Amos says directly that the original scriptures have been revised.
Harry Emerson Fosdick points out Amos' freedom to doubt that a sacrificial system even existed "during the idealized days of Israel's pristine loyalty to Yahweh," stating that Amos' rhetorical scriptures,
"Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?," 5: 25,
is a scripture that expected a negative reply, and that Amos' attitude in similar to that of Jeremiah in the next century, who represented Yahweh as saying:
"l spake not unto your fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices." Jeremiah 7: 22
In other words it is unrealistic to see the nomadic Jews in the Sinai wilderness carrying on the animal sacrifices. If they had been carrying out animal sacrifices, then the the incident in the Book of Exodus of the desire of the renegade Jews who desired to eat flesh, and the coming of the quail, and the subsequent plague killing the carnivorous Jews, would make no sense at all. After all, if the Israelites had already been eating flesh, why would they crave it?
This incident may be compared with Peter's supposed vision in "Acts," a vision unnecessarily expressed three times, wherein he is told that all food is clean and that he should "rise and kill and eat." If Jesus had really said that all foods are clean, then all of Jesus' following, all of Jesus' followers, would certainly have known of it. The lying vision is given, then reiterated twice for emphasis, as a means of imprinting the lie on the minds of others. If Jesus had really said that all foods are clean, then this information would have been widespread knowledge, and there would have been absolutely no reason for Peter to announce that fact.
Amos confronts the absurd
scriptures in "Genesis'
Stating that all creatures
are to live in fear and dread of humans.
The later prophets see the sacrifices as the abomination they are, brutal bloody atrocities towards the creatures of the Creator, and unhealthy foods leading to disease, depression and an early death. The following scriptures criticize carnivorism through employing the typical symbolism of carnivorous animals. Those who store up violence are those who store the flesh of slaughtered animals.
Does a lion roar in the
forest, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from his den,
if he has taken nothing? Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth, when
there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground,
when it has taken nothing? 3: 4-5.
Amos Affirms that All Events are Ordered by God.
Is a trumpet blown in
a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster befall a city, unless
the LORD has done it? 3: 6
Keeping the Corpse of a Slaughtered Animal in the House
They do not know how to
do right, says the Lord, those who store up violence and robbery in their
strongholds. 3: 10.
Amos prophesies that the
altar on which the animals are sacrificed
Will be destroyed by
God.
Hear, and testify against
the house of Jacob," says the Lord God, the God of hosts, "that on the
day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of
Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground....and
the great houses shall come to an end. 3: 13-15.
In Chapter 9 We See Also
that
God is outraged at the
Animal Sacrifices.
" I saw the LORD standing beside the altar, and he said: Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away, not one of them shall escape." 9: 1.
This passage is similar
to the description of God coming to destroy the orthodox Jews in Chapter
9 of Ezekiel.
Fishing is Simply another Form of Animal Sacrifice.
Amos uses
the image of fishing in the same manner as he uses the other images of
carnivorism, as a karmic payback for violence:
...when they shall take
you away with hooks, even the last of you with fish-hooks. And you
shall go out through the breaches, every one straight before her; and you
shall be cast forth into Harmon, says the Lord. 4: 2-3.
Every Act in Creation is Karmic and Ordered.
As with the other later prophets, Amos sees not only the conquest of the Israelites by foreigners, but destructive weather and blight and locusts as God's commentary on the negativity of the carnivorous Israelites:
And I also withheld the
rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would
send rain upon one city, and send no rain upon another city; one field
would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered;
so two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water, and were not
satisfied; yet you did not return to me....I smote you with blight and
mildew; I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards; your fig trees and
your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me....I
sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I slew your young
men with the sword...yet you did not return to me. 4: 7-10.
Amos Sees God Angered at the Jews sacrificing Animals.
I hate, I despise your feasts and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings...I will not accept them and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. 5: 2l-22.
Amos Condemns the Indolence and Carnivorism of the Rich.
"Woe to those who lie upon beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the midst of the stall." 6: 4.
Criticizing those who lie on beds of ivory, which are generally made from the tusks of slaughtered elephants, Amos is in affinity with the Animal Liberation movement and shows the same compassion for other creatures.
The True Jews are Vegetarian.
The following scriptures in which Amos says that people should be satisfied with vegetable creation have parallels in Jeremiah and Moses, both in the "Words of Moses" found in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as in a number of Psalms written by Moses.
"Behold, I am sending
to you grain, wine and oil, and you shall be satisfied... Joel 2:
l9.
Amos has a Vision of All
animal Creation being Happy
Because Humans have finally
Abandoned Carnivorism.
"Fear not, you beasts
of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears
its fruit, the fig tree and the vine give their full yield." 2: 22.
The Prophet Versus Mammon, the State
Amaziah, priest of Bethel where the sacrifices occurred, warns Amos that his prophecies are confronting the established ways of the king and the kingdom of Israel:
...O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom. 7: 12-13.
The reader will notice that Amaziah does not refer to the temple as a temple of God, but a temple of the kingdom.
Amos, well aware of the bloody deceit promoted by self-proclaimed prophets in the history of the Hebrews, answers that he speaks as a simple truthful man:
"Then Amos answered Amaziah,
'I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser
of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the
Lord said to me, `Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'" 7: 14-15.
Amos criticizes
the sacrificing of animals in the Temple as does Isaiah, both of them using
the same imagery of sackcloth, baldness, and mourning.
The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day, says the Lord God; the dead bodies shall be many; in every place they shall be cast out in silence. 8: 3.
I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness on every head... 8: 10.
Agriculture as Humanity's Only True Industry
Amos' vision of an Israel cleansed of animal-sacrificers and evil-doers in general, like the vision of John of Patmos in the Book of Revelations, and that of Daniel and the later prophets in general, is a vision which returns to the harmonious vegetarian covenant and agriculture.
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel...they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land which I have given them, says the Lord your God. 9: 13-15.
One should
not confuse our industrial invasive agriculture with the agriculture of
the pure remnant Jews carrying on the pure traditions of Hinduism and Jainism.
On the phrase I have omitted
above:
"and they shall rebuild
the ruined cities and inhabit them."
We should not confuse
the phrase "rebuild cities" as an injunction to excavate the ground anew,
but simply to repair, i.e. rebuild what was already there. I conjecture--and
conjecture is the only thing anyone can do--that the phrase was a revision.
If it was not, if Amos was departing from the vision of cities as evil
that was commonly had by the prophets, then he was simply wrong.
A Cardinal Point Showing
the Fallacy of Orthodox Judaism:
The Book of Amos Affirms
that the Israelites
And Ethiopians Originally
had the Same Beliefs.
The Ethiopians were Sabeans,
i.e. Vegetarian Followers of Shiva.
Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel? says the LORD. Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir? Amos 9: 7
These scriptures
are a capsule of the ancient history of Israel. "Are you not like
the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel" identifies the beliefs of the
Israelites with those of the Ethiopians, whom every true student of history
knows were Sabeans, that is, followers of Shiva, known to the Ethiopians
and ancient Jews as Seba, Sheba, and Saba.