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Amos 3:3: Difference between revisions
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William Branham states: | |||
:''Jesus said, "How can two walk together 'less they be agreed?" | |||
But of course, Jesus didn't say this, the prophet Amos did. | |||
William Branham's interpretation of Amos 3:3 emphasized that God did not want people to be in unity when they had a basic disagreement about some important matter. For example, he said that God could never be among the United Nations because people in different nations were too different from one another in their views. | William Branham's interpretation of Amos 3:3 emphasized that God did not want people to be in unity when they had a basic disagreement about some important matter. For example, he said that God could never be among the United Nations because people in different nations were too different from one another in their views. | ||
Is this really what the Bible | Is this really what the Bible teaches? | ||
=What the Bible actually | =What the Bible actually says= | ||
William Branham took his interpretation on a direct reading of the | William Branham took his interpretation on a direct reading of the KJV which reads: | ||
:''Can two walk together, except they be agreed?<ref>The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Am 3:3–4.</ref> | :''Can two walk together, except they be agreed?<ref>The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Am 3:3–4.</ref> | ||
But this must be compared to more recent translations | But this must be compared to the underlying Greek which is clearly reflected more recent translations: | ||
:''Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Am 3:3.</ref> | :''Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Am 3:3.</ref> | ||
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:''Do two walk together without having met?<ref>Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2006), Am 3:3</ref> | :''Do two walk together without having met?<ref>Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2006), Am 3:3</ref> | ||
Even more telling is the Septuagint version which reads | Even more telling is the Septuagint version (the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament which Jesus and the disciples often quoted) which reads: | ||
''Shall two walk together at all, if they do not know one another?<ref>Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament: English Translation (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1870), Am 3:3–4.</ref> | |||
Two people might meet by accident; but if they travel together, it was probably planned. Nothing could be simpler. The basis, the relation between the two, could be anything, as could the aim of the trip. Those details have nothing to do with the point. There is no warrant for making the riddle into an elaborate allegory. In the series that follows, the “two things” that go together are more specific, and the relations between them are quite varied. One thing accompanies another or perhaps triggers it. The first one is not the generalized case, for the ensuing pairs are not linked by prior arrangement. As in Sesame Street, things go together, the roaring of a lion and the taking of prey; the bird comes down because someone set a lure; the trap is sprung because the bird triggers it. The shofar is blown because there is alarm in a city; or perhaps there is alarm because the trumpet is blown. The statements are banal. The twist is in the last one. The two statements about the lion are parallel; the two statements about the bird are similar. Wisdom statements about animals and birds are often thinly veiled figures of human conduct.<ref>Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Amos: a New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 24A, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 394.</ref> | Two people might meet by accident; but if they travel together, it was probably planned. Nothing could be simpler. The basis, the relation between the two, could be anything, as could the aim of the trip. Those details have nothing to do with the point. There is no warrant for making the riddle into an elaborate allegory. In the series that follows, the “two things” that go together are more specific, and the relations between them are quite varied. One thing accompanies another or perhaps triggers it. The first one is not the generalized case, for the ensuing pairs are not linked by prior arrangement. As in Sesame Street, things go together, the roaring of a lion and the taking of prey; the bird comes down because someone set a lure; the trap is sprung because the bird triggers it. The shofar is blown because there is alarm in a city; or perhaps there is alarm because the trumpet is blown. The statements are banal. The twist is in the last one. The two statements about the lion are parallel; the two statements about the bird are similar. Wisdom statements about animals and birds are often thinly veiled figures of human conduct.<ref>Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Amos: a New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 24A, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 394.</ref> | ||
Two persons never walk together without first having met one another. Of course, two people may well also “make an appointment” to traverse a long distance together on trails across the steppe or on lonely paths between settlements in the sparsely settled areas of cultivated land | Two persons never walk together without first having met one another. Of course, two people may well also “make an appointment” to traverse a long distance together on trails across the steppe or on lonely paths between settlements in the sparsely settled areas of cultivated land. The process designated by “to meet” (יעד nip˓al) means simply an encountering, a situation calling for a mutual greeting and an exchange of questions regarding origin and destination. Apparently it is only this most self-evident truth for which Amos seeks assent: two separate people cannot journey together without first having met one another.<ref>Hans Walter Wolff, Joel and Amos: a Commentary on the Books of the Prophets Joel and Amos, ed. S. Dean McBride, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 184.</ref> | ||
It is clear that Amos 3:3 is not saying what William Branham taught that it said. | '''It is clear that Amos 3:3 is not saying what William Branham taught that it said.''' | ||
=Quotes of William Branham= | =Quotes of William Branham= | ||