Q. In a homily our parish priest called Amos a minor prophet. What is a “minor prophet”? Does that mean his message is not that important?
A. A great question, thank you for asking it. No, a minor prophet does not mean that his message is not important. To the contrary, a prophet is one who is inspired by God and worked through the historical, cultural and religious elements of his day and time to speak what God wished His people to hear, throughout all of Judaic and Christian history.
In the Catholic Old Testament, the collection of minor prophets is broken up to form 12 individual Books of the Bible, one for each of the prophets: Amos, Hosea, Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Obadiah, Joel and Jonah. There are four Major Prophets: Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel.
The name “minor prophets” apparently goes back to St. Augustine, who distinguished the 12 shorter prophetic books as prophetae minores, from the four longer books of the major prophets.
Amos was the earliest of the writer prophets. He was born near Bethlehem, probably around the beginning of the eighth century B.C. While he was shepherding his flock he was called by God to prophesy in the northern kingdom.
Amos makes it quite clear in his writing that God’s choice of him was quite unmerited, because he was neither “a prophet nor the son of a prophet.” He identifies himself as “a dresser of sycamores.” As I understand it, that is a person who punctures the fruit of a sycamore tree before it is harvested, to assist the ripening process.
On a totally unrelated note, the names of the prophets listed above would be great names for boys.
Great instructive question. I appreciate you asking it.
This question was answered by Father Kenneth Borowiak, pastor of St. Michael Parish in Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
