Preaching Ecclesiastes

I started thinking and writing about Ecclesiastes because I had to preach it. So, hopefully, as I'm on the verge of submitting, I can have a crack at answering the question I began with three years ago: how does one attack a book such as Ecclesiastes and divide it into appropriate sections for preaching to a congregation?

As discussed in previous posts, one instinct can be to systematise the book and preach the teaching of Ecclesiastes on work, joy, wealth, and so on, much as one might do with the book of Proverbs. As my personal approach is to preach systematically through books, this was not really an option for me, so I chose to divide the book into manageable and logical chunks, and it was the things observed through this process that led me to embark on this study.

The way I ended up dividing the book for weekly preaching to a congregation (before beginning this study) was to preach the introduction and opening poem (1:1–11), then 1:12–2:26 as a block, and then 3:1–15 as the wisdom poem and its observation response. 3:16–4:16 was one talk, although I had the opportunity to come back to it at a weekend away I was asked to speak at, where I divided the panel into four talks. I then skipped forward to the next observation section, 5:12–6:12, then the final observation panel. At another weekend away I gave four talks from the fourth observation panel, with the coda (9:11–13) serving as a concluding Bible study. The penultimate talk was the final poem (11:7–12:7) and then finally, also serving as a conclusion to the series, 12:8–14.

All this means I did not spend much time preaching through the wisdom panels, although, if I had my time again, I would endeavour to preach the observation panels with much more reference to the wisdom panels. That also infers that I would not preach from the wisdom panels on their own, but use them, as I have argued is the case for Qohelet, to illustrate and interact with his observations.

Here is what I would recommend for preachers who are persuaded by the structure presented in this paper, with a plan for between seven and sixteen talks:

• 1:1–11 one talk and an introduction to the book as a whole
• 1:12–2:26 one talk or up to three talks (with the coda 2:24–26 hanging over all the talks), illustrated by the wisdom panel 3:1–9
• 3:10–4:16 one talk or up to five talks (dividing the final unit into two), illustrated by the wisdom panel 4:17–5:11
• 5:12–6:12 one talk, illustrated by the wisdom panel 7:1–14
• 7:15–9:13 one talk or up to four talks (with the coda 9:11–13 hanging over all the talks), illustrated by the wisdom panel 9:14–11:6
• 11:7–12:7 one talk
• 12:8–14   one talk, also reflecting on the book as a whole and the role of wisdom in character formation

Leviticus 18 Chiasm

It's been a while between chiasms, but Leviticus 18 was really asking to be analysed in this way.

A 1-2 Introductory formula - I am Yhwh your God

B 3 Don't be like Egypt from before or like Canaan in the future

C 4 Do follow my laws - I am Yhwh your God

D 5 Follow my laws and you will live - I am Yhwh

E 6-20 Don't approach your kin for sexual relations - I am Yhwh 

E' 21-27 Don't give your children to Molech and profane the name of your God - I am Yhwh

D' 28-29 Defile the land and you will be spat out and cut off

C' 30a Keep my requirements

B' 30b Don't follow detestable practices from before you

A' 30c I am Yhwh your God

I think the key to this structure is understanding what the phrase 'I am Yhwh (your God)' is doing. It seems it's generally at the end of sections. So the second half of the prohibitions (18:21-27) begins with a line about Molech and concludes with the phrase 'I am Yhwh'. This is not dissimilar to the beginning of the prohibitions in 18:6. What 18:6, 21 are doing then is acting as headings to the following prohibitions, which are distinguished in the opening and closing, as the laws for Israel (18:4, 30a) are compared with those regarding the future (18:3, 30b).

18:5, 28-29 clearly present the deuteronomistic understandings of the author (cf. Lev 27), where following God's laws will lead to life, while rejecting them will mean Israel will be spat out and cut off.

As with all of Leviticus, the reminder throughout (6x in this chapter) is that Yhwh is their God, and he is infinitely holier with infinitely higher standards that must be adhered to.

From soles to souls

Part of my backstory is I used to be a limb-maker (prosthetist-orthotist is the fancy title). The joke is I moved from looking after soles to souls. Of course the distinction is not so great, as caring for one part of a person inevitably involves caring for the whole person. So it was great to read this article this morning on a quad amputee, with a similar backstory to several patients I worked with in the past.

