Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Craig Koester on James' Interpretation of Amos 9:11-12 in Acts 15


 

The portion of Amos quoted by James presented the inclusion of Gentiles as a consequences of the rebuilding of "David's tent." This has sometimes been correlated with Jesus' resurrection, since Luke presents Jesus as a descendant of David (Luke 1:32; 2:4) and indicates that Jesus' resurrection fulfilled the promise God made to David in the scriptures (Acts 2:25-36; 13:34-37). Nevertheless, a christological interpretation is highly unlikely, since Luke omitted both  occurrences of the word "raise" (ανιστημι) from the Greek version of Amos 9:11-12, although the word would have provided a ready connection to Jesus' resurrection.

 

Instead, the rebuilding of David's tent almost certainly refers to the establishment of the Jewish Christian church. Elsewhere in Acts, Luke presents David as a father of Israel (2:29; 4:25) and uses the term "build" (οιχοδεμεω) for the upbuilding of the church (9:31; 20:32). In Stephen's speech σχηνη and σχηνωμα designated the places of Israel's worship, culminating with David's establishment of a tent sanctuary in Jerusalem. Although Solomon built an idolatrous temple, God sent Jesus, the "Righteous One," and the implication was that true worship took place among those who accepted Jesus, as it had formerly taken place at David's tent. James makes this explicit, by identifying the Jewish Christian community as the restored tent of David. Peter insisted that both Jewish and Gentile Christians depended on God's grace; James demonstrated that both represented the fulfillment of the words of the prophets. (Craig Koester, The Dwelling of God: The Tabernacle in the Old Testament, Intertestamental Jewish Literature, and the New Testament [Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 22; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1989], 86-87)