The Enduring Enigma of Ecclesiastes

Ancient Rabbinical and Patristic Interpretations

De: Marc Grenier

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

The central energizing question driving the present study is to arrive at some kind of reasonable conclusions about the extent to which Ecclesiastes constitutes an enigma or an unknowable mystery in terms of its overall meaning. A great deal of contemporary biblical scholarship posits that it is extremely difficult if not impossible to know what the writer of Ecclesiastes was really thinking or what were the central motives and, therefore, it is essentially impossible to understand with confidence to any degree of certitude.

Given that Ecclesiastes is so summarily perplexing in such multifarious ways to so many contemporary biblical scholars, it stands to reason that any commentary on Ecclesiastes cannot simply turn a blind eye to its many pronounced theological tensions and puzzles. Considerable time and attention need to be devoted to these tensions and puzzles before anything reasonable can be said about other topics or subjects in Ecclesiastes since they infuse all aspects of it.