Then, with his authoritative
“Brothers, hear me,” James began to speak, declaring that the words of the Old
Testament prophets “are in agreement with [symphonousin]”
the missionary activity Peter conducted at Caesarea in connection with
Cornelius’s conversion and those that Paul and Barnabas had been conducting
among the Gentiles. He then cited Amos 9:11–12 as a composite prophetic summary
description of what God had declared in Old Testament times that he would do in
behalf of the Gentiles in this present age:
After this I will return and
rebuild David’s fallen tent [his royal house in the Old Testament, Messiah’s
church in the New]. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the
remnant of men, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, may seek the Lord, says
the Lord who does these things that have been known for ages. (Robert L.
Reymond, “The Presbytery-Led Church: Presbyterian Church Government,” in Perspectives on Church Government: Five
Views of Church Polity, ed. Chad
Owen Brand and R. Stanton Norman [Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman &
Holman Publishers, 2004], 100)
Reymond notes the difference between the LXX and MT of Amos
9:11 (Ibid., n. 27:)
James cited here a version of
Amos 9:11–12 which reflects more closely the Septuagint version than the
present-day Massoretic Text. The latter can and probably should be emended in
the following ways to conform to the Hebrew text which doubtless underlay
James’s cited Septuagint translation:
1. In 9:12 the verb “possess” should be emended to “seek”—the
change of the yodh to the daleth.
2. The sign of the accusative ’eth—clearly suspect as an indicator that “remnant of Edom and all
the Gentiles …” are direct objects inasmuch as a single ’eth never introduces two direct objects—should be emended to othi “me,” referring to the Lord, or
“the Lord,” construing the yodh as a hypocoristic abbreviation for [weh] yodh he).
3. The proper noun “Edom” should be emended to “adham” (“men”),
a mere repointing of the word.
What is the result of these
slight emendations? Instead of reading, “that they may possess the remnant of
Edom and all the Gentiles who bear my name,” the text now reads, “that the
remnant of men, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, may seek the Lord,”
precisely the words Luke quotes James as saying.
Because some dispensational
scholars have maintained that “dispensationally, [James’s summary speech] is
the most important passage in the N.T.,” describing, they say, the final
regathering of Israel into the reestablished Davidic kingdom after this present age (see Scofield Reference Bible [New York:
Oxford, 1917], 1169–70), they have insisted that the verb symphonousin, in Acts 15:15 has the connotation, “are in agreement
with,” not “speak about,” and simply indicates that the missionary policies
being observed in connection with Gentile evangelism in the present age are
harmonious with the policies that will be followed in the future Jewish kingdom
age—the real referent of Amos’s prophecy.
Aside from the fact that such an
interpretation imposes an inanity on the text since the Jerusalem assembly
hardly needed to be informed that God’s prescribed missionary policies
throughout history are consistent with each other from age to age, this is a
classic example of theological “reaching” in order to avoid the obvious. If
there is no connection between the cited “words of the [Old Testament]
prophets” and the missionary activity of this present age beyond the mere fact
that the character of the church’s present missionary activity among the
Gentiles “fits with” the character of Jewish missionary activity among the
Gentiles in the reputed future millennial age, one is left with no acceptable
explanation for James’s citation of the Amos prophecy in this context. In fact,
by this line of reasoning James is made to introduce an irrelevancy on the
issue before the assembly.
