Category: Book of Ecclesiastes
Scripture’s poetics
No, not Neruda' poetics
Three days ago I wrote a post about the both/and function of some books with the canon of Scripture. In other words, let us ask whether the Book of Proverbs is true to life in its call to follow Wisdom’s voice or if the Book of Ecclesiastes is true to life in its seeming nihilism for those living “under the sun”. There is a way to read these two books as being in opposition, but I think this is a mistake. I do not deny the juxtaposition, but I do deny that these two necessarily oppose each other.
I was asked to provide a bit of clarification regarding my both/and paradigm which I did in a comment that I thought deserved the attention of becoming a post. This is what I wrote:
“I read the Book of Proverbs as a book of proverbial wisdom that claims that if Wisdom’s words are followed the follower will avoid the heartache and devastation of foolish living. That is truthful and this claim is truthful, but there are times when there is an addition x factor that the author of proverbs has not taken into consideration that can derail the applicability of these various proverbs to certain lives. In other words, the Book of Proverbs presents the general rule that if you follow wisdom you will live a good life. It does not stop to ask if this is still true when A, B, C, or D occur.
“The Book of Job provides a scenario that shows an exception to the general rule of the Book of Proverbs: What is God and Satan wage a cosmic bet? It does not matter is Job lived by wise principles, there is another factor in play: God, angels, demons, and other people can interrupt things causing the Book of Proverbs to appear untruthful to the person who tries to live wisely yet finds their life is a disaster.
“The Book of Ecclesiastes provides another angle that we find is true to our experience. There are people who seem to live horrible lives who are successful; there are people who live “wise” lives who are buried by unforeseen circumstances. If we read the Book of Ecclesiastes alone we can say, “Yes, I have seen this type of scenario. I have seen many lives wasted. I have seen good people buried by bad circumstances. This is so true to life!” But we know this is not the whole story. It is not true of everyone and every life even though it is true.
“When we read these poetic books together we get a vision of life that is holistic. If we just read Proverbs we may think something is wrong when we are trying to live in wisdom yet our child dies or we lose our job. If we Job alone we may fear that our every decision will be overrun by God, angels, demons, and other people. If we read Ecclesiastes alone we may become nihilistic. But together, we see these harmonized voice show the truth that life is more complex than any one of these three books would indicate if read alone.”
Scripture’s poetics sometime present contrasting truth claims which result in truth due to the balance of the canonical witness. If we take Proverbs alone it is true in part. If we take Ecclesiastes alone it is true in part. If we take Job alone it is true in part. Together it is true.
Scripture’s both/and
Maybe we need to think of the canon as more like an orchestra or a choir than a textbook?
A few years ago my pastor did a series of sermons on the poetic books. It was during this time that I was forced to think about the reality that Scripture’s truthfulness is often found in its acceptance of both/and rather than either/or. Let me explain.
If one reads the Book of Proverbs one gets the idea that Scripture indicates that if someone lives by these proverbs that life will be good. If someone seeks wisdom they will avoid the pit falls that entrap the foolish. Yet when we flip to the Book of Ecclesiastes we discover “vanity, vanity, all is vanity!” Even the good person ends up dead in the grave. Then if we go to the Book of Job it becomes even more complicated: So we have a Satan, angels, and God as active agents? Where is that in the presentation given by the Book of Proverbs???
Some read Scripture and this tension is overwhelming. But I think this is a misreading of Scripture. Scripture’s truthfulness is not limited to some sort of depositing of theological data. It is not a decision between one person saying “5 + 5 = 10″ and someone else saying “no, 5 + 5 = 12″. Life is more complicated and complex than that.
So Scripture’s truthfulness is often found in its both/and. Is it true that the person who seeks to live wise will have a better life. Yes, unless a, b, c, or d. Is it true that life is meaningless and that we all go to the grave to die? Yes, unless a, b, c, or d. In other words Scripture makes absolute statements that do not seek to answer the “what if’s” or the “what abouts”.
In doing this Scripture often is truer to life than any text on philosophy. If a person obeys God they will have a good life and a better life than the fool….unless Satan and God have a cosmic wager! If a person seeks life’s best they will often find that they die like the rest….unless God sends his Son to provide resurrecting life through his Spirit!
This is not contradiction. This is 3D. This is multidimensional. The canon creates a choir of voices. If we only heard the voice of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes this would not be true to life. If we only heard the voice of the wise father in Proverbs this would not be true to life. If we assumed that everything good and evil is the result of cosmic duals between God and Satan like Job this would not be true to life. But together (!) it is true to life.
