Extreme obesity

The crux of the issue was extremely straightforward. OP started talking about the fat women mentioned in the Bible (which is fine) but then began drawing conclusions about why this happened that were not supported by the text. When it was pointed out, she started talking about how that was "obviously not true" and generally not listening.

I do not care if someone is Christian or not. I do not care if someone likes Christianity or not. But what I'm not okay with is people spreading lies about what the Bible contains and not listening when someone corrects them.

That is called being disrespectful to others' religion.

Okay, so what are misinterpretations I've made or my sources have made? To say the truth, it's of little interest to me, what Amos thought about these women. For me it's interesting that there were flourishing families in Samaria, where the women were appreciated SSBBWs and USSBBWs.

As for Amos himself, the idea that he wanted to condemn only the oppressive means by which these women got their sources for life, seems unacceptable for me because of the following consideration. Does really the fatness have anything in common with over exploitation? Do the lean women of elite really exploit the common people less, then the fat women of elite do? That is improbable. It is not food or fattening food of elite that can be a burden for the common people to supply for. It is various luxurious goods , large buildings and hordes of servants that can demand great labor for common people to provide all these things for elite, not food. So if Amos would have wanted to condemn greedy overexploitation of the commoners by the elite, he would not mention fatness or fat women at all.

Fatness was a status symbol back in the day. And having a fat wife was even more of a status symbol. It was a sign that you had more than enough money to spoil her excessively.

Something you are missing is that Israel was experiencing famine at this time. Amos 4:6-10 goes into great detail about how the average Hebrew fared at this time. Locusts, droughts, failed harvests, and people starving in the streets. Yet, somehow, the elites found plenty of food to keep their wives fat, spoiled, and happy.

And it's not like these women weren't aware of what was happening on some level. Verses 10 - 11 mention this period of extreme unrest and war. Amos warned the Hebrews for years before this point, especially to the Kings of Judah and Israel. They didn't care about anyone other than themselves.

Yes, you are quite right, Amos tells that Yahweh , because of lack of unconditional faith and love for Him from Israelites, sent to them draught, locusts, shortage of food and water, and some military losses. But, says Yahweh through Amos, these punishments didn't make Israelits to love Him as He wants, that's why He promises to punish them even more.

So Amos quite clearly says that the cause of shortage of food and water was not oppression of elites, but natural disasters sent by Yahweh.

Thus, these troubles couid not show fat women in elite or any other members of elite, fat or lean, in any compromising way. They didn't receive their plenty of food at the cost of hunger of common people. This hunger emerged by quite independent reasons, and according to Amos, because of behavior of this people itself. According to Amos, Yahweh punishes the people with hunger not because of sins of elite, but because this people's own independent and free way of thinking. So the picture of fat women in the beginning can't be tied with famine in the next verses.

It is true that Amos directly says (without relation to the famine) that these fat women oppress the poor people, but it is a striking feature in this passage that he speaks only about fat women, while in reality lean women of elite would be no less and no more oppressors, than fat ones, and providing food for overeating women of elite just couldn't be any real additional burden for common people. It is not any amount of food for elite that can be real burden for the common people. If any ancient or medieval people would have only to supply the elite with extra quantities of food, the people just wouldn't notice such expenses.

So these words about oppression are used here just as a standard rhetoric phrase, and real hatred of Amos is directed against hedonism of these women. Not against fatness "by itself", of course. Amos condemns these women for the fact that they unrestrictedly please themselves and fulfill their bodily desires, and desire for food is one of the most standard objects of such attacks, while fatness is taken as a natural expression of the sin of gluttony. Of course, Amos wouldn't say a word against fatness caused by heavy metabolic disease.

By the way, Islamic authors such as al Hajj, firmly distinguish obesity caused by overeating and fat acceptance and other sensual motives from obesity caused by illness of metabolism, and they condemn only the former but not the latter. Of course, Amos attacks fatness of these women not as merely feature of their physical appearance, but as embodiment of their drowning in sensual and bodily pleasures, in this case in food consuming.

My kingdom for better formatting.

PS. I must also add some correction to the popular theory that fat wives were popular because their fatness was symbol of their husband's wealth.
First of all we have such things as stone drawings from Marche Cave c.15000 years BC. These drawings are not ritual, they are just scratched on stone fragments one upon another for pleasure of those who made these images. We see only really obese women there and we see there several fat mothers with fat daughters near to them. These figures show not any symbolical image, neither any goddess. They show just women who lived in this place and were appreciated by the people.
Meanwhile it was a local society of egalitarian hunters gatherers with collective method of providing all goods and collective redistribution of all was provided. There was just no place in this society for one's ambition to show his personal wealth by having a fat wife. Nevertheless they were great admirers and lovers of such women, and it was a common norm in this society. Of course it could be achieved only because a plenty of resources due to megafauna which still existed in those times in those places.

Second, in most agrarian societies in most of times the people didn't starve at all, except in short periods of natural disasters. The great majority of peasant families in most ancient and medieval times had enough food to have their women as fat as they wanted. But but the question was not only in amount of food. The other side of the question is the spending of calories. And here the peasant families were really great different from elite ones, because average woman in peasant family had to perform a great amount of physical labor. So even if she could eat much and overeat, she had to spend so much calories, that she couldn't become an SSBBW, if only her family was not wealthy enough to free her from any physical labor and to give this labor to some maids. Of course, there were not many such families among the common people.
So, the fat wife in these times was real symbolizing the wealth of her husband or father, but not due to the fact that anyone could see that she eats much, it was due to the fact that anyone could see by her appearance that she must not perform physical labor.

