Table Of ContentInterpreting Ecclesiastes
C S h b
ritiCal tudieS in the ebrew ible
Edited by
Anselm C. Hagedorn Nathan MacDonald Stuart Weeks
Humboldt Universität University of Cambridge Durham University
zu Berlin
1. A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and
Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll, by Bernard M.
Levinson
2. The Prophets of Israel, by Reinhard G. Kratz
3. Interpreting Ecclesiastes: Readers Old and New, by Katharine J. Dell
4. Judging Job: The Reader as Interpreter, Adjudicator, and Theologian,
by F. Rachel Magdalene
Interpreting Ecclesiastes
Readers Old and New
Katharine J. dell
Winona Lake, Indiana
eiSenbraunS
2013
© Copyright 2013 Eisenbrauns
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
www.eisenbrauns.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dell, Katharine J. (Katharine Julia), 1961–
Interpreting Ecclesiastes : readers old and new / Katharine J. Dell.
pages cm. — (Critical studies in the Hebrew Bible ; number 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-57506-281-5 (alk. paper)
1. Bible. Ecclesiastes—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title.
BS1475.52.D45 2013
223′.806—dc23
2013035540
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. ∞™
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Part 1. Ancient Interpretations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Chapter 1. Ecclesiastes as Wisdom:
Consulting Early Interpreters. . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Chapter 2. Vanity, Human Beings, and the Created World:
The Dualistic Method as Applied to Ecclesiastes . . . 37
Part 2. Modern Interpretations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Chapter 3. The Cycle of Life in Ecclesiastes:
An Ecological Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter 4. Animal Theology and the Direction of the חור 68
1. Animal theology 68
2. The life to come 71
3. The human-animal relationship 74
Chapter 5. A Liberationist or Postcolonial Reading?:
Ecclesiastes as a Resistant Text . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Chapter 6. Reject or Retrieve?:
Feminist Readings of Ecclesiastes 7:23–29 . . . . . . 84
1. Feminist and Anti–feminist Appraisals 85
2. Retrieving Ecclesiastes 7:23–29/8:1 90
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Ancient Interpreters 96
Modern Interpreters 97
Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Index of Authors (Old and New) 103
Index of Scripture 105
v
Preface
This book was written whilst I was a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College,
Oxford for 18 months, and I am very grateful for the congeniality and
hospitality of the Provost and Fellows of the College during that time. I
am also glad to have participated in the Oxford Senior Seminar and used
the libraries. Thanks also go to my PhD students Will Kynes and Brittany
Melton who both acted as research assistants to me in the final stages of
this project and to the Divinity Faculty in Cambridge who provided money
to support such help. Thanks to Stuart Weeks for his insightful remarks
on this manuscript and to him and the other editors of the Critical Studies
in the Hebrew Bible series, Anselm Hagedorn and Nathan MacDonald,
for accepting this book into the series. Thanks also to Jim Eisenbraun and
his team for their work on this project. Finally, thanks go to my mother,
Molly Dell, for her constant encouragement of my endeavours, to my hus-
band, Douglas Hamilton, for helping with computer problems and being
his usual supportive self, and to my son James for providing endless (and
often welcome!) distractions. To them I dedicate this book.
Katharine J. Dell
Cambridge, November 2012
Abbreviations
All abbreviations in this volume follow the SBL Handbook of Style.
vii
Introduction
This volume seeks to explore “readerly” responses to the book of
Ecclesiastes, old and new, past and present. The work of Paul Ricoeur
in particular has highlighted the place of the “reader” of the text in the
hermeneutical process.1 The famous hermeneutical circle of author, text,
and reader has become a given in modern study of any text, biblical or
otherwise.2 It is a circle of engagement that is fluid and has no fixed point.
Every individual is a reader and is entitled to a readerly response, and yet
individual readers need guidance from the collective. The collective might
be a church or synagogue, giving authority and direction to interpretive
choices. The collective might be a particular interest group—after all, the
Bible has been used over the centuries to justify all kinds of movements,
from emancipation to slavery. The collective might also be the scholarly
community, past and present. For, arguably, it is not until we are trained
in the ways of “reading” that we can truly explore the depths of our own
individual reading. This is where past readers inform present ones and
where collective “traditions” of reading become important.
The last twenty-five years have seen a revolution in biblical studies in
the area of “method” shifting away from a main interest in the author and
authorial concerns, be they historical, literary, or theological, in the direc-
tions of both text and reader. Interest in the text as a “given,” in its final
form and in its “canonical” impact has opened up new vistas of interpre-
tive insight. Similarly, awareness of the sheer range and diversity of pos-
sible readings and responses to the text from both individuals and interest
groups has also opened up fresh horizons. Diverse literary and cultural
criticisms have arisen, many originating from the humanities and social sci-
ences. However, it would be a mistake to think that the new questions that
are being asked of a text are the only ones that are of interest, and thus,
1. Paul Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics (ed. Don Ihde;
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974); Essays on Biblical Interpretation (Phil-
adelphia: Fortress, 1980).
2. An idea often attributed to Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), see discussion
in Anthony C. Thistleton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Trans-
forming Biblical Reading (London: HarperCollins, 1992), 204–36. Thistleton also has an
interesting chapter on Ricoeur, who developed the concept (344–78).
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