The Book of Amos and its Audiences
Prophecy, Poetry, and Rhetoric

Analyses the poetic audiences of the book of Amos by distinguishing the textual addressee from its actual audiences.

Andrew R. Davis (Author)

9781009255875, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 June 2023

350 pages
22.2 x 14.5 x 1.5 cm, 0.38 kg

Many studies of the prophetic books assume that a text's addressee and audience are one and the same. Sometimes this is the case, but some prophetic texts feature multiple addressees who cannot be collapsed into a single setting. In this book Andrew R. Davis examines examples of multiple addressees within the book of Amos and argues that they force us to expand our understanding of prophetic audiences. Drawing insight from studies of poetic address in other disciplines, Davis distinguishes between the addressee within the text and the actual audience outside the text. He combines in-depth poetic analysis with historical inquiry and shows the ways that the prophetic discourse of the book of Amos is triangulated among multiple audiences.

1. Introduction: multiple audiences, overhearing, and entrapment
2. Overhearing in lyric poetry, Roman satire, and biblical poetry
3. A moveable feast: the multiple addressees and audiences of Amos 6:1-7
4. Foreign address and home audiences in Amos 3:9-11
5. Scribal prophecy and the post-exilic audience of Amos 7:10-17
6. Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Criticism & exegesis of sacred texts [HRLC1], Old Testaments [HRCF1], Poetry [DC]