Interest of time and because I wanted to share something else with you, we're not going to go over the memory work tonight But I hope you will keep doing that. I think people probably out in our in our video audience are getting bored with me Just going over them and stumbling over the same things each time So do keep working on the memory work. It's beginning to build up But it's also coming to an end we just have one more passage or rather lengthy one for next time But we won't go over that tonight I do wanted I did want to share an item with you that I've shared in a couple of other classes today Just because I'm kind of excited about it. I mean it also helps me and perhaps us redirect and and keep our eyes focused on Why it is where here why it is we study the Bible and it has to do with my son Taylor who is now 18 years old Turned 18 in February and was up in Washington over the weekend and I think I may have mentioned in this class that he and I have been doing Evangelism explosion have I mentioned that in this class this semester and he was a little frustrated for not getting Into houses very often and so we had been praying in various contexts that he would have opportunity to really make use of what he is learning and he came home from Washington he didn't tell me this over the phone. He said I figured I'd save it so because phone calls are expensive But he was very excited when he came home had had had opportunity to really go through the gospel with a man who he met in the park Actually, while my son's girlfriend was looking on so that was an interesting sort of dual testimony there But he went through the gospel with this man who was collecting money for the homeless a man who went to church knew the Bible But as he went through the gospel it became increasingly clear that the man didn't have a clue about grace And about the real heart of the gospel and Taylor said it was so exciting to watch his excitement Excitement mount as his eyes just got bigger and bigger and his smile got wider and wider as he discovered that eternal life as a free gift Something that Christ purchased and offered offers to us something we don't have to earn and he would he got right on through it and and the man was Agreeable to pray with him and and responded to the gospel positively and so he was very excited and of course I'm excited when that happens In the life of an 18 year old because that I think will make an imprint on him in terms of what God can do through him in life And I think that will make a difference So I'm very thankful for those who prayed with me that he would have an opportunity and this was this was not a you know a staged visit This was a spontaneous thing what we might call a divine appointment where God brought these two together And so I just wanted to offer praise for that and also to remind us why does we study the Bible? We we need we need to keep the main thing the main thing and that is to be ambassadors of the good news And the gospel is straight forward it's profound it's simple in many ways but it's very deep and very profound And God wants us to develop our understanding he wants us to spend a lifetime of study if he had wanted us to keep it on the level of milk And not move on to meet he wouldn't have given us this book that is quite so challenging he would have given us Oh maybe 10 pages or a pamphlet or something but he means for us to continue to grow in wisdom and to grow in knowledge But as we do that there is ever present the danger that we will begin to value knowledge and wisdom for itself and forget what we're really here for And so we don't want to end the life in our lives with regrets as the writer of Ecclesiastes seemed to be communicating We're going to talk more about Ecclesiastes tonight having perhaps pursued many good things but missed the main thing So just by way of encouragement I mentioned that to you and also a praise to God for bringing that into life of my son Now shall we pray together and we'll get started Father I do offer you praise for the way in which you are at work in this world We recognize that we are very frail instruments and that we bring very little to the bargain in terms of the skills and abilities that we ourselves have And yet we thank you that you have told us that your strength is made perfect in weakness And we thank you for the way you encourage us that even an 18-year-old boy can communicate with a somewhat older man And his 20s who did not fully understand the wonderful truths of the gospel and that you can use the words of an 18-year-old to communicate that to him Lord we thank you for responsiveness we know that you are the one who works in parts to draw them to yourself And we pray that you would be drawing us ever closer to you we pray that you would bring into our lives people who's spirits you are touching by your spirit And give us the words to speak to them give us the boldness to speak to them and may we so steep ourselves in your word that what we communicate would not be our ideas or our thoughts but yours Lord may your word become part of the fabric of our lives in a very real sense so that we would think in ways that you command and command and that we would also live accordingly Thank you for salvation in Christ and I pray that you would be with us now as we consider further this book of Ecclesiastes which is a pre-Christian book Lord help us to learn its lessons well that we may find it relevant even in this day and age before we pray in Jesus name amen Well last time I gave you an outline on the book of Ecclesiastes that we really didn't get into We last time we considered that very difficult verse one man among a thousand but not a woman among them all I hope you maybe over time in