Exegesis of Ecclesiastes
Instructor: Kenneth Cherney
Description:
Of the three OT books often classified as “wisdom literature,” Proverbs has been called “optimistic”; Job, “pessimistic”; and Ecclesiastes, “nihilistic.” Luther called Ecclesiastes a book “written against the free will,” since “things turn out anyway as God will and purposes, not as we will and purpose” (LW 35:64). This course will attempt to come to grips with the book’s puzzling internal tensions and seemingly bleak view of life, as we join the narrator on his search for wisdom to sustain him in a universe that appears nonsensical. Attention will be given to the book’s unusual (though not difficult!) Hebrew, the history of the book’s interpretation, and issues surrounding it in current scholarship.