Understanding Eccleciasties

[Montie_Claunch]

I can’t seem to understand the book of Eccleciasties. It doesn’t seem to fit in with the other books of the bible. Not even Job seems so cynical. Most other books seem neuteral or postitive about things weather knowing God, Life, what will happen after we die, ect. Everything is vain. Can anyone offer any sources that can help me understand this book of the bible so whenever I read it I can actually get something out of it?

 

[inthecloud]

It that the book written by Ben Sirach in Damascus diapora? Is about living as a believer in a pagan’s world. Written in hebrew originaly but until recently was found in Greek.

 

[Montie_Claunch]

It that the book written by Ben Sirach in Damascus diapora? Is about living as a believer in a pagan’s world. Written in hebrew originaly but until recently was found in Greek.

No. The one written by Sirach is Ecclesiasticus. Slight diffrence in the ending. Eccleciasties is the one written by Solomon son of David. I think they have old versions of the Hebrew.

 

[FightingFat]

OK you have to see it this way:

The riddle of man, so beautiful, so clever and yet so weak, a copy of God, but made out of clay, fascinated the thinkers and poets of Israel. They repeatedly asked the question that has haunted people down the ages: what is man made for? The endless power of this question led them to develop their own type of reflective wisdom on the nature, style and meaning of daily living.

This practical attempt to make sense of nature, man and history, taught useful knowledge, ranging from manners to basic elementary science, educating the well born young to assume leadership in the community. Some of this wisdom was embodied in short sayings, or Proverbs, some in stories, like the Book of Job, some in poetry, like the Psalms, others in meditation- like the Book of Ecclesiates.

Ecclesiastes and Job contain many attacks on pious complacency, and confessions of agnosticism and despair (its a wonder they were even included in the Sacred Writings!). For the writer of Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth), the teacher or preacher, everything seems empty: death is the only reality, the common destony of worker and sluggard alike. He teaches shrewdness, prudence, discretion, caution, moderation, but even so, the joy and mobility if youth is soon replaced with decrepit old age. The colour of life is blotted out by the cloud of faith, and that cloud can never be pierced by man.

This book provides the centre of the conception of wisdom in the Bible. He transforms the conservatism of popular wisdom into new perceptions of mental energy, not as a weary pessimist, but rather as a vigorous realist. Everything for him is hebed– empty, vanity. As nothing is permanant or certain in this life, the secret of wisdom is a detachment from it, without withdrawal. As soon as we renounce the universal expectation of reward in return for virtue, there is a deep physcological relaxation, and real critical energy can infuse the soul. He is a fund of common sense, and perceives with great shrewdness that God has put 'olam, or a sense of eternity, into men’s minds (3,11). Wisdom in human life must come to mean the love of wisdom, not simply erudition. This is what is creative.

 

[The_Truthinator]

Great points!

What’s more, never lose sight of the fact that all Scripture is to be read in light of Christ’s ultimate revelation. And in this light, the dismal tone of Ecclesiastes–the agnosticism, the nihilistic views, etc.–all begin to make sense. For when one sets his sights on the things “under heaven,” one loses sight of Eternity, of God. Qoheleth exhausted all his energies searching for true meaning in earthly delights and pleasures, and ultimately formed a worldview that allowed him to cope and deal with the “vanity” of life and death–but for us, perhaps it is a startling reminder of just how radical the gift that Christ offers is: Life everlasting, real satisfaction and fulfillment. Eternity is within us, and our inmost beings cry out for our First Origin–Our Father and Maker–and Final End–our faint souls’ True Rest.

In coming to dwell on the God above the highest heavens, the God of all ages, we begin to see him more and more in the here and now–and thus find meaning in our earthly lives, no matter how dismal, how tedious, how utterly monotonous they may at times seem.

Hope this helps!

 

[Zooey]

I think that it helps to read Ecclesiastes with the thought that it has been traditionally said to have been written by King Solomon, in his later years, after his many foreign wives had drawn him away from worship of the One True God.
Whether Solomon was the author or not…This is where the write is. He is not a believer, he has lost his faith, and lost his way. All he accepts as true is what he can see with his eyes & touch with his hands…The result (& perhaps part of the cause as well) is a state of profound depression.
So, the book serves us, as a contrast to the rest of the Bible. Unlike the rest of the books, this one looks at life from the point of view of an atheist/agnostic…Ecclesiastes is in our Bible as a warning to us, of how far we can fall into sin, and what that sin can do to the conduct of our whole lives.

HTH!

 

[The_Truthinator]

I think that it helps to read Ecclesiastes with the thought that it has been traditionally said to have been written by King Solomon, in his later years, after his many foreign wives had drawn him away from worship of the One True God.
Whether Solomon was the author or not…This is where the write is. He is not a believer, he has lost his faith, and lost his way. All he accepts as true is what he can see with his eyes & touch with his hands…The result (& perhaps part of the cause as well) is a state of profound depression.
So, the book serves us, as a contrast to the rest of the Bible. Unlike the rest of the books, this one looks at life from the point of view of an atheist/agnostic…Ecclesiastes is in our Bible as a warning to us, of how far we can fall into sin, and what that sin can do to the conduct of our whole lives.

HTH!

I have to disagree. It’s not meant to be a “warning.” It’s just a very honest book written by a very honest author, who realized late in life that satisfaction was found elsewhere. The Book of Wisdom also expresses doubt (as does Job); I think the book is, more than anything else, an honest reflection from which we can benefit.