6 - Qoheleth

Summary

Although it has only twelve chapters, the book of Qoheleth poses a number of problems for the reader who has deduced its lateness and pseudonymity from the nature of its language. The connection with King Solomon, which is suggested by the superscription in i 1 (cf. b. Megilla, fol. 7a), is founded on a failure to recognize i 12–ii 11 (26) as a ‘royal fiction’, and the usual translation of the Hebrew qōhelet on a misunderstanding by the ancient versions, which overlooked the original meaning of the term, ‘assembly leader’. We should probably picture the writer as a scribe who also worked as teacher, recording the results of the discussions which he led in school. By using catch-phrases and favourite expressions, and by exhausting the stylistic possibilities of Hebrew proverbial wisdom and of poetry, he has lent his work the unmistakable flavour of fine writing.

The prominence which Qoheleth gives to the personal-account form, and the emphasis which he places on the individual path to knowledge, correspond to his break with the ideas which were presupposed in the wisdom tradition of his people: he clearly lived at a time when old beliefs were being questioned, and when the individual, no longer able to depend upon them, was forced to find his own way. Qoheleth therefore presents himself as a teacher in a time of change, who feels compelled to contrast tradition with situation, the traditional words of the wise with his own observations, and to draw his own conclusions. Moreover, if it is not really marked, the influence of Greek-Hellenistic writing and thought is certainly demonstrable.