Scripture’s both/and is often missed by both fundamentalist type readers and those reacting to fundamentalist type readers. But if we think of the canon more as a choir than a book of propositions we will realize it is telling us the truth of God’s world like no other book.
Reading Levison’s Filled with the Spirit: Part One, Chapter One
Filled with the Spirit by John R. Levison
As I read through the first chapter of John R. Levison’s Filled with the Spirit there was several occasions when I realized there are important aspects of Pneumatology that many of the scholars that I have read have overlooked altogether. In this chapter he emphasizes how the spirit is essential to the life of human, animals, and creation in general. He begins by noting the connection between the adam (human) and the adamah (earth/dust). What makes Adam more than dust is the breath of God (Gen. 2.7).
Both humans and animals (Gen. 2.19) have their source and destination from and toward the earth. The pattern is “dust then life then dust” (15). In part, what makes humans live is the spirit. When God determines that the life span of humans will shorten it is because “my spirit shall not abide in mortals forever” because “they are flesh” (Gen. 6.3). This is so for all creation for “everything that is on the earth shall die” (Gen. 6.17) (16).
Rarely does it seem that many think of the sustaining force of humanity and all creation as the S/spirit of God. It is most evident in early Israelite Pneumatology that this was so. Levison does a good job at pointing out the seemingly obvious. As a reader it immediately made me think about specific elements of Pauline and Johannine Pneumatology that it seems many New Testament scholars overlook–but that is a subject for a later post.
The remainder of this chapter is dedicated to showing how the spirit = life for humans, animals, and all creation theme reappears in places like the Book of Job, the Book of Ecclesiastes, and in several Psalms; most notably Ps. 104.29-30. In each of these instances nothing can survive without the spirit. Often many theologians have made distinctions between the human spirit in an anthropological sense and the S/spirit of God. It seems to me that Levison wants to narrow the gap and he is justified when using these passages.
For Levison, “Death is nothing less than the hiding of God’s face, the extraction of God’s spirit, and a return to dust.” The spirit of God brings life back to humans. Likewise, “The sending of God’s spirit creates the animals and renews the face of the ground.” (26)
I won’t go into each and every passage that Levison explores but I will say there is a theme in Israelite literature that he has spotted that is impossible to ignore. God’s S/spirit is what determines the sustainability of humanity and creation in general. It will be interesting to see how he traces this theme from here into the Wisdom literature.
Approaching Ecclesiastes
While I do not foresee myself sitting down with Thom Stark over a cup of coffee anytime soon this does not mean I cannot be thankful for his brash disregard for most of my attempts to present a hermeneutical approach to Ecclesiastes from the perspective of one who affirms inerrancy. As we went back and forth over whether or not Ecclesiastes 9.2-6 fits into the inerrancy paradigm it became painfully obvious that I have a knack for presenting fringe arguments that are more captivating than my primary argument which in turn detracts from what I really wanted to say. I have decided that I would simplify my approach to Ecclesiastes here in order to avoid adding to the confusion that has occurred in the comments section of James McGrath’s blog.
Why have I argued that Ecclesiastes 9.2-6–which blatantly denies the concept of resurrection–ought to be seen as an important canonical voice that presents truth that is not in contradiction with the rest of Scripture. For better or worse here are my three proposals:
(1) The content of Ecclesiastes is written “under the sun”. It is short-sighted focusing on the fact that this life comes to an end for the good and the bad. No one escapes death; no one lives life over. Once you are dead there is no coming back for another round.
(2) Nevertheless, the redactor/commentator of Ecclesiastes in 12.13-14 says that there may be more to this than what the Preacher has said. Therefore, the duty of humans is to “fear God and keep his commandments”. While this is a blind assertion with no promise of resurrection and/or eternal life it does assume something when it ends with “For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” In context this does not seem to be a reference to this life though we must admit he does not expand any further.
(3) Therefore, it is true that death is the end all. But this does not contradict later teachings regarding resurrection. Instead, it assumes no knowledge of such a thing. When we speak of being resurrected we do not speak of coming back to this life. We speak of new life. Resurrection does not give you a second chance in the sense that the author of Ecclesiastes is critiquing. In fact, this life determines the nature of your resurrected existence.
So the author of Ecclesiastes is right: once dead, you are dead, there is no “coming back”. Resurrection is still true and compatible since we do not “come back” to this life but we are renewed to a new one.