And in any case even a little precious thing or luxurious dress on her symbolized the wealth of her husband 10 times more than her fatness. The European medieval elite as well as Roman ancient elite or Greek ancient elite never cultivated fatness among their women. Of course in real life there were fat and very fat women in classical antiquity and medieval Europe, and we firmly know that there were some admirers of such women*, but this type was never cultivated by elite and used by it to show its wealth.
Thus, I think, we are to conclude that the idea to show one's wealth through fatness of the wife could emerge and flourish only in cultures and societies where the fat women had been appreciated already just by erotic reasons.

*E.g., Roman poet Martial says, that there are in Rome some admirers of the leanest girls, and some admirers of huge women up to 720 pounds in modern weight measures, but he, Martial himself, being a man of good tastes, loves fleshy women, but not huge women (he says here that he is carnarius, not pinguarius -.literally full flesh-lover, not obesity-lover).

Done))

I'm not saying that these women caused the famine. I'm saying that there was a famine, but during this famine, these women did not care about the lower castes, focusing on their comfort instead. It's that callous indifference that you clocked. That is a form of oppression.

Of course, placing the whole onus of the situation on these women would be silly. Not even Amos does this. He dedicates 3 verses to them out of the entire 9 chapter book. But wouldn't you be mad knowing you are struggling to feed your family when you know the ruling class is living indulgently, heedless of your struggles?

Giving their extra food is not enough to fix a famine, divine or not. However, the flagrant indifference to suffering is where they messed up.

In fact i think, no. In the modern welfare state with stable redistribution of incomes, the situation when the common people is striken with famine and no one helps them, would arise a great indignation against the state as well as against the most wealthy people if they don't give significant contribution to help the poor.

But people didn't always feel in this way. I read many sources about huge famine in Egypt of crusaders period, in France in 1775 and about a huge famine in Ireland ic. 1848.

The first and the third of these famines were not such shortages as Amos describes, but giant catastrophes with hundreds thousands of people dead from hunger. The hunger of 1775 in France was maybe of the kind that Amos describes, may be worse.

In the first, Egyptian case, nobody was angry with those people who had enough food and continued to eat as they wanted. Everybody understood that if even the elite would give all their food to the common people and starve to death itself, it would save almost zero souls. The elite and non-elitary wealthy people were too little in numbers, and their storages of food were too little in volume to change the situation at visible degree if even they would give to the people all they had. The state and communal storages were larger, but everybody understood that their first aim was to supply state apparatus and army. What could be done for the people, was done and these supplies ended very soon.

The common rule for the situation was that everyone stands for himself, and if anyone is very kind, he can give some food to some person in private way. Thus, if any person had more food then those dying from hunger, no one expected from him that he would take all his extra food and give it for common use. It just wouldn't change anything for the greatest majority of those who suffered from hunger. It was possible only to help few persons personally tied to the person who had extra food. This was practiced really by those who were more kind, but Amos doesn't say anything on such a topic, he doesn't say that these women and their families were so greedy, that they didn't give anything to anybody at all.

Moreover, if this would be the case, than fatness wouldn't emerge in Amos' text because the lean people of elite are not more or less merciful then fat ones. Be it the case you supposed, Amos, I think, would have spoken about greedy and merciless rich people who don't give anything to their poor compatriots in their misfortunes, and Amos would have emphasized namely this aspect - that they don't help their suffering brethren. The motive of fatness wouldn't have been used here at all, because lean rich people are not more or less greedy and heartless than fat rich people.

But we see, that Amos uses abundantly the motive of fatness in his attacks against the persons involved, and doesn't mention in connection with it any hunger or any lack of help to anyone. The hunger and other calamities appear independently in further passages, and these passages have no connection with fat cows of Bashan. It seems that these two entities of verses are rather independent of each other.

As for famines of 1775 and 1848 , I also didn't see indignation against those who had an opportunity to continue to eat much and used this opportunity. I saw many blamings on state policy, and on the traders who didn't sell food by fixed low prices. But private persons being blamed for the fact that they continue to use their private wealth for high consumption of food while great masses are starving - no, I couldn't trace such an indignation except of some extreme leftist political people and writers in 1848.

Of course, there were sharp voices against those rich people who were so greedy that they didn't want to give even a penny for the sake of their unhappier brethren , but it was not about their high consumotion. Almost no one had nothing against the fact that rich persons continue to have extra food in situation where millions of people of their country are starving. The people were indignated if such rich persons didn't want even to give a penny for the sake those dying from hunger. But practically nobody asked, why the Duke So and So didn't sell one of his palaces and give the money in some fund of help for those suffering from hunger, or why he continues to drink expensive wine, one bottle of which was equal in price to several extra days of life of a poor man striken by hunger. It was obvious that if even all Dukes would have begun to drink water instead of wine, and to give all the saved money to hungry ppl, it wouldn't in practice change almost anything. As the result the common attitude to such facts was " if he's lucky one to have in this bad year money enough for wine, let him drink wine".

It is highly ironic that this is coming from a Russian, whose country is known for the October Revolution.