Thursday, March 10, 2022

Tracy McKenzie on Amos 9:12 and its use in Acts 15

  

The famous translational gloss involving Amos 9:12 demonstrates a similar trajectory of interpretation as that suggested above for Ezek 36:12. MT Amos 9:12 reads, “In order that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations which my name is called around them.” It appears that the LXX translator read “adam” for “Edom,” and “seek” for “possess” amid the eschatological nature of Israel’s restoration. Amos 9:12 in the LXX reads οπως εκζητησωσιν οι καταλοιποι των αωθρωπων και . . . “ Mike Shepherd suggests one another gloss in the translation of the accusative marker. “Codex Alexandrinus and Acts 15,17 include τον κυριον (the LORD) as the direct object of the verb “seek.” This is apparently an interpretation of the market את (the Aleph and Taw, otherwise known as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Isa 41,4; 44,6; Rev 1:8; 22:13]” (Shepherd, “Compositional Analysis of the Twelve,” 187-88). Notwithstanding the many text-critical questions this passage raises, it appears at the least, that the LXX demonstrates the manner in which an early community understood the term “Edom” and “possesses.” It is possible that the translator of the Septuagint even interpreted Amos 9 in light of Ezekiel 35-36. (Tracy McKenzie, “Edom’s Desolation and Adam’s Multiplication: Parallelism in Ezekiel 35:1-36:15,” in Text and Canon: Essays in Honor of John H. Sailhamer, ed. Robert L. Cole and Paul J. Kissling [Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2017], 113)