fertile ground for us to incorporate either our presuppositions or rhetoric into the text.

(I use the NIV and Grasping God’s Word) as examples in this but do not intend disrespect for the translators or authors, just to suggest they are human too!
Duvall, J. Scott, and J. Daniel Hays. Grasping God’s Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible. 2nd ed. Zondervan, 2005 is an excellent book, which we plan to use as a textbook for a course I’ll teach next year

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How do we picture Scripture? That is what is/are the (unconscious) models in our heads as we read and use the Bible?
This ‘cast refers particularly to Gen 18:20ff. and Amos 7.

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For some reason one of the difficult stumbling blocks at the start of a Bible intro course is “genre” and why it matters. So, here’s a < 5 minute Bible attempt to explain!

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This post deals with Jonah 1:1, I excuse this by reference to the new commentary series announced on the first of this month by Eisenbrauns This ‘cast deals with beginnings, and with whether the clues in this verse suggest Jonah is of the genre prophecy or narrative (if you don’t understand why this question matters, keep coming back as I’ll have a post on “Why genre matters” soon!

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PS: Thank you Tyler for reminding me of your blog post commentary on Jonah, you began it so long ago that I’d forgotten – but it should get a link here!
I should also link to my Notes on Jonah, less detailed than these talks, but dealing with the whole book.