ABSTRACT
The book of Amos is all about transformations. Amos was a herdsman. Now he wears the prophet's mantle and in so doing is accused of plotting the fall of a king. The world has corrupted itself. It will die and be reborn. In the final vision in Amos 9, God is seen standing on an altar issuing an order to strike the capital of the temple's columns and shake its thresholds, bringing it all down on the heads of the people. Here, a glimpse of a common mythic motif in the ancient Near East emerges, the macrocosmic temple in heaven. The prophetic writings, themselves the poetic equals of the Psalms, are familiar with such ideas, too. A new earthly temple is often associated with Jewish utopias such as in Ezekiel 40-48. The use of ambiguity, double meanings, alliteration and the like was widespread in the literature of the ancient Near East.
