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Comments: Ever wonder what life might have been like for an Old Testament prophet? How would it feel to have God speak literally and directly to you? What would you think if He gave you a message of judgment to deliver, and you knew it would make you the target of hatred and abuse?
In this book, the author starts with the basic outline of the O.T. book of Amos, adds a historical setting, invents a few additional characters and dialog, and ends up with a pretty creative and readable story. Amos comes across as a rather ordinary shepherd, whom God just happens to select to carry His message. The implication is that he had no special prophetic qualifications (i.e. he wasn't an Elijah or Isaiah), but was simply available. Rivers does, however, describe his shepherding skills in great detail, and that's helpful for understanding the portions of the message that are expressed via shepherding concepts and jargon.
Ultimately, Amos delivers his prophecies of judgment and ruin, with predictable results - he's kicked out of town, alienated from friends and family, and becomes a generally unwelcome person in both Israel and Judah. LIke the O.T. book, this is not a story where the good guys win in the end. You gotta read Isaiah for that part.
An interesting book overall. One thing I did find distracting was the author's tendency to use Bible-sounding phrases when plain English would have done just fine. You know, saying things like "then the scales fell from his eyes...", rather than "then he realized..." Guess I just associate this with people trying too hard to sound spiritual - you know the types.
Rivers has written five short novels around Biblical characters. If you enjoy this one, you might enjoy the others as well.
1 comment:
I have enjoyed reading these as well- she has another series on women in the Bible that is very good too- I enjoyed those more than these. I agree that sometimes I read things twice, thinking "well, ok..." regarding wording or beyond context thoughts, but found these books to be very enlightening to understanding little-known Bible characters :-)
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