Ecclesiastes

Résumé du document

The Ecclesiastes, or "Qohelet" in Hebrew, is a text of the Hebrew Bible whose content, including some reflexions and maxims about the human existence, is unique in the Hebrew Bible and has left many scholars perplex. Most authors agree that it belongs to the Wisdom literature but it is clearly not a conventional wisdom text and raises a genre issue. Indeed, its style is very elusive, with a combination of sceptic maxims about wisdom and affirmation of the small joys of life, and it focuses especially on humanity, while other wisdom texts such as Proverbs concerns the relation with God.

Moreover, the Ecclesiastes raises an historical issue; the English translation for Qohelet is "preacher" or with more precision "the one who talks in front of an assembly" and if this preacher has for long been considered as Solomon, scholars now agree that this assumption was wrong. The Ecclesiastes is a much later work, even so it is still difficult to date with precision and there is still a debate concerning the unity of the text.

As a result, it is a complex text and the reader can easily be misled in reading it in a superficial way and it is important to use some proper method to interpret it. We will first use source criticism and historical criticism to know when and by whom the text was written, in order to understand the context in which he was produced (I). Then, we will use form criticism and literary criticism to find out the theological and literary meaning of the text (II).

Extraits

[...] But other authors argue for unity of authorship, with the idea that the text was probably written during the all life of Qoheleth and thus, he could have changed his mind, or that there was maybe tension in his own mind. Qoheleth does not tell anything about himself. According to Whybray, he was probably wealthy and old when he wrote the text (because in the chapter 12 he talks about decrepitude and death) and a bachelor (because of his commentaries about women)[2]. [...]

[...] Alberto Soggin- gives us several proves that the text is a much later work. Indeed, the text is not written in classical Hebrew language like other books, such as the book of Daniel, and it is clear that this language is a later form of Hebraic. There is no book in the Hebrew Bible in which the language have received more attention by scholars than the Ecclesiastes, because there are many foreign influences in it: Persian and Aramaic influences that proves that it is a late text and Greek influences, which permit to date it in the Hellenistic period. [...]

[...] Also the reference to money (10:19) can be an allusion to the commercial extension of this period, considering the fact that there was a real development of economy and money in the post-exilic period. As a result, if some authors prefer to remain cautious and date the text vaguely in the post exilic period, other such as James Crenshaw are more precise and say the text was written around 225 BCE, because of the language and all the similarities with the Hellenistic thought and history. But if Solomon was not the author, who was he? [...]

[...] To conclude, the Ecclesiastes is a good example of the need to use criticism methods to read the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, thanks to these methods, we avoid the trap of a superficial readings and we understand that the text was written around the 4rd century BCE and not by Solomon, and that it is not a only philosophical text but that it also has many theological implication, which explains why its canonicity has eventually been recognized. As a result, we can conclude more generally that reading the Hebrew Bible implies to be very cautious, because it is an old text, written by many people during a very long period and which has undergone many influences. [...]

[...] However, there is no agreement on the number of editorial hands involved. Historical criticism and source criticism are determinant to understand the historical and personal context in which the text was produced and as a result to have a better comprehension of its meaning. However, other steps are necessary to understand the text properly. II. Several methods, such as form criticism and literary criticism, are essential to go inside the text and to understand its literary meaning and theological implications. [...]