5f: qoholet as sage, wisdom’s influence—qoholet’s own wisdom

The Book of Ecclesiastes, though attributed as well to Solomon, exhibits none of the romantic fancy of Proverbs or Song of Songs. No other-worldly beauty or deification. Wisdom stays on earth. The mood of day-in-day-out detail reflects Sumerian Shuruppak and Egyptian Ptah more closely than Proverbs. The pessimism recalls Shubshi or Job. The breathtaking cycling from bad to good result, is all Qohelet, but reminds us of wisdom literature’s teaching through antithesis.

Ecclesiastes. Gustave Doré [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.
And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.

Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done.

Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.
The wise man’s eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all.
Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity.

For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.

Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.

And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.
Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun.

For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil.
For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.

There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.

For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more than I?

For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.

—Eccles. 5:9-26 [KJV]

He was great, desires fulfilled, joy, rewarded in his work—all in vain, no profit. Ouch. Wisdom? Yes, “excelleth” but no, the wise die as the fool, all in vain. Hated life and everything he’d done. Which would be left to who knows? Maybe a fool, maybe not. No control. All in vain. But suddenly it comes to him, no, nothing is better than enjoying life, its pleasures, one’s work (as he had before he started to question). That is where God is. Wisdom, knowledge and joy. Gifts. And work for the sinner to earn them. All in vain. (But it obviously isn’t this time, which puts to question all the other times he has said it previously. Did he mean all was in vain? Or did he want you to ask that question of yourself?)

Qohelet’s mundane realism and grim skepticism have presented an enigma to readers of Ecclesiastes for millennia. Why is he so pessimistic and morbid? Doesn’t he believe in the afterlife? Why does he encourage worldly pleasure as the only saving grace? Was he overly influenced by hedonistic Greek thought? Even now, I find spirited consternation between the lines of recent scholarly Christian writings:

Both Proverbs and the Book of Job are products of a wisdom ethos that placed enormous confidence in the human intellect. The author of Ecclesiastes lacked trust in either God or knowledge. For him nothing proved that God looked on the creation with favor, and the entire enterprise of wisdom had become bankrupt. The astonishing thing is that such skepticism did not prevent Qoheleth from asking the question of questions: Does life have any meaning at all?

—from p. 116, Ch. 5 “Chasing After Meaning: Ecclesiastes,” Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction, James L. Crenshaw, Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. Used by permission.

And differing views!

Read positively, Ecclesiastes complements rather than contradicts Proverbs and Job. Proverbs is well aware of retributive paradox (Gladson [that eye-for-an-eye justice may not be served and maybe should not be served, i.e. the wicked may not be punished, the righteous may not be protected]), especially in its latter chapters; Job and Ecclesiastes explore such paradox in detail, Job through a terrible story of suffering, and Ecclesiastes through an intellectual struggle for meaning. Also, Ecclesiastes, with its affirmation of creation and its understanding of work as toil and life as hebel [vanity], has strong links with Gen. 1-3.

—from p. 183, Ch. 18 “Ecclesiastes,” Craig G. Bartholomew, Theological Interpretations of the Old Testament: A Book-by-Book Survey, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, general editor, Craig G. Bartholomew and Daniel J. Treier, assoc. editors, Baker Book House Company, 2005, 2008.

Ecclesiastes for James Crenshaw, Robert L. Flowers Professor of Old Testament at Duke University Divinity School in North Carolina, is skeptical, its faith in wisdom bankrupt, the myth of creation unproven, while for Craig Bartholomew, PhD University of Bristol UK and H. Evan Runner Chair in Philosophy at Redeemer University College in Ontario, Ecclesiastes “complements” rather than bankrupts the prior wisdom books of Job and Proverbs, and strongly affirms the myth of creation. How much more diametrically opposed could these two readings be?

Professor Crenshaw, like me, seeking to understand, has created his own translations of Ecclesiastes. Unlike mine, though, they veer to the dark side. I side more with Professor Bartholomew, and apparently he and I are in the minority.

Crenshaw’s negative view of Ecclesiastes is something I objected to earlier. It accords with his and Leo Perdue’s suggestion that the cult of Wisdom arose in alternative to Yahwism, whose claims—an omnipotent Y-H-V-H, obsessively engaged in the preservation of the Jewish people forsaking all others—were bankrupted by a series of political misfortunes culminating in the fall of the kings of David to Nebuchadnezzar and Babylonian oppression. Skepticism sets in and threatens to subvert the religion. Wisdom’s mystery saves everything. Skepticism is redeemed by divine inscrutability. Yet Crenshaw sees the purposelessness of Babylonian “divine caprice” as the ultimate pessimism. And Qohelet’s book a close runner-up.