your reflections have been Become convinced of the interpretation that I recommend to you on that one but that took a little longer than I anticipated because it was a fairly challenging project for some of the groups And others found it rather quickly but it did take a little bit longer so we're only now really launching into a systematic treatment of the book of Ecclesiastes Next time we will deal with song of songs which is a wonderful book an interesting book a very challenging book itself And very briefly Lord willing we will touch on the book of the lamentations which is a briefer book and if you're disappointed that we don't give it fuller coverage Perhaps we can get together and we'll talk more fully about it but time does eventually run out Tonight we're gonna be looking mostly at the book of Ecclesiastes further Let me begin by simply asking a question have you ever awakened on a Monday morning and asked yourself what's the point of it all What about a Thursday afternoon what's the point of it all have you ever poured your energies into some project or perhaps into a relationship only to be disappointed in the end If you have you're not alone in fact the book of Ecclesiastes shows us very clearly that God understands It is God who has chosen to include this book in his word to us and so we know that it has a message for us In the book of Ecclesiastes we find a human quest for meaning in life a quest that is beautifully and powerfully expressed Even though this book was written 3,000 years ago it still remains remarkably contemporary It has been described as I mentioned last time as a thoroughly modern book Now by the way on your outline this is all before 0.1 This is all sort of bleeding up to the first point on your outline Herman Melville in fact once called the book of Ecclesiastes the truest of all books Thomas Wolf and other novelists described it as the highest flower of poetry, eloquence and truth The greatest single piece of writing I have known Now you remember me quoting similar hyperbole relating to book of Job So there are different people who like different books better But I dare say there are probably some in this room who would say Ecclesiastes is my favorite book of the Old Testament Any in this room that would say that? Okay, there are a few, see I said I thought there would be a few Some have even told me, thank you Matt, some have even told me that it's their favorite book in the Bible Now that's not excising the gospel, I mean we're understanding what they mean But it's one that they're particularly drawn to On the other hand some commentators such as conservative commentator Franz Dalich of Kyle and Dalich Fame the set of commentaries that you can purchase He takes a rather dim view of the book of Ecclesiastes and regards it in fact as the low point of the Bible And to quote him specifically he says in the book of Cohelleth which by the way is another name for Ecclesiastes Cohelleth, Ecclesiastes, same book, don't be confused He says in the book of Cohelleth the Old Covenant digs for itself its own grave There's always had a way with words So we have on the one hand many people that say I love that book It's my favorite book, on the other hand there are people that say this is the low point of the Old Testament What do we make of a book that is that? Controverted in that controversial Dewey and Garrett points out in his commentary which by the way is a very good one, a recent commentary In the new American commentary series is published by Broadman if you're interested in a commentary that would be accessible And very useful, this one covers Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs So I'll leave it up here if you want to come up and peruse it, get the data That's a very good one and I assume I don't know how long these tapes will be used But it'll probably retain its value for some years to come So I encourage those in video land also to consider it I don't get any royalties, I don't know him well although I have met him So I'm not doing any one of favour other than speaking the truth At any rate he says the book of Ecclesiastes is sometimes viewed as the resident alien in the Bible What in the world is it doing there? It is certainly a controversial book, it is controversial in terms of its central intent and its message Which people have trouble sort of getting a handle on It is also controversial in terms of basic questions such as whether or not it is a unity What kind of structure it has? Who the author is or was? Now some, such as Leland Reichen who is a professor of English literature at the Wheaton College argues that the book is tightly structured And that far from being a problem the theme of the book is a virtual summary of the biblical world view All of this is just to say you have people that are all over the board In terms of their assessment of this book of Ecclesiastes So what we want to do first off is look briefly though it covers most of the first page of your outline there We do want to look fairly briefly at this question of authorship I don't want to spend too long on that so we're going to just kind of march through it And then we'll move on to the more important question of the unity structure and the message of the book Where we want to spend more time and really go through and look at some specific aspects of the content And try to make it as practical as we can I also want you when we get into that section to feel free to ask a question, a pertinent question as we go along And if they become too many I will curtail them But I do want to talk about what you ran across in your reading I want to be aware of what is going on in your own head Well first of all the authorship question you can see in the