The Background to Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes is one of those funny books which everyone likes, but for different and even contradictory reasons. People agree that it's great, that it's strangely contemporary, that it's a great bridge to faith for non-believers, but again, they may not agree on the reasons for saying so.

There seem to be three issues that divide interpreters of the book, and have done for quite some time:

1. Author/Date/Setting
2. Tone
3. Structure

1. Author/Date/Setting

In the past, and with even a few hangers-on today, the book has been ascribed to Solomon. It has been seen as the reflections of an old Solomon, reflecting on his folly and seeking to teach his son a different way. As such, it is viewed as a mini-collection of Proverbs and Song of Songs, although each would reflect a very different period of his life.

This opinion has largely given way to the understanding of 'Solomon' as a royal fiction, whereby the author uses the persona of Solomon for the first couple of chapters to make a point, but by-and-large dispenses with it after that point. Luther pointed this out in his Tischgespräch, although interestingly continued to refer to 'Solomon' rather than 'Qohelet' or simply 'the author' in his lectures, most likely due to the standard convention which still persists for good or ill.

However dispensing with the idea of Solomonic authorship leaves the field wide open, and the majority of modern interpreters have settled on either a Persian or Greek dating. This is usually dependent on whether one thinks the book imbibes Persian or Greek wisdom, or describes a Persian or Greek time period. 

It seems that the idea of Ecclesiastes repackaging Greek wisdom has very little to back it up these days, which would shift it a little earlier (to the Persian era) than perhaps 20 years ago. Some also see the Persian context reflected in the setting of several aphorisms in the book.

2. Tone

Jerome, back in the day, in time when asceticism was elevated (sometimes literally), saw in Ecclesiastes a Contemptus Mundi, where there was nothing good or worthy in the world, and pushed the reader toward a life of divine contemplation rather than enjoyment of this-worldly things.

In Luther a new reading was found - nun-marrying, home-brewing ex-monk that he was. Moving on from Jerome's pessimistic reading a millennium beforehand, Luther took Qohelet at his word when he extolled the wisdom of Carpe Diem. This can be seen to tie in to a strong creation theology evident throughout the book. 

In this new millennium however a third reading has been attempted, most notably by Tremper Longman III, which I have called the 'stolid evangelical approach'. Put simply, the book speaks provisionally, and even incorrectly, in light of the ultimate revelation of Jesus in the Gospels. So anything which Ecclesiastes says which is seen to contradict the clarity of the New Testament (pertaining, for example to the afterlife) supersedes what the book says. All the reader is able to trust with any certainty is the epilogue of the book, which seeks to correct any misspeaking of the author by giving it a covenantal framework: 'God shall you fear, and his commands shall you keep, for this is the duty of everyone.' (12.13)

3. Structure

I won't speak much on this now, except to say no one agrees, except perhaps with Franz Delitsch, who said a long time ago that no one has or ever will find the author's intended structure to Ecclesiastes. And yet... (stay tuned!)