Have a read: http://www.abc.net.au/news/about/backstory/radio/2018-07-03/amputee-mandy-mccracken-talks-about-radio-gig/

The craziness of 1 Thessalonians 2:7

It's not often a verse is so confusing. Actually, there are lots of times this is the case. But there are two confusing things here; one is high level confusing but with low level impact, while the other is normal level confusing but with greater impact.

So the very weird thing: differing versification between Greek and English.

NIV (cf. ESV, CSB etc etc)
2:6 We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else,
even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority.
2:7 Instead, we were like young children among you.
Just as a nursing mother cares for her children,

NA28 (cf. USB5 etc)
2.6 οὔτε ζητοῦντες ἐξ ἀνθρώπων δόξαν οὔτε ἀφ᾿ ὑμῶν οὔτε ἀπ᾿ ἄλλων,
2.7 δυνάμενοι ἐν βάρει εἶναι ὡς Χριστοῦ ἀπόστολοι,
ἀλλ᾿ ἐγενήθημεν ⸀νήπιοι ἐν μέσῳ ὑμῶν.
ὡς ἐὰν τροφὸς θάλπῃ τὰ ἑαυτῆς τέκνα,

I guess it's not super-weird, but I can't remember seeing the versification being different within a verse. Normally it's a different chapter division (cf. eg. Eccl. 4.17MT = 5.1Eng.), which affects the verse counting, but this is the first time I've seen it change within a verse.

What's doubly weird is I can't find anyone who cares to speak on it. The critical commentaries I've looked at either don't mention it or just note it with no explanation or discussion. The reason for this is that it doesn't affect anything, but it's still weird, and it musses up the cross-highlighting in Accordance.

The less weird thing: textual variant: the dropped or added Ν
As you can see above, there is a text critical mark before νήπιοι, which tells us that in some manuscripts the reading isn't νήπιος (infant), but ἤπιος (gentle). It's a pretty straight-forward case: either someone added the N to ἤπιος because they liked the imagery - there's also mother in 2.7 and father in 2.11, plus Paul likes νήπιος, using it 15 times in his letters. The alternative is someone removed the N, because they didn't want to mix the metaphor, making this one of only two times Paul says ἤπιος (the other being 2 Tim 2.24).

I guess if you don't agree with Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Letters you would say it has to be νήπιος, as ἤπιος isn't a word Paul uses. Although you probably don't think he wrote the Thessalonian correspondence either, so whatever.

What's frustrating is in context it could really be either. But it does change how you structure the sentence. If you letter, rather than number, the clauses as follows, there are really only two ways to structure it, and it all hangs on your text critical decision.

NIV (cf. ESV, CSB etc etc)
A We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else,
B even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority.
C Instead, we were like young children among you.
D Just as a nursing mother cares for her children,

NA28 (cf. USB5 etc)
A οὔτε ζητοῦντες ἐξ ἀνθρώπων δόξαν οὔτε ἀφ᾿ ὑμῶν οὔτε ἀπ᾿ ἄλλων,
B δυνάμενοι ἐν βάρει εἶναι ὡς Χριστοῦ ἀπόστολοι,
C ἀλλ᾿ ἐγενήθημεν ⸀νήπιοι ἐν μέσῳ ὑμῶν.
D ὡς ἐὰν τροφὸς θάλπῃ τὰ ἑαυτῆς τέκνα,

Option 1: If you go with νήπιοι/infant, then you have to have one sentence = ABC. New thought: D...
Option 2: However if you decide it should be ἤπιοι/gentle, then your first sentence = AB. Next sentence: CD...

In the first option, infant is describing Paul's refusal to assert his authority. He asserted the same authority as an infant can, that is, none.
But in the second option, gentle is describing a nursing mother. The lack of authority is not further explained, but the character of a nursing mother to her child is: Paul & Silas became gentle among them, just like a nursing mother to her children.

