Questions on Book of Ecclesiastes ?

[Dachaser]

Will be teaching from this book, and wanted to know if the author can be assumed to be King Solomon, and is the basic premise in the Book seeing how life would be viewed from the secualr mindset, one devoid pretty much of God?

 

[Cymro]

I would recommend Dr Hengstenberg on Ecclesiastices. He discounts Solomon being the Author, and gives his reasons. He throws a different light on the interpretation of it, and shows how the preacher or gatherer(Koheleth) is admonishing the people of God for looking back to the days of Solomon as better days. His treatment of the opening of ch3 was an eye opener to me, in which everything has a season. The children of Israel were experiencing a season of persecution and were to realise that it was ordained of God, and not to huger inordinately for past glory days.

 

[Jake]

Mr. O'Neil,

Do you have a good source of where to read this? It sounds interesting and similar to ideas I've heard elsewhere, but I'd like to read more. I'm inclined to say it was written after Solomon, and the talk of those in Jerusalem after him in chapter 2 support this.

 

[Dachaser]

I would recommend Dr Hengstenberg on Ecclesiastices. He discounts Solomon being the Author, and gives his reasons. He throws a different light on the interpretation of it, and shows how the preacher or gatherer(Koheleth) is admonishing the people of God for looking back to the days of Solomon as better days. His treatment of the opening of ch3 was an eye opener to me, in which everything has a season. The children of Israel were experiencing a season of persecution and were to realise that it was ordained of God, and not to huger inordinately for past glory days.

Think though that the Teacher as he is calling Himself by would well fit into the biblical description of Solomon and that divine wisdom granted him by God, and he seems to be addressing wisdom also here as he did on Proverbs...
So you would not be seeing this as him showing to us how meaningless and vain life is apart from God, as he seems to be taking the side of the secular mindset until the very end?

 

[Cymro]

I have his commentary Jake, that's the only source I know. For Solomon to be the author David, it would portray him not as a wise man but as a voyeur. The preacher is raising the faith of Israel above the sun, they were concentrating on things below the sun, where there is nothing new, all there is vanity. They were not to hark back to Solomon's day when things were hunky dory, but to to understand the conflict they were undergoing. They were acting as Israel of old, who looked back longingly to the garlic of Egypt. Hengstenberg approximates Ecclesiastes to the time of Malachi, which book has similarities in the reproval of the people.

 

[Dachaser]

I have his commentary Jake, that's the only source I know. For Solomon to be the author David, it would portray him not as a wise man but as a voyeur. The preacher is raising the faith of Israel above the sun, they were concentrating on things below the sun, where there is nothing new, all there is vanity. They were not to hark back to Solomon's day when things were hunky dory, but to to understand the conflict they were undergoing. They were acting as Israel of old, who looked back longingly to the garlic of Egypt. Hengstenberg approximates Ecclesiastes to the time of Malachi, which book has similarities in the reproval of the people.

That is novel, but would not the wisdom showing up in it still remind us of Solomon, as I take it to be him looking back over his life, and lamenting that he started out great, but went downhill after ignoring God's wisdom, and looking at life through fame/wealth/fortune etc?