Appreciation of the creativity, beauty, and rhetorical power of Israel’s Scriptures continues to enjoy a resurgence. Andrew Davis, associate professor at the Boston College School of Theology, commendably continues this trajectory with respect to the poetics of Amos. The Book of Amos and Its Audiences builds on Robert Alter’s notion of entrapment—that is, a bait-and-switch method by which readers “are lured into sharing the poet’s gaze at the addressees, but when the trap is sprung, they find they have also been targets all along” (p. 42). The device is common in prophetic texts, including Amos 1–2 which, finally, indicts Israel and Judah. It is the prominence of this double horizon in Amos, whereby the text addresses both northern and southern contexts simultaneously, that fuels Davis’s study. Although this aspect of Amos is often explained (away) by appeal to interpolation or Fortschreibung, Davis argues that multiple audiences and meanings are in-built to the rhetoric from the beginning (p. 8). Indeed, “multiple horizons are what give Amos … its rhetorical force” (p. 6). Thus, any attempt to classify parts as secondary only serves to dismantle “the particular instantiation of the oracle that is available to us” (p. 14). There is an intrinsic complexity to the rhetoric of Amos that invites exploration.

Davis proceeds to use what he terms “overreading.” The concept is adapted from the idea of overhearing in lyric poetry. Essentially, some forms of speech (written or oral) are intentionally communicated to be overheard by an audience other than the direct addressee(s). Davis illustrates with public prayer which, while overtly spoken to God, is designed to be overheard by the congregation. In this, “the congregation’s overhearing is not accidental but integral to the prayer’s purpose and rhetoric” (p. 28). The same attribute is demonstrated in English poetry (pp. 24–31) and Roman satire (pp. 31–38). From this, Davis crystalizes three principles that inform his “overreading” of Amos (p. 22):

1. Overhearing is a poetic tool for engaging multiple audiences, sometimes entrapping them.
2. There is some continuity between addressees within a poem and overhearing audiences outside the poem.
3. A poet’s own community (and even the poet) is often implicated in the discourse directed at addressees and overhearers.

Chapters 3–5 apply these principles to Amos 6:1–7; 3:9–11; and 7:10–17 respectively (addressed in order of proposed provenance). Pericopes are selected based on intractable difficulties posed by multiple addressees. Amos 6:1, for example, is spoken to both “Zion” and “Mount Samaria.” Davis suggests this is not an accident of diachronic development but a key feature of the oracle (p. 51). Davis evaluates each pericope similarly. First, he situates the passage historically through detailed and extensive engagement with textual and archaeological data, informed by his previous monographs—Tel Dan in Its Northern Cultic Context (Atlanta: SBL, 2013) and Reconstructing the Temple: The Royal Rhetoric of Temple Renovation in Ancient Israel and the Near East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). This survey of socio-economic and political landscapes is, by itself, invaluable. Davis concludes that 6:1–7 is best set in 760–730 BC, 3:9–11 in 713–711 BC, and 7:10–17 in the early postexilic period (pp. 75, 87, 114). Davis then explores the rhetorical ends achieved by triangulating addressees within the text with proposed audience(s). Again, using 6:1–7 as an example, Davis concludes that the list of “misused cultic paraphernalia” entraps overreading audiences (identified as temple elites and the prophet’s own community [p. 45]) by exposing revelers’ self-indulgence in using cultic vessels for ordinary feasts (pp. 58–59). Thus, the oracle is constructed to inform the tradents’ own community regarding identity and values (p. 81). Davis offers this study to demonstrate the utility of his method for exegeting other passages made difficult by the presence of multiple addressees, whether in Amos or elsewhere (p. 145).

The Book of Amos and Its Audiences demonstrates why and how analyses of biblical texts should consider “overreading” audiences. Thus, Davis challenges readings of Amos (and, by implication, other OT books) that too quickly default to diachronic solutions or that fail to appreciate poetic means of persuasion. Nevertheless, there is a tension that runs through the volume. Davis attempts to distinguish a text’s crystallization point (coalescing prior oral and written traditions) from its reception history. That is, he is not so much interested in how Amos’s oracles were appropriated by later communities of readers; rather, he tries to isolate original function by linking each oracle to the historical moment that accounts for all features of the extant text. However, the spectrum of dates proposed (from mid-eighth century to the postexilic period), coupled with the executive role assigned to redactors/tradents in reshaping prior material for new rhetorical contexts (e.g., pp. 17, 114–24), raises questions. On what basis can 3:9–11, for instance, still be read through an early-eighth century lens if 7:10–18 (and, indeed, the final book, according to Davis) is a product of the Persian era? Why does this provenance not overwrite the purpose of prior compositional stages? Determining the rhetorical function of the final-form book (a matter left unaddressed) seems to be a crucial missing piece.

Davis has produced a fascinating exploration of select pericopes in Amos which artfully blends historical and rhetorical analysis. Even if readers disagree with the answers given, the questions cannot be ignored.

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