Augustine on the Destiny of the Good and the Evil in Ecclesiastes
A long discussion has taken place on James McGrath’s blog regarding the words of Ecclesiastes 9.2-6 as relates to the doctrine of inerrancy (here). In my opinion it has reached a stalemate with some denying its compatibility with the rest of the references to eternal life and death, eschatological judgement, and resurrection. Other, like myself, have suggested there are various approaches that can be taken to Ecclesiastes that allow for the claims to stand while being interpreted in a canonical context that frames these claims differently. For those unfamiliar with the passage it reads:
All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them.
This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. Anyone who is among the living has hope—even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.
Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun. (NIV)
It seems apparent to me that the context is “life under the sun”. This is not a declaration against later doctrines concerning the after life, per se, but rather a truthful examination of our destiny from this side of the grave. In addition, we must read Ecclesiastes from several various perspectives: (1) to reiterate, a commentary on existence “under the sun”; (2) poetry from a pessimistic person who truthfully presents the view of someone in this life; (3) in the context of the words of the “Preacher” being quoted by a commentator in 12.13-14 where there is some disagreement with the Preacher who clarifies “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, with every secret thing, whether good or evil”;(4) canonically (see John Hobbins comment here); and (5) before the resurrection of Christ which is the only things that changes once-dead-always-dead into resurrection to eternal life or judgement.
That being said, while reading Augustine in search of something else, I noticed his statements on Ecclesiastes which I will share though I am unsure of their worth:
Solomon, the wisest king of Israel, who reigned in Jerusalem, this commences the book called Ecclesiastes, which the Jews number among their canonical Scriptures: “Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he hath taken under the sun?” (1.2-3). And after going on the enumerate with this as his text, the calamities and delusions of this life, and the shifting nature of the present time, in which there is nothing substantial, nothing lasting, he bewails, among the other vanities that are under the sun, this also, that though wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness (2.13-14), and though the eyes of the wise man are in his head, while the fool walks in darkness, yet one events happens to them all, that is to say, in this life under the sun, unquestionably alluding to those evils which we see befall good and bad men alike.He says, further, that the good suffer the ills as if they were evil-doers, and the bad enjoy the good of life as if they were good. “There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men unto whom it happens according to the work of the wicked: again there are wicked men, to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said, that this also is vanity.” (8.14) This wisest man devoted this whole book to a full exposure of this vanity, evidently with no other object than that we might long for that life in which there is no vanity under the sun, but verity under Him who made the sun. In this vanity, then, was it not by the just and righteous judgment of God that man made like to vanity, was destined to pass away?
But in these days of vanity it makes an important difference whether he resists of yields to the truth, and whether he is destitute of true piety or a partaker of it, –important not so far as regards the acquirement of the blessings of the evasion of the calamities of this transitory and vain life, but in connection with the future judgment which shall make over to good men good things and to bad men bad things in permanent, inalienable possession. In fine, this wise man concludes this book of his by saying, “Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is every man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every despised person, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” (12.13-14)
What truer, terser, more salutary announcement could be made? “Fear God”, he says, “and keep His commandments: for this is every man.” For whosoever has real existence, is this, is a keeper of God’s commandments; and he who is not this, is nothing. For so long as he remains in the likeness of vanity, he is not renewed in the image of truth. “For God shall bring into judgment every work.” –that is, whatever a man does in this life–”whether is be good or whether it be evil, with every despised person,”–that is, with every man who here seems despicable, and is therefore not considered; for God sees even him, and does not despise him nor pass him over in His judgment.
The proofs, then, of this last judgment of God which I propose to adduce shall be drawn first from the New Testament and then from the Old. For although the Old Testament is prior in point of time, the New has the precedence in intrinsic value; for the Old acts the part of herald to the New. (City of God, 20.4-5a)
It seems Augustine understand the place of Ecclesiastes through two lens (1) it is in the context of this life and (2) it is secondary as concerns progressive revelation. Therefore, we can adduce from Augustine that the place Ecclesiastes has in the Scriptures must be that of a short-sided commentary on this life. There is no different ending for the good and the wicked. Neither come back as far as this life is concerned.
Those who want to pit Ecclesiastes against the rest of Scripture ignore that Ecclesiastes seems to lack, altogether, an eschatological perspective. Those passages of Scripture that move beyond the message of Ecclesiastes likely do incorporate an eschatological perspective that supersedes the “under the sun” vantage point of the Preacher.
