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.