Funnily enough a lot of ancient texts bear witness to both, with νήπιοι the original reading, later corrected to ἤπιοι. So on the weight of that, infant makes sense. But both work. The NA28/UBS5 went with νήπιοι, while the new THGNT has decided on ἤπιοι. Similarly NIV chose infant, while the ESV chose gentle.

Ultimately it's up to you, but hopefully this is a clear enough presentation of the options for you to make sense of.

The use of ראה to structure the Observation Panels

As mentioned in the previous post on this subject, the body of Ecclesiastes can be seen to comprise of four pairs of alternating panels, with the A panels containing Qoheleth's observations, while the B panels contain his collected wisdom.

First-Person Verbs
What stands out in the reading of Ecclesiastes is the proliferation of first-person verbs. The narrative is not the normal type of Hebrew narrative, describing the goings-on of a third person, but are written in the first-person. The first section (1.12-2.26) contains a whopping 42:38 first-:third-person verbs, which gives a ratio of 1.11. Compare this with Ecclesiastes as a whole (which is the highest of all the books with 0.26), or with the canonical wisdom books (0.21), the whole Hebrew Bible (0.18) or, right at the bottom, Ben Sira (0.09).
The point here is that Ecclesiastes is unique in having the narrative being told from a first-person point of view.

You can see there are spikes, with large concentrations of first-person verbs in various sections, while there is a (there are a?) paucity in other places, where the third-person takes over. Add to this that in the observation panels there are other verbs which are virtual first-person verbs, namely where Qohelet speaks to his heart.
Of course, it is not enough to simply point this out; the question is what delineates these first-person observation sections from the wisdom which surrounds them?

Occurrences of ראה 
Looking at just the first-person occurrences of ראה, it becomes evident that there is a regularity to where it is used, but also a rhetorical use of the verb. It begins units, and often ends them, such that four panels reveal themselves:

Observation Panel 1: 1.12-2.26 (four units which begin with first-person use of ראה : qatal 3x, yiqtol 1x)
Observation Panel 2: 3.10-4.15 (four units, four of which begin with a first-person use of ראה, three of which also conclude with first-person use of ראה : qatal 5x, yiqtol 2x)
Observation Panel 3: 5.12-6.12 (three units, each of which begin with the first-person qatal use of ראה)
Observation Panel 4: 7.15-9.13 (five units, each of which either begin or end with a first-person use of ראה, and begin or end with another use of ראה : qatal 5x, imperative 2x, infinitive 3x)

What we see here is the first and third panels begin with ראיתי or אראה, while the second and third are bookended with a use of ראה. For the astute reader you will have noticed there are two further uses of ראיתי, namely in 10.5,7. We maintain this is an 'observation interlude', which forms some symmetry with the 'wisdom interlude' found in the second panel, at 4.4-5.

Internal Structure of the Observation Panels
What remains to be said is that the four panels each contain discrete units, each of which are either begun by, or both begun and concluded by, an observation using the verb 'to see'. Chiasm-crazy as I am, it's hard for me not to see the chiasms present in the individual units, where an observation is made, discussed and conclusions then made. Within each panel the units are linked by a theme, which is most obvious in the first panel (1.12-2.26), but is evident in the other three panels also.

In the next post I want to talk a bit about the Wisdom Panels which form the matching pairs to the Observation Panels. Stay tuned!

John 18-19 structure

There's a fascinating back and forth between inside and outside in the exchange between Pilate, Jesus and the Jewish leaders in John 18-19, but it's quite similar to what's happening in the immediately preceding section of Peter and the show trial by the Jewish leaders.

As is evident here, while Mark uses time in his Passion narrative, John is interested in location, and the contrast between what is happening inside (Jesus being the light in the darkness) with what is happening outside (the world rejecting the light). 

I'm looking forward to reflecting on this tomorrow at our Good Friday service. 

Standing on the shoulders of giants

There are three things to come together in constructing the structure I have arrived at. One is what is widely agreed: the bookends. Two is the alternating panels, as discussed earlier. Third is the structural keyword which give shape and boundaries to the sections.

1. Overall Shape
There is widespread agreement to the overall structure of the book. Simply put there is a beginning, a body, and a conclusion. The precise boundaries differ, but my delineation is not especially novel.

