squiz

Does anyone know what the scholarly thinking is about the epilogue of Ecclesiastes? It looks rather tacked on, to me.

andrewcriddle

Many regard it as a later addition e.g. Ecclesiastes Andrew Criddle

sotto voce

Some people do not see varying moods at all. Nothing unworthy, or the book would not be accounted Scripture. They see a prevailing existentialist problem— to which much is sympathetically conceded without compromise— apparently in tension with theism, but not actually in any genuine antithesis with it. The start of the last chapter is the most moving, poetic climax that fully vindicates the book as a whole, repeating the opening thesis, but now in a very different light, with another meaning. The following verses are more mundane, are entirely to be expected, and make a natural conclusion.

The message of the book is that, while life may very reasonably appear to be vain and futile (a view that is actually confirmed by evolutionary theory), it is actually a test of conduct.

Doug Shaver

Because those who declared it canonical were incapable of error?

sotto voce

Because those who called it Scripture were under scrutiny by all and sundry. In effect, yes.

Doug Shaver

Fascinating hypothesis, there.

So, people who are "under scrutiny by all and sundry" become infallible. Does that always work, or just when religious matters are at issue?

sotto voce

Try it.

Sheshbazzar

Would the contemporary populations literacy rate have even allowed much of any 'all and sundry' to even ever have had access to the content of this text?

My guess would be that in that Sitz im Leben such a non-essential writing would have had a very limited audience or any public familiarity with its content.
The populace might have been in rapt awe of the holiness and knowledge of their priesthood but would have had very little access to or opportunity to learn the content of such an obscure text, and would largely have remained blissfully unaware.

And the priesthood would certainly have had its hands full simply in attempting to teach, interpret, and enforce all of those Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances contained within the Torah to a mostly illiterate population where simply scratching out a bare and minimal existence from day to day was a full time occupation for most.
Only an exclusive priesthood supported on the backs and the labors of others would have had the time, access, or opportunity to pursue the content of such non-essential esoteric scrolls.

steve_bnk

My Oxford commentary says Job was probably part of a lost set of teaching materials.

What we have is a fraction of what was written and in use.

Look at it culturally, the author of Ecclesiastes has got the blues as we would say today.

Woe is me, birds and other animals live off nature yet I have to push this damn plow 24/7 to live.

I expect then as today in any religion there would hve been teachers, writers, and different schools of Jewish thought.

IMO people try and read too much into it. What would people make of Mark Twain's observations 2000 years from now?

sotto voce

An inappropriate, anachronistic concept, as has been mentioned before.