Chasing After Wind: Reframing the Book of Ecclesiastes

laphamsquarterly.org

33 points·benbreen··5 comments

I always love a fresh perspective, but I would temper the enthusiasm around a redacted edition of a biblical text from 1919. German higher criticism (and thus all biblical scholarship at the time due to its influence prior to WW1 & WW2) was obsessed with "rescuing" the works of antiquity, especially the Bible, from their scribal traditions. This turned out to be basically a dead end, and not least with the discovery of the dead scrolls in 1947.

That said, Ecclesiastes feels less strange the more time you spend with Hebrew poetry (Job, Psalm, chunks of the Prophets) but does give a lot more attention to the theme of vanity in life.

And, in this case particularly, that is quite a loss. Qoh 12:8–14 are relatively significant to the meaning of the book in its final form.

So reader be warned, this is more than a "reframing".

What would be an accurate modern translation?

I personally find the NET Bible translation to be good for reading as well as understanding: there are thousands of footnotes explaining why things were translated a certain way and what conclusions different sources have come to on it. https://netbible.org/reader

I have not read his work on Ecclesiastes (The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes), but Robert Alter's other translation projects have been excellent. He tries to not just translate the sense but also the 'feel' of the text, which can be a real challenge as Hebrew poetry does not work like English poetry. He includes notes on his translation decisions; even if you disagree with his choices, he'll force you to wrestle with them.

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