The Epilogist Is To Respond To The Study Of Ecclesiastes

The role of the epilogist is to respond to the Qohelet’s teaching. The epilogist agrees with some of Qohelet’s teaching and also maintains healthy tensions of the contradictions as mentioned in the book. At the same time the epilogist directs readers to God with emphasis to fear God and keep his commandments. In the following I will first discuss the genre, structure, voices and ideologists in the books. Then I will move on to discuss the role of the epilogist based on above understandings.

Longman mentions that traditional studies of Ecclesiastes conclude that the book’s genre cannot be precisely defined. James Crenshaw comments that the book does not have one single genre. Longman provides his view and says that there are four most

Scholars affirm the integrity of Ecclesiastes but maintain that the search for a logical structure is futile because in most cases it demands patterns of thinking that far foreign to the book and its purposes. One of the difficult aspects of Ecclesiastes is the presence of many contradictory statements or in other words a lot of contractions in the book. It is not only ambiguities but of polar structures. There are a lot of these contradictions in chapter 3 such as life-death, plant-uproot. However it is not confined in one chapter but it is spreading all over the book. One way to discern the structure is to contend with the contradictions. I see this as a port of entry to the structure of the book. I will propose the overarching structure of the book on contractions. I will point out at least five contractions throughout the book.

(1) Qohelet in 8:10-12 says that wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time. However in 3:11 and 8:17 he mentions that on one can fathom what God has done.

(2) Qohelet in 9:4-6 says that living has hope and is better than dead but in 2:17 and 4:2 he says that those dead is better than living.

(3) Qohelet in 1:17-18 and 2:15-16 says that wisdom is meaningless and no good. However in 7:11-12, 19 and 9:17-18 he says that wisdom is

For Qohelet there are pockets of monologues within dialogue and imaginary dialogues within monologue. Different genres are used to express the ideas of the voices.

Each voice has its own perspective and its own unique ideologists. Penchansky says there are three voices within Ecclesiastes. The first one is in 1:1 with pessimistic Qohelet who declares that “Meaningless! Meaningless! .... Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” The second voice is Fear God Qohelet and is like the voice in Book of Proverbs laying down God command and punishment. An example can be found in 5:7 which says, “Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God.” The third voice is Enjoy Life Qohelet who is enjoying human pleasure and enjoyment as shown in 9:7 “God has long ago approved what you do. “ Penchansky’s conclusion is that the Pessimistic Qohelet is the true voice of the book. He says that “the best voice, the wisest voice, the voice I most want people to listen to, the one that makes the most unique contribution to the tradition, that has the most integrity, the voice with humor and iron, the one most fully human. One finishes reading Ecclesiastes (I claim), not think “fear God,” not thinking “life is great,” but rather, “vanity of vanities!”” However I can hear other voices in the book and cannot agree with Penchansky