big outline that I'm going to talk First about the early Jewish and Christian viewpoint which assumed Solomonic authorship The modern consensus including most conservative scholars is that Solomon was not the author of the book And then I want to reassess that modern consensus by citing a dissenting view represented by a number of people more recently And then draw some conclusions at the end So let's go through that very quickly The early Jewish and Christian tradition was of course that Solomon was the author Well what led them to that conclusion or what was the evidence that they cited? Well first of all there are some internal evidences and you'll want to open your Bible to the book of ecclesiasties as we look at some of these The first of course is the first verse in chapter 1 I'll give you a second to open your Bible Kevin bought a Bible by now you probably should buy a Bible Okay first verse says the words of the teacher son of David king in Jerusalem Well who was son of David and who was king of Jerusalem? Solomon of course Now son doesn't always mean immediate descendant can mean a descendant several generations removed so it could be some other descendant of David But still it seems on the face of it that this would be Solomon though he is not named A second piece of evidence comes in verse 12 and following of this same chapter where he says I the teacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven What a heavy burden God has laid on men Well who was it among the kings of Israel that was most devoted and most noted for his pursuit of wisdom? Solomon okay so another piece of evidence Verse 16 of chapter 1 says in fact I just read no I didn't get there yet I thought to myself look I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge Well who was the wisdom teacher par excellence who exceeded others in wisdom? Solomon of course Then we come to chapter 2 and beginning in verse 4 we read this I undertook great projects I built houses for myself and planted vineyards I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them etc Verse 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me I am masked silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and provinces I acquired men and women singers and a herm as well There is a notable understatement the delights of the heart of man I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me and all this my wisdom stayed with me Well who was engaged in building projects in a massing gold so forth? Solomon So we can see much evidence here of potential salamonic authorship at least Now so the conclusion that this brings us to this internal evidence is that the first person speaker at least whether the author of the book But the one who is speaking here appears to be Solomon or at least presents himself as Solomon The question that arises is however whether Solomon is in fact the speaker or author in as much as he doesn't name himself The name Solomon is never used or whether as some people would say now I distance myself immediately from this view I am not even entertaining this as a possibility that this is a sued epigraph that is written under a pseudonym I don't think that that is a very live option or whether and this is a more likely possibility Or whether the teacher is assuming salamonic guys if he's you know just as your preacher may have gotten up in the pulpit at some point and said I am Abraham you know people don't say who let's get his autograph you understand that your that your preacher is saying Assume with me for a moment that I am Abraham let me tell you about the experience of Abraham It is possible that the teacher is saying just that However the narrator the writer begins by saying the words of the teacher son of David Kenan Jerusalem So what does Derek Kiddner say you read chapters and Derek Kiddner is sort of you kind of slipped it by us What is his view who knows? Yes, he doesn't really debate the point and he's a wise man there probably is some wisdom in not debating it because it is difficult to settle ultimately But on page 97 if you if you noticed that page 97 the last full paragraph under B he says in 112 to 211 or 24 Kohele that is the writer the teacher Kohele dawns the mantle of Solomon or rather of a super Solomon for he pictures himself as a king who has surpassed all who were before him in Jerusalem This is to say Derek Kiddner is is not convinced that Solomon is the author or even the speaker of the entire book but he's saying the teacher is dawning salamonic guys Now early Jewish tradition concluded that Solomon was in fact the author but this viewpoint that Derek Kiddner reflects here is the modern consensus This is what most people nowadays would say I'm not sure they're right we'll talk about that in just a minute but that's what most would say Well, why would people even dream of going against the traditional view that Solomon was the author? Well, there are also some internal evidences in this regard too we're on point 2a on the outline my outline I don't know if it'll be the same for the people in the video world Internal evidences first of all Solomon is never explicitly mentioned as he is in Proverbs for example And this of course is a major argument against the notion that this is a Sudapographic writing that it's written under a pseudonym the pseudonyms never given So it can't be very much of a pseudopigrophil Instead the term Koheleth is used this title which seems to mean something like preacher or teacher because it has to do with the Hebrew word for assembly One who calls together an assembly and then addresses the assembly A second bit of internal evidence is found in chapter 1 verse 12 which we saw already Notice that it says eye the teacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem Now commentators point out that there was never a time between Solomon's rising to the throne of Israel and his death when he was not king He was always king until the time he died So how could he say I was king as if looking back on the time when he before his retirement let's say Well again we're going to look at some answers to some of these things as we move along but that's one of the arguments Another argument, another piece of internal evidence is that when the writer when Koheleth speaks about kings or when he alludes to kings He seems to view them from below as one of the people suffering from their misrule At least that's the opinion of many commentators Now the major piece of evidence that is often cited against the possibility of Solomonic authorship is linguistic evidence And the claim is made that the Hebrew of Ecclesiastes shows marked affinities to much later Hebrew such as is found in the Mishnah, a later Jewish writing, as well as including various aramaic words Words that would have gained in currency among the people of God at a later time period certainly than Solomon We will we will soon hear that Aramaic was around at the time of Solomon and indeed was the lingua franca was the trade language but was not necessarily well known to the people of Israel themselves It was not their native tongue at least there's even the argument that there are a couple of a couple of Persian loan words in the book So again the conservative commentator Franz Dalych made this quote which is now become quite famous he said if the book of Koheleth that is Ecclesiastes were of Solomonic origin then there is no history of the Hebrew language If this doesn't tell us something then nothing ever will No that's his opinion and there are those who are beginning to disagree with that opinion so I want to mention those two At any rate the conclusion of most modern scholars liberal and conservative this is not where you can divide between liberals and conservatives this is most of those I've quoted And I could line up many many more our conservative commentators who believe that Solomon was not the author at least they would not want to insist that he was Nor does the book intend that he be seen as the author the argument is that as kindergarten put it the speaker the writer simply dawns Solomonic guys says imagine with me that I'm Solomon let me teach you a lesson from the life and work of Solomon Now there is a dissenting view not everyone has agreed with this and in fact in recent years we have major works written by Dan Fredericks And also in Dwayne Garrett's commentary he descends from this consensus view that Solomon was not the author and for a long time Gleason Archer who is a very very strong conservative Have supported at least the possibility that Solomon is indeed the author of this book and I think we need to hear that evidence Well what evidence is there first the internal evidence is that we already mentioned we could go back to those I'll not rehearse them but it does seem that Solomon is the logical choice as the son of David injures him excelling in wisdom That sounds more like Solomon than anyone else there is Jewish tradition which should be given some weight although certainly not ultimate weight And then most importantly much more importantly than these other arguments is the inconclusiveness of the linguistic evidence as we now understand it We should grant that the text of Ecclesiastes in Hebrew is quite different as has been argued from the Hebrew that we find in 10th century Hebrew documents or what we believe to come from the 10th century in the Bible It's quite different from that Hebrew of that time period On the other hand what is sometimes overlooked is that it is quite different from the Hebrew that we know of from any period I felt named James Milenberg pointed that out he said that the Hebrew Ecclesiastes is unique It perhaps shows affinities with let's say Phoenician or with Aramaic sources So it seems to be something is going on there it's not necessarily that we can tie this the Hebrew of Ecclesiastes with a certain time period It really doesn't line up with any time period of which we have any evidence Now so recently these that I mentioned Wayne Garrett, Daniel Fredericks, Eton in his Tindale Old Testament commentary and others Beginning to suggest that maybe the language we have in the book of Ecclesiastes has more to do with let's say dialectology than chronology has more to do with a certain dialect than with a certain time period Police in Archer points out that during Solomon's reign the political and commercial ties with both the Phoenician speaking and the Aramaic peoples of the Syrian areas were closer than any other period in Israel's history So we know from what we read about King Solomon's reign that he was engaged in trading It was a very international time people were coming to him to hear his wisdom And so it is quite possible that he would have learned a particular kind of literature that he might then have used And that there may have been bound to this kind of literature a certain sort of expression, a certain kind of language That's the next point of the outline point D, I'm sorry, I guess I'm in a sub point of the inconclusiveness of the linguistic evidence It's not a point on your outline, we're still under there But Gleason Archer points this out He says we are dealing with, we're perhaps dealing with a conventional style peculiar to a particular genre of literature That is a particular kind of literature If you think of certain Greek literature or whatever he points out that once a genre developed a sort of classical status Then the, let me quote his words exactly The dialect