[6/1996] The story/play Job (specifically the dialogue sections and 42:7) and the essay of Ecclesiastes (minus the last paragraph) have become, for me, the windows into Jewish scripture and Christian scripture.
[Note: Without the series of exchanges between the prologue and epilogue, the 42:7 statement has no logical place in the story/play Job. So the statement is not part of the epilogue that -- together with the prologue -- forms the ‘happily ever after’ short version of the story/play Job. I think the composer surprises the audience with the implied task of searching back through the extended story asking, “What did Job say about ‘God’ that the composer thinks is right?”]
[Note: I started giving Ecclesiastes careful attention during my Louisville years (1976-79) when I saw the similarities with modern existential writings. I remember concluding that Ecclesiastes stands alone in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture in requiring so little commentary to be accessible. When I began offering a systematic theology graduate seminar (1981), the format I chose was to imagine a series of conversations between ‘Jesus’ and the author of Ecclesiastes. For many years, I read Ecclesiastes as the personal statement of Koheleth (the speaker in the text). More recently, I have come to regard Koheleth as a literary device created by the essay’s anonymous author. I see Koheleth as similar to a court fool – i.e., giving rather blunt analyses that those threatened can easily dismiss. Another analogy is Shostakovich’s precarious position before Stalin. Distinguishing Koheleth from the author aligns well with the tenuous place of the essay in the canon of Jewish scripture and accounts for the outlandish, even clownish, statements attributed to Koheleth in the essay (e.g., Koheleth’s excessive claims to know more than anyone else before him and to be the best student by far there had ever been).]
[Note: Without the series of exchanges between the prologue and epilogue, the 42:7 statement has no logical place in the story/play Job. So the statement is not part of the epilogue that -- together with the prologue -- forms the ‘happily ever after’ short version of the story/play Job. I think the composer surprises the audience with the implied task of searching back through the extended story asking, “What did Job say about ‘God’ that the composer thinks is right?”]
[Note: I started giving Ecclesiastes careful attention during my Louisville years (1976-79) when I saw the similarities with modern existential writings. I remember concluding that Ecclesiastes stands alone in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture in requiring so little commentary to be accessible. When I began offering a systematic theology graduate seminar (1981), the format I chose was to imagine a series of conversations between ‘Jesus’ and the author of Ecclesiastes. For many years, I read Ecclesiastes as the personal statement of Koheleth (the speaker in the text). More recently, I have come to regard Koheleth as a literary device created by the essay’s anonymous author. I see Koheleth as similar to a court fool – i.e., giving rather blunt analyses that those threatened can easily dismiss. Another analogy is Shostakovich’s precarious position before Stalin. Distinguishing Koheleth from the author aligns well with the tenuous place of the essay in the canon of Jewish scripture and accounts for the outlandish, even clownish, statements attributed to Koheleth in the essay (e.g., Koheleth’s excessive claims to know more than anyone else before him and to be the best student by far there had ever been).]