The first thing I disagree with is the crisis-of-faith premise that skepticism appears in the face of adversity. I understand that it sounds logical to doubt and mistrust the large structure of a belief set when its veracity seems more and more questionable. And in our individual lives, that is what we do. But having spent life as an artist, I don’t feel that that’s what happens on the societal level. I submit that when the going gets rough—war, natural disaster, famine—artists turn away from negative modes of expression, such as irony, satire, cynicism, and look for positive— escapist, humorous, joyful or comforting—vehicles for expressions. I’m not saying that there’s no such thing as protest art—and important examples thereof. I’m just saying that it’s when we have the liberty to criticize, we will. It’s not from ennui, really. It’s just that we are aware that we are in dialogue, and we seek to say what will be most valued and heard. Freedom of speech gets exercised when regimes are less oppressive not more.

“Stop H-Bomb Tests” Ben Shahn, 1960. From Greg Cook’s blog, “The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research”

The richest eras for protest art, for cynicism, for poetry about suicide, for acrid social satire, in the experience of my half-century-long life, have been times of comfort and prosperity. The downtimes have produced art which was less self-critical and more about inspiration, adventure, entertainment or fashion. Nothing wrong with that either. And it was always a matter of degree, not a blanket of black, then white. I have no proof except my gut feeling.

Which is why the idea that the relative leniency of the Persian rule increased scribal—artistic—production, works for me. And why the Babylonian captivity might have triggered an effusive creative outpouring, after the fact. While Babylonian “proximity” confronted Jews with cultural literacy, literature and sophisticated questioning—fording upon them the intellectual tools and skills they would need to express that outpouring.

Also, because of my own belief set, I do not see the Babylonian belief in divine inscrutability as pessimistic. The “Righteous Sufferer,” Job and Qohelet, all—according to the hypothesis I’ve just advanced—made their work in times of relative comfort. Maybe not perfect times, but they didn’t write from suffering, they wrote about suffering. But that’s not all.

Because of my personal experience with 12-step recovery—which I will talk about later—the idea of a god who whose plan I cannot fully understand is a friendly one. It actually gives me hope to let go and let god. Marduk tortures the “righteous sufferer”, Shubshi-meshre-Shakkan. The Lord afflicts Job. Qohelet hates growing old and fears his life has been pointless. But in each writing, the god is proven. Shubshi and Job survive to write about it. And from them we learn that we should trust whatever god we believe in no matter what. From Qohelet we learn that acceptance of life on life’s terms is all there is in life and all there ever need be.

Only the surface of these pieces is pessimistic. (In Qohelet’s case, teasingly so. I think there is humor and word play we are not getting. Not cute. Dangerous, elegant and sardonic.) The underlying message is one of deep faith. How can this be pessimistic?

In the context of Wisdom, though, there is more I want to observe. While the relationship between the Babylonian writing and Old Testament seems clear and now, almost unsurprising—although the direct lineage amazed me at first—the connection between Qohelet, in particular, and Egyptian Wisdom, is stunning. Qohelet is a Jew in fierce dialogue with Egyptian thinking, from his tomb-inscription autobiography to the manifestation of ma’at in

• the great cycles of nature—earth, sun, wind, water—
• the lesser cycles of human life (large to us)—birth, death, wealth, poverty, marriage, building a home, planting and harvesting—
• to the minutest cycles—what is wise to say or do, what is foolish, how to deal with what seems unfair, and above all to focus what is good, what we have to be grateful for, whatever it is.

What is so striking to me is that if I explain Qohelet’s comments to myself in terms of ma’at, it is as if I have unlocked a door with a key. Beyond the door, there is light and green.

But while I believe Qohelet embodies many of the principles of ma’at, I don’t feel he has accepted all the Egyptian belief set. The intricate rites of passage into the afterlife are no echo in Qohelet’s:

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go the house of feasting;

for this is the end for all of us, and the living should take it to heart.

—Eccles. 7:2 [KB]

Because what is most provocative is his assertion, here and throughout the book, that death is the end. For all of us. Man and Beast. Wise and fool. King and servant. Wicked and righteous. It is almost as if he is speaking out against the concept of afterlife. Here he reminds us that it is more important to offer comfort to the bereaved than to look to our own pleasure. “Feasting” or mishteh is first translated as “drinking” or “banqueting,” all of which “feasting” seems to cover. A party. They need you more at the home in mourning, and you will feel like you gave more meaningfully.