and vocabulary type of the original practitioner who exalted his genre to a classical status would then prevail throughout the rest of the history Greek literature That's a long quote, let me simplify that You know a lot of people still pray in King James English Now why in the world would they do that? Well because a particular style of language became associated with prayer language Now it'd be wrong to listen to the prayer of someone who is saying, is using the bees and the vows of King James English And perhaps even the wills and woodets and such of King James English And let's try to locate that person in history say, boy, that person lived a long, long time. He was still alive in 1997, but he obviously was born in 1611 and drowned about. That would be wrong-headed. Rather, you recognize, well, no, that language is associated in that person's mind with prayer. And it's kind of achieved a classical status. And so people continue to pray in that way. It's the language of piety. Same thing could be true of the linguistic traits in the book of Ecclesiastes. Furthermore, on the supposed indication that Solomon is that the author, rather, is not a king. That he seems to be viewing kingship from below. Remember, that was one of the arguments. It seems to be distanced from being a king. Well, we need to recognize that a king can step back and function as a philosopher, or as a theologian, or as one on a quest to discover meaning in life. I remember being in Blinham Palace and seeing some of the paintings of Winston Churchill. Now, Winston Churchill was best known as a politician, as a leader, as a prime minister in England. But he was also a fabulous oil painter. He was also a historian who wrote massive volumes of history. And in each of those capacities, he could perhaps step back from the one capacity to pursue the other. And we might also think of the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, where he is functioning more as a philosopher than as a ruler. So it's possible that, though not identifying himself explicitly as a king, Solomon, as it were, assumes the role of the wise man. Rather than saying the author, the wise man, assumes Solomonic guys might it not be possible that Solomon assumes the guys of the wise teacher, because that's how he wants to write at this particular time. Well, Gleason Archer comes to this conclusion. And there are many who are not, if not coming precisely through this conclusion or moving in that direction. So I want to just make you aware of that. After dismissing Greek influence and the supposed anachronism, those things that seem to be out of time, Archer concludes this way. He says, we simply do not know enough to assert positively that Solomon could not have been the author of the book. We do not know enough to assert positively that Solomon could have been that he could not have been the author of the book. Then he goes on to say, in as much as the plain implication of the text is that he was indeed the composer and left his work as a final testament to his people. On the basis of his life's experience, it seems best to hold to the traditional view of the synagogue and the church that this work is in an authentic production of his pen. Now, I think I can agree with him that we certainly can't positively state, though some would do that. I don't think we should positively state that Solomon could not have been the author of this book. I'm not sure that we should positively state that he was. So we're left rather embarrassingly straddling the fence. I think that perhaps the direction of research will prove increasingly that Solomon is the likely author of the book. But I'm going a little bit out on the limb to say that, because that is by no means the consensus of conservative scholars right now. But I think that that may be the case. Now, in terms of how you should communicate, how you should think about this book, whether or not Solomon is the author throughout, it is clear at least that the inspired author is donning Solomonic guys in the early chapters. So can we learn anything about Solomon and his experience? You bet. Whatever the inspired author tells us was going on in a life of Solomon. Even if Solomon is not the writer himself, is going to be to the point and on target. So yeah, we can learn about Solomon's bitter experiences with the pursuit of pleasure and projects and so forth. So in conclusion, just to pull this together, there are a number of different ways to look at the evidence, and we'll get this out of the way and we'll get onto more fun stuff in just a minute. But there are various ways to pull together the evidence. When you hear people say Solomon could not possibly have been the author of this book, then at least you know well maybe he was. On the other hand, if people say, unless you believe that Solomon is the author of this book, you just don't believe the Bible. You'll also pull up short and say, no, the Bible doesn't absolutely claim that. Solomon has never mentioned it is an inference from the text and it's quite possible that he was, but the Bible leaves us in the dark. You don't want to go beyond, you don't want to deny the explicit teaching and claims of scripture, but you also don't want to go beyond them and force the Bible into saying something that it doesn't. So it's something that's interesting to talk about perhaps not worth fighting about or holding up as a test of people. One other thing that comes to mind that pulls us back to the book of Proverbs, do you remember anything in the book of Proverbs about Solomonic material that was clearly Solomonic, but not inscripturated by Solomon? What was that? Yeah, right. Proverbs, does anyone know what chapter? 