Ecclesiastes wrap up

It seems clear to me that Ecclesiastes is not the cohesive writing of one person. It appears to be much like proverbs, with a variety of adages, saws, and sayings, some in poetic form, cobbled together with a poor attempt to create a unifying theme. Perhaps, at one time its core was simpler and made more topical sense. Then, some person, or persons, stuck in what they considered to be relevant at the time.

Is life meaningless or hopeful? Who lives longer, the wise man or the wicked? Does it even matter if you are wise or wicked? Who is better off, the living or the dead? Is our labor for nothing, or should we find satisfaction in it? It seems to depend on what verse you are reading.

As for doctrine, we find no heaven or hell, no reference to angels or demons or Satan, no miracles, and no prophecy of a messiah. The book does not claim to be inspired or the words of a god. It also does not mention any Old Testament people, places, or events. There was one reference to the Genesis creation of man, at the end of the book. The god spoken of in Ecclesiastes is not called Yahweh, but Elohim, the collective singular "the gods." This leads me to wonder if it is older tan the yahweh texts. At the end we do get a reference to judgment, but it was obviously added on and the form judgment takes is unclear.

There seem to be a battle in the text between the ideas that 1) There is nothing new under the sun,every single thing is meaningless, all effort is for nothing in the end, even trying to be wise, and 2) you can be happy in this life if you are god-fearing and get joy in  eating, drinking, and finding satisfaction in your work. Are they mutually exclusive? The god-fearing appears unnecessary to me, but number two gives us a more pleasant approach to life, even though I think happiness is a bit more complicated than that.

The "grave" mentioned in verse 9:10 is actually Sheol, which we have covered before. If you are new to the blog, click on the word sheol in the labels of this post to see more on that.

I found the book mostly boring and redundant, with a few interesting bits, especially the poetic description of old age.

What shall we do next?

As a reminder: I use the NIV for most scripture references, except when noted. The readings are generally taken at face value as much as possible, which is called a "plain reading." This is in the protestant tradition which teaches that each believer can study for themselves and understand what god wants them to know, without the necessity of an intermediary interpreting it for them. The church is supposed to be a priesthood of believers. Each person is supposedly given discernment by the holy spirit. This does not keep any or all from giving their own interpretation of what they read to others, and insisting that theirs is the correct one. I'm not doing anything different, I just don't believe any of it.

I also occasionally look at how a plain reading in modern language compares with original meanings found in Strong's concordance and interlinear scripture translations, found in the biblehub website. In addition,    I use Wikipedia as a general reference. It is good enough for general purposes. If I need to go in more depth, I try to find reliable sources by experts in their field. All opinions are my own and the words are original to me unless I reference someone else. However, I may have been influenced by those whose works I have read or listened to.