1.1 An opening word on Qohelet
1.2 Dilemma: Vanity of Vanities
1.3-11 Opening Poem
1.12-11.6 BODY
11.7-12.7 Closing Poem
12.8 Dilemma: Vanity of Vanities
12.9-14 A concluding word on Qohelet

In my own structure I have included the 'dilemma' with the words on Qohelet although others will separate it out. But it is worth mentioning separately here so the shaping of the book is apparent. Working from out to in, it begins and ends with a word on a Qohelet, then has the 'vanity of vanities' saying, and then a poem with a gnomic perspective (humanity in light of creation, life in light of old age). This shaping of the book's bookends indicates that structure in intrinsic to this book; we should be expecting more structure as we delve further into the book.

2. Alternating Panels
As mentioned in my previous post, this is something that others seem to have been groping towards.  Although the delineation of the passages differ, there are similarities in the way the panels are described.

Author	A Panels	B Panels
de Jong	Observation	Instruction
Seow	Reflection	Ethics
Zimmerli	Treatise	Sentence collection
d5	Observation	Wisdom collection

As suggested earlier what needs to happen next is to ground the delineation of the panels beyond 'the vibe', or de Jong's 'intuition'. Which leads to our next point.

3. Structural Keywords
A host of keywords have been suggested. Wright, among others, suggested multiple thematic keywords, which all work for a section, but only for a short section. But from closely observing the section 1.12-2.26 suggest not a thematic, but a structural keyword.

Seeing similarities in Bauckham's 'brothers and sisters' beginning sections in the book of James, or Gibson and Nichols with the refrain ‘(through) Jesus Christ (our) Lord’ at the conclusion of eight sections of the book of Romans, or even the well known reference to the progress of the word of God in the book of Acts, it is evident that these structures are not necessarily using 'thematic' keywords, that is words which one would suggest at the outset. And in a sense, that is the issue with using 'hebel' to find a structure - it is the keyword one might suggest. But that does not mean the book must use a preconceived keyword to reveal the structure.

Instead, what is evident in Ecclesiastes is the use of the verb ראה (to see) to provide structure to the 'A' panels of the book, and especially the first person qatal use of the verb, ראיתי (I saw/observed), to provide the structure to these panels.

On reflection, and again, much like the other examples, this keyword is perfectly fitting to the style and content of the book. The book is a book in large part of Qohelet's observations, the things he has seen. As one thinks about the structural keywords in James, Romans and Acts, in retrospect they too are fitting. But these are firstly structural keywords, and are revealed by the book, which is different to thematic keywords, which are imposed on the book by others.

In the next post I will show how this works to structure the book.

Recent approaches to the structure of the book of Ecclesiastes

Recent approaches to the structure of Ecclesiastes

Castellino and Wright

Perhaps disheartened by the inimitable Delitzsch, it wasn't until the 1960's that approaches to the structure of Ecclesiastes became a distinct area of study. This focus and the earlier pessimism meant anyone who wanted to assert a structure had to do more than simply state their structure; it had to be defensible. 

In the 1960's two Roman Catholic stablemates identified similar structures and were published in the same CBQ omnibus. George Castellino and Addison Wright both identified a book whose body could be divided in twain. There were questions in the first half and answers in the second. For Castellino it was the imperative שׁמר at 4.17 (5.1 English) which signalled the turning point. This was a pretty neat structure, which drew attention to some clusters of vocabulary limited to one half or the other. 

Unfortunately for him, Wright's structure blew him out of the water. It is not to say it was good, but it grabbed everyone's attention. 'The Riddle of the Sphinx' and his two follow up articles found a bunch of numerical values matching up with verses and structure and so on. He used Ben Sira to show this is what readers would be expecting - a literary work thoroughly worked through with numerical significance. 

While Wright's ideas are fantastical, the thoroughness of his work means his has been the accepted model for half a Century. Occasionally this seems to be for lack of effort (see Murphy's WBC volume which criticises Wright yet uses it nonetheless), but thankfully in the last two decades others have come up with their own approaches.

Nonetheless, these two approaches demonstrated two observations which remain valid regardless of the structure. The first of these is the idea of alternation, two different types of discourse. And the second is the importance of keywords and clustered vocabulary.