25, Proverbs 25 verse 1 talks about Solomonic material that was transcribed or written down, copied by the men of Hezekiah. And so there we have Solomonic traditional material that was preserved, that was then inscripturated at a later time, according to the explicit testimony of scripture. It is possible that that could also be something of what is going on here that we could have Solomonic reflections that are taken by the inspired author and then inscripturated, perhaps at a later date, that might explain some of the later linguistic features, if, in fact, any of them proved to be later. But as we've seen that itself is up for grabs. Now, that's all I want to say about authorship. And as I mentioned earlier, we will get on to more interesting things in terms of the content of the book. Any questions on that before we move on? Yes, Sandy. Right, yeah. But let me repeat that one so that people will hear it. The comment was that given, if I can put different words in your mouth, given Solomon's considerable commerce with foreign lives, bringing many into his considerable harem family, he would likely have been exposed to all kinds of linguistic features. Can you imagine 700 lives needing to unload that number of words that they didn't dispense during the day when Solomon came home from work? Yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah. Dwayne Garrett encouragingly comments on the fact that this, as traditionally, has been understood, that this could quite likely be Solomon reflecting back over his life, and the ways in which he had sought to pursue a meaningful existence, only to find it empty and discouraging in the end. Yes, Beth? The last six verses, they so-called epilogue, some would even include verse, you're starting in verse nine, or you're starting in verse eight. Some would, yeah, some would also include verse eight in that. Yeah, well, again, there are two possibilities. One would be that we do have a frame narrator. That's one real possibility, whenever we have Cohelleth spoken of in the third person rather than the first person, that the frame narrator is telling us about him and getting us started in the book and then concluding the book by drawing the threads together. That's a possibility. It's also possible that it has been suggested that Solomon, if Solomon is the author, I won't keep saying that all night, when I say Solomon, you'll understand what I mean. It's possible that Solomon is at one point reflecting back on his experiences and thus uses the first person when he's reflecting back on that. But then when he uses the third person, if these words are from him as well, he's meant to give us a sense of distance to show that there is a time lapse between him and us so that he's kind of objectifying and saying, the teacher says this and then he begins to talk about his past experiences as the teacher and he said, I did this and I did that and the other thing. Yeah, I saw another hand up first. Yep, Matt? Well, the problem is the language does not line up with any style of writing vocabulary of which we are aware, does not line up closely. Now there are some affinities between ecclesiastes and song and songs, now that's interesting. But there was much made of some supposed late features in this book as demonstrating the lateness of the language. But then Dan Fredericks in his book has gone back and said, wait a minute, for the couple of features that seem late look at all of the other features that are atypical in later Hebrew, but are typical in earlier Hebrew. And so he's amassed quite a number of features that if you're going to weigh them or count them up, we'll push it earlier rather than later. So it depends on what you're looking for. Again, I don't want to beat this horse too much because it's not fun to talk about something we can't absolutely decide and we want to get on to some other things in the book. So let's go ahead and get a start on it. We'll take a break in just about, and we'll probably give it about 10 or 15 minutes if I don't get a signal from back there. So let's get started on unity structure and message. The unity of the book of ecclesiastes is increasingly recognized. You may say, well, why question in the first place? Well, there have been many who have questioned it in the past who have said, when you read the general tone of the book, the pious glances heavenward seem out of place. And so that must be the work of a pious scribe going through and trying to fix the text that seemed all too depressing and all too pessimistic. Again, I don't think that's the way to look at this book. I think we need to deal with it as it stands because its unity is rightly being increasingly recognized. Brevard Childs, in his introduction to the Old Testament scripture, points this out and he said that people are returning to a position of seeing the book as a basically unified composition. The earlier theories of multiple authorship or of extensive interpolation, that means insertion of things into the book, have not been sustained. There may be some editorial work in the prologue and epilogue, as I was mentioning in response to Beth's question. Now, what has led people to this more positive appraisal of the unity of the book? Well, for one thing, we have more comparative ancient Near Eastern literature than we had before. You read some of that in Matthews and Benjamin, but it is clear from this comparative literature that this style of reflection, though we don't have a book exactly like it, nevertheless, this style of reflection, which combines what we might call conventional wisdom, teaching, and unconventional wisdom teaching. This style of wisdom literature is quite common in the ancient Near East, where you embed traditional proverbs in what otherwise