James emphasizes that these rules
also applied to Gentiles by quoting the “words of the prophets”:
. . . as it is written, “Afterward
I will turn back and again build David’s decayed hut and rebuild its ruins so
that the remnants of the people and all Gentiles over whom my name is called
will seek [it], declares the Lord, who does this, which was known from
eternity.” (Acts 15:16-18)
Most of this quotation comes from
Amos 9:11-12 (though the beginning has some similarities to Jeremiah 12:15 and
the end to Isaiah 45:21). The quotation is taken from the version of Amos. This
is of particular importance, since the second part of the Septuagint version
quoted in Acts is quite different from the second part of the Hebrew text of
Amos:
. . . so that they may take
possession of what is left of Edon and all the nations over whom my name was
called out. Declaration of YHWH, who does this. (Amos 9:12)
Whereas the Hebrew text speaks of
the capture of Edom and Israel’s dominion over the Gentiles, in the Septuagint
the rebuilding of David’s fallen tent (or shelter) is begun with the intention
that all peoples should seek it out, in other words, that they should turn to
the God of Israel. Only in this version does the Amos quotation make any sense
when uttered by James. Thus, in Acts, Luke has James cite the Septuagint
version at the council in order to corroborate this view that the Gentiles
should embrace both Christianity and the God of Israel. (Kondrad Schmid and
Jens Schröter, The Making
of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture [trans. Peter
Lewis; Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021], 214-15)