Zimmerli and de Jong

Zimmerli wrote a commentary (in German, in Fraktur script, if anyone is interested in reading it) but also an article where he considered two alternatives: Traktat (treatise) oder Sentenzensammlung (a collection of aphorisms). What seemed to be Zimmerli's issue was trying to decide which of these we should decide Ecclesiastes to be, although the question I was asking as I read his article, was 'why not both?' (with apologies to the Old El Paso advert).

De Jong followed his 'intuitions' (really, that's how he described his method) to divide the body of the book into two sets of panels, although he guided his intuitions by grouping together clusters of vocabulary. One half he called 'observation', the other 'instruction', and these sets demonstrated the two types of discourse in the book. Seow had a similar approach, although without focussing so much on the vocabulary, and had two pairs as contrasted with de Jong's four pairs.

These authors built on the slightly crazy in Wright to come up with some truly plausible structures that seek to give credence to the two types of discourse sensed as one reads - the observations of Qohelet paired with the many wisdom sayings throughout. However the question Fox asked remains: what effect does it have on the reading of the book? Most of these structures, when one actually tries to read Ecclesiastes through their filter, as Fox described Wright, amount to no more than a 'ghost in the attic'. 

There is also something to be said for the importance of keywords, as there do seem to be clusters and regularity of phrases, but so far none of the words or phrases (such as הבל hebel (vanity) or 'chasing/shepherding the wind') have really done the job. Perhaps it is not thematic keywords we should be looking for, but structural keywords. Maybe we will do just that...

Past approaches to the structure of Ecclesiastes

As mentioned in my previous post, there are three main unresolved issues in Ecclesiastes studies.

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

My work is focusing on the third of these, which is a journey I am embarking on because of features I have noticed as I have worked through the Hebrew text. But first it is appropriate to note the shoulders upon which I stand as I take my approach.

The history of Ecclesiastes structure research could be divided into three time periods, namely, the historic (up until the Reformation), from the Reformation until the middle of last Century, and from the 1960's until today. 

Historic

It is fair to say there was not much interest in the structure of the book before the Reformation. The book was simply read as one long monologue (see for example Gregory Thaumaturgus' 'Metaphrase') and not much thought was given to any logical units within.

Some attention of late has been given to the Masoretic markings of the text, and most notably the midpoint marker. However to read anything into this is purely speculative. After all, the Masoretes were also known as the Sopherim (those who count), so it was important to mark off the midpoint of a book so as to aid their counting, ensuring they had not missed (or added) anything in their copying.

Reformation

As Luther preached and taught through the book of Ecclesiastes he drew attention to movements he perceived in the logical argument of the book. He did not (so far as we know) devote any attention to outlining a structure, but one is deducible from his commentary (published, albeit, by his students). 

The generations after the Reformation began to think in higher-critical terms, and began to question how many hands lay behind the book, and the deduction of the different sources would reveal how the work is to be structured (much like the Documentary Hypothesis in Pentateuchal studies). Some effort was made in finding a structure, but these attempts did not lead to any optimism, with no consensus being reached. As mentioned last post, Franz Delitzsch summed up the mood with his 'never have, never will' statement, while one imaginative scholar suggested (anachronistically) that an early scribe dropped the loose-leaf sheets of the book and reassembled them in an incorrect order, which is why we will never be able to find an order (at least without some similarly imaginative reorganising).

In the next post I will take a look at more recent approaches, and will show how they coalesce into a hopeful approach.

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!)

John 11.47-12.11 Chiasm

It's been a while between chiasms but here's another. I like this one as is all focusing around the importance placed on people's response to the person and work of Jesus.

a Responding in fear - Caiaphas (11.47-54)

b Responding in fervour - Martha (12.2)

c Responding in generous faith - Mary (12.3)

b' Responding in incredulity - Judas (12.4-8)

a' Responding in fear - the chief priests (12.9-11)

It opens and closes with the fear of the authorities, which is to be expected, but closer in they're both understandable responses: first Martha's 'Jesus is coming, look busy!', and then the legalistic prioritising of Judas.