Saturday, February 6, 2010

An Introduction to the Old Testament - Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes is one of the portions of Scripture that has been hotly debated.  Who is the author?  What is it about?  Does it tell us that we are to depend on our own ability and throw off all wisdom and restraint?

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Historically Ecclesiastes has been associated with Solomon.  The author refers to himself only as the "teacher."  Yet many of the attributes of the author seem to parallel attributes of Solomon.  There are various views that have tried to identify the author with someone else, but none has been able to suggest a very good alternative.  It is probably best to leave the author more or less anonymous but to suggest it was someone of wealth and power such as Solomon.

LITERARY ANALYSIS
Ecclesiastes divides into three parts.  There's a brief prologue, a long monologue, then a brief epilogue.  The prologue and epilogue contain third person references to the "teacher" while the monologue is in the first person.  The genre seems to fit into general wisdom literature, musings about the nature of the world.

THEOLOGICAL MESSAGE
Counter to Proverbs, Ecclesiastes seems to indicate that we are to throw off wisdom, or at least throw off the striving after wisdom.  We are to avoid trying too hard at spirituality.  On one level we are clearly told that all our attempts are good for nothing so we may as well not try.  This kind of skeptical view has led people to debate whether we should take Ecclesiastes as spiritual instruction or possibly as a negative example.  Like the book of Job, we see some dubious teaching.  It's got a grain of truth and it is surrounded by possible bad interpretation.  Then at the end we see a positive interpretation.  What is a good final outcome?  Trust God, not your own wisdom.

APPROACHING THE NEW TESTAMENT
We see that life without God is futile.  On p. 255 we read, "Quohelet sounds modern because he so vividly captures the despair of a world without God.  The difference, though is that the modern world believes God does not exist; Qohelet believed that God existed but questioned his love and concern.  As a result, nothing had meaning for Qohelet - not wealth or wisdom or charity.  After all, death brought everything to an end.  Qohelet is preoccupied with death throughout the book because he sees nothing beyond that point."

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