Pages

Tuesday 15 April 2014

Ecclesiastes - Introduction

Ecclesiastes is a weird and wonderful book that defies simple interpretation. Some think it was written by Solomon, the first verse giving a string indication for this, though "son of" in the Bible does not necessarily mean the immediate son of. Others think it was written some time later, basing thier view on the type of Hebrew language used and the negative view of rulers. Those who go for this latter view date the book at some time after the Jewish exile. 
The book considers many attitudes and secular views, showing the futility of them. There are, and have always been, streams of Christian teaching that giving a simplistic view of life. If you obey God everything will go fine, if you don't it won't. The so-called prosperity gospel is one of example of this, but it is an attitude that can crop up in any branch of the church. This book (and Job) is addressing life as it really is. There are many things that we don't understand, many times when life is perplexing, with God's purpose and presence difficult to discern. God is not afraid to address the realities of life.
The book is a mixture of optimism and pessimism. This upsets some people as it means they cannot have a nice neat analysis of the book. Well tough! Life is like that. God deals with us as we really are.
Perhaps the key to the book is to see it as demonstrating the futility of trying to make sense of life without God,

No comments:

Post a Comment