is original material. And you kind of balance them. You state the known thing, and then you balance it with the other side of the coin. Moreover, it's quite possible that cohaleth would sometimes quote material in order to refute it. That's one theory. I wouldn't like to say refute it so much as perhaps balance it. Show the other side. Look at chapter four verses five and six, which I have on your outline. Chapter four verse five says, the fool folds his hand and ruins himself. OK, you can imagine that could be a traditional proverb that, like so many others, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like an armed bandit. You know, those kinds of things are the kinds of things that wise parents sometimes say to their slothful children. Unless they've read Jim Dobson who says, you know, when they're in their teenage years in growing, let them rest. You know, they need all that energy to grow. But this would be a typical proverb. The fool folds his hand, hands, and ruins himself. But then the writer of this book comes back and says, the wait a minute, better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. In other words, that less the more traditional proverb be understood as a mandate to work a holism. The writer of Ecclesiastes says, wait a minute, you know. Better to kind of live life, stop and smell the roses occasionally than to simply work, work, work, all work, and no play. There's some saying about that, making someone dull. I don't know. You see what I mean? That there's this possibility that these things that may seem contradictory, and some have said, well, some corrector is coming through and correct him. No, that's the dynamic of the text. The writer himself is bringing this balance to bear. Another major argument in favor of the unity of the book is that if it were necessary for some writer to come through and correct objectionable material, why did he bother? What was his motive? Why bother trying to fix something if it's that badly broken? Why not simply suppress the whole book or suppress the objectionable passages? Why not take them out rather than stating to one thing and imbalancing it? So again, it seems that this is the work of, I would think not multiple authors trying to correct themselves, but a single author who has a certain approach to the subject matter. Now, again, it's quite possible that the title and the epilogue could be from a third person from a disciple, but it's also possible, as I suggested earlier, that the writer could simply be saying, let's create a little sense of distance here by my referring to myself as the teacher. And then finally, in terms of the unity and structure of the book, many regard it as more or less a notebook. Have you tried outlining the book? See what the NIV study Bible does in terms of an outline? No, nothing very elaborate. Oh, we're not bad, though, actually. At least it has some scheme to it. You notice in Derek Kiddner's treatment that he really doesn't attempt an outline of the book, does he? What he does is simply hit on some thematic issues. Let's see, on page 94, he says, while any framework must sit ill on this book of ever-shifting patterns and preoccupations, we can't at least group together for convenience some of its main concerns. And that's what he does. I'm talking about truths about God, creator, disposer, unsearchable judge of all to be reverenced, and obeyed, truths about life, pointers to despair, at mitigations of that despair, the simple joys, the common sense, the enterprise, and the point of rest. Now, it's nice to, that is sort of, that is the thought world of the book of Ecclesiastes. But can the book be outline, does it have any structure? Well, many people would rest content by just saying, well, it's a notebook, sort of a daybook of philosophical reflections, theological reflections, that really don't necessarily have a progression, a logical progression, that we can follow. Well, that's a possibility, as we move on to the issue of structure, point two on the outline, there are these two common views. The first is that there is no unified order or logical structure thought. The second is that there is an overarching unity in the work with some progression of thought that can be studied and outlined. One of the most valued attempts to do this is a man by the name of A.G. Wright, who in his article, he's written two articles called the riddle of the Sphinx, gives the outline that I have reproduced there on your handout and look closely at that outline. And notice that there is a certain logic to it. And by the way, let me tell you, in terms of Wright's approach, his first article, keyed on certain semantic aspects of the text, that is, the content, the meaning. And particularly, he was looking at closing refrains that talked about all his vanity, all his vanity and a chasing after the wind. He believed that those marked the ends of certain sections. So that's what helped him discover this particular breakdown. Then about 12 years later, he wrote a second article called the riddle of the Sphinx, which sought to show on the basis of the number of verses and some very clever things about the numeric value of the word vanity and a number of other things I don't want to get into the complex to tail with you. But I can show you the articles if you're interested. He approached the question from an entirely different standpoint and came to very similar conclusions to what he had arrived at from the standpoint of content. This time from numbers, systems, and this first from content and then from number system. And so that convergence is kind of interesting. I'm not fully convinced yet. And most people aren't fully convinced. But it is curious. And there's more sometimes