Whether or not there is an afterlife, that family has lost someone in this life. Do not let visions of the afterlife justify ungenerous behavior. Pay attention to meaning in this life. It may not be where you think it is. Who would prefer a funeral to a party? Grief to hilarity? And yet the sadder one may offer more heartfelt meaning. And isn’t that what we are searching for?

The way that Qohelet seems Egyptian is in his delineation of free will versus divine order. You have a choice: you can “fear before God,” believe that divine order is more powerful and eternal than you and listen for right answers as to how you might more closely adhere to divine order—which is the whole quest of wisdom. Or you can be a fool and follow your own path. Either way the earth will outlive you, the sun will be risen and set and returned to begin again, the winds will blow and the rivers will run into the sea. You can be in harmony with all things great and small, or you can ignore harmony and sing whatever the hell comes out of your damn mouth. And see if we like it.

There is no way Solomon is Qohelet. There is no way King Solomon had time to woo 700 women and write all the biblical books of wisdom except Job. Based on Egyptian and Mesopotamian precedent, it is very likely that the use of Solomon’s name is an allusion to legitimacy, an accepted fiction, in every work ascribed to him. Kind of like publishers in the modern world.

St Gregory the Great, after Carlo Saraceni, or his studio, ca. 1610. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain. Saraceni has Dark Ages Pope Gregory (590-604 CE) sitting at a desk composing music in 17th-c. notation as he receives the melody from the Holy Spirit. Notation as we know it had not been invented yet.

But as sure as I am of that, I am sure that there is some connection between Solomon and Wisdom, and that without his imprimatur, biblical wisdom texts might never have been canonized. I’ve used the analogy before (and it was probably cryptic then too) but I’ll try it again. Pope Gregory the Great was responsible for organizing the Mass into a usable repeatable ceremony involving a complex machinery of sung and spoken, and constant and variable text. Two hundred or so years later when Charlemagne, then a Frankish king, wanted to become Holy Roman Emperor, Rome made a deal. At the time French chanters improvised virtuosically, traveling from town to town to lead congregations in call-and-answer sung recitation. It was a rich, vibrant tradition of many generations in precedent. Rome requested that all chant become standardized in the Roman style not the Gallican. Monk enforcers were sent out to every parish to teach them how to sing. But the most effective maneuver was the declaration that the long-dead Pope Gregory had received all the chant melodies from God, and that was why you had to let go of your age-old way of doing things. Hence Gregorian chant.

Perhaps Solomon was the first patron of the royal sage, and in the Babylonian style, was considered First Sage. Or maybe he just really did do everything. It just seems like a quieter man wrote Ecclesiastes.

To conclude, quieter Qohelet didn’t need to be a cosmopolitan king to be a practitioner of wisdom culture in late 3^rd c. Jerusalem. Biblical wisdom culture was inevitable once Jerusalem developed intellectually following Babylonian post-exilic reconstruction. If the emblem hadn’t been Solomon, it would have been someone else. Wisdom culture was in the air. All Jews were descended from Sumer. The commandments of Moses. The creation stories which include Noah. All this was in their DNA to start with. Gottheil et al. of the Jewish Encyclopedia had found a comment in the Talmud which I touched on before, that the Lord exiled Judah and Israel to Babylon “because it was the land from which they had come, as a husband that is angry with his wife sends her home to her mother.” That husband and wife begat the Jews. The wife from Sumer and the husband from the west, Tyre, Phoenicia, or maybe even Egypt.

And Qohelet’s wisdom is also thoroughly Babylonian, because Judaism became Babylonian post-exile. Divine inscrutability must be the first premise when we read Ecclesiastes, not an afterthought. And we must understand that while Qohelet is equally and as thoroughly affected by the principle of ma’at, he rejects the Egyptian tenet of the afterlife, and we must remove that as a premise when we read his work.

Finally, let me say that despite the insights offered by divine inscrutability, ma’at, and the door I’ve opened onto the green sward, I still worry that I’m crazy not to see Ecclesiastes as scolding (the contemporary Christian view) or pessimistic (the contemporary Jewish view).

The enigma of contradiction persists. The enigma which Qohelet himself designed. To get us to stop and question. Much of the immediate word wit, I think, has been lost in the translation, bringing a quality of non sequitur and quirkiness to the enigma which I don’t think he intended. So I understand the puzzlement of my learned colleagues. And just as 20^th-c. Christian theologians are confounded, so were the early Common Era Rabbis. Is Qohelet’s the word of god? Is what he says foreign to the message of the Torah? Or does it fit in some wise inscrutable way?

~ by Kitty Brazelton on June 18, 2013.