Kohelet’s Escape: The Heart Freely Subordinated to Divine Navigation

Abstract

It is often claimed that Ecclesiastes constitutes an irremediable enigma which flies in the face of traditional Hebrew cosmology, making the author’s intended meaning not much more than a bewildering speculative task. Biblical scholars disagree on just about every aspect of this ancient Hebraic work: authorship, date, structure, narrative framework, and even its connection to a Creator God. This essay utilizes Ballantine’s strategic rhetorical perspective to introduce and wade through some of the central controversies and debates about the meaning of Ecclesiastes: Is earthly life meaningful or meaningless ? Is there eternal meaning to earthly life or not? Is the earthly life of human beings pointless and futile or not? If the simple pleasures of earthly life are gifts from God, then how can earthly life itself be ‘hevel’? and more. Somewhat surprisingly, it concludes that Ecclesiastes is anything but an enigma when viewed rhetorically, and certainly not in contravention of basic Hebraic and Christian biblical principles about the sovereign importance of believing in God and obeying the Commandments, even despite all the trials and tribulations offered by earthly life.

Keywords

• kohelet
• futility
• hevel
• ecclesiastes
• rhetorical strategy
• narrative framework