going on in these wisdom books than we imagine. Yeah, we know that they have alphabetic acoustics. We've seen those before, A to Z. That's not something we would normally do. This is not something that we would normally do. We saw some things in proverbs that we would not normally do. But maybe they would have. And so we need to be alert to them and continue to pursue this. Whether or not his system is correct, I think in large measure, in basic terms, he does have the book rightly divided. And let's just look at this briefly. Notice that there is a certain symmetry to the book. Verse 1, 1, chapter 1, verse 1, is the title. And that is mirrored at the end of the book by the epilogue. Call it the prologue and the epilogue. Very brief prologue. Inside those framing elements, we have two poems. In the rest of chapter 1, we have the poem about vain toil. And then at the end of the book, we have the poem about poems on youth and old age. So toil and aging. Then the two main sections inside that. This is sort of those words that that's the frame and the mat. In the main sections, the first half of the book, chapter 1, verse 12, the chapter 6, verse 9, deals with critical investigations of human life. These are agey rights terms. And the overriding tenor of this section is all is vanity and a striving after the wind. Remember last time when I had my computer set up, I did a little frequency search. And you could see that vanity, vanity, all is vanities. That was the higher frequency in the first part of the book. And then the second half of the book deals with the consequences of this fact. And he divides that second half into two parts with two main themes. One, man cannot discover. Remember we looked at find last time. Man cannot find out, figure out, discover what is good for him to do. And then secondly, man does not know what will come after him. So you have the crisis of work and finding meaning and work in the first half. What is the sense of all this toil? Why do we get up on Monday morning? And then in the second half, you have this epistemological crisis. This crisis, how can we know things? God has put eternity in the heart of men, but they cannot figure out. They cannot fathom what comes after them, the mystery of life. Now, I think that what he's done there does make some good sense. Let me simplify it just one little bit further because I think it can be done and perhaps can be remembered better this way. Let's put it on the board. I'll do it right over here this way. And then we'll be taking a break pretty quickly here. Let's say we've got these elements, A, B, C, C, B, A, we'll make it into a rough chiasm. I love chiasms. The first is one one, the title of the book. This is the same as what he had. And the last is 12, 9 to 14. That would be the epilogue. And inside that, we have the two poems, the poem on toil and the poem on aging. And then here, these two elements, simply I didn't put references with those, but those would be the same as what is on his outline there. And then in these elements here, whoops. Well, actually, yeah, 1, 1, it really includes this to some extent, but we could start it at 1, 12, 1, 12 to 6, 9. Again, that same division that he has, maybe we could simply call this the vanity of human undertakings. The chief question being, what does man gain? What do we gain from all this work we're doing? What is the bottom line? What's the point of it all? The vanity of human undertakings. And then 6, 10 to 11, 6, the vanity of human understanding. And here, the simple question is, what can we know? How can we know about what will come after us? How can we know that all that we're working for will not be swept away by some simple circumstance or some problem that emerges that we did not anticipate? How can we know what God's purposes are for us? Now, I think those kinds of questions are questions that we still have. Why do I get up on Monday morning? And how do I know what's going to happen to me? Now, to some extent, we still have them. We're going to look later on tonight at how this pre-Christian book drives us to find Christian answers. But the question that emerges is, do we still have? Do we yet have all the answers? We certainly don't, but we have some of them. And so we're going to do a project later that will cast this book against the backdrop of what we now have and what we now know in Christ. In terms of where to come down on this structure question, Brevard Childs prefers this mediating position that maybe there's not a tightly organized structure. Maybe AG Wright goes too far. The truth may lie between the two extremes. The whole book is more or less a notebook. It does have inner coherence. And there is some progression of thought. It does seem to me to be some progression of thought even as indicated by our little computer frequency search last time. I am hopeful, even though I am hopeful that further study may show that there's even greater complexity and genius to the structure in this book that we've seen. But again, the message of the book is still perceptible, whether or not we're able to sort that out. We can still gain from its messages. So when we come back next time or next after the break, we want to begin working through the book, looking at the content, looking at what it has to say. I hope you have your outline, that little very fine print outline that I handed out last time. We're going to talk through some things there. If you have in your Bible marked particular verses that you find puzzling or you wonder how they fit, make yourself aware of those during the break, and we'll have opportunity to talk about some of those in the next session. So take a break, 10 minute break, come back, when the big hand reaches 11 after.