Qoheleth’s Hope: The Message of Ecclesiastes in a Broken World by Brian Neil Peterson

Abstract

Reviewed by: Qoheleth’s Hope: The Message of Ecclesiastes in a Broken World by Brian Neil Peterson Jean-Jacques Lavoie brian neil peterson, Qoheleth’s Hope: The Message of Ecclesiastes in a Broken World (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019). Pp. xii + 200. $90. Brian Neil Peterson, associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, has published a commentary on the Book of Qoheleth. He does not, however, include a translation of the twelve chapters, thus avoiding resolving numerous problems in the interpretation of the book. In the introduction, P. treats the crucial questions that the reader would normally find in such a work: date, authorship, unity, structure, and genre. The first chapter, “Qoheleth’s Reflection on Genesis,” is followed by the commentary, which constitutes the bulk of the book. Next is a chapter aimed at demonstrating that the message of Qoheleth is in perfect harmony with the other books of wisdom and the Torah. The study ends with a conclusion, a bibliography, and two indexes. While recognizing that the majority of commentators situate the book in the Persian or the Hellenistic period, P. does not contradict those authors who place the writing of the book before the exilic period, thus refusing to date the text in a specific period (p. 10). This absence of a position on a precise date allows P. to entertain and present diverse interpretations. For example, he believes that a preexilic date provides a strong basis for the reading of those texts in Qoheleth that treat the subject of royalty such as 4:13–16; 5:8; 8:2–8; 10:16–20 (also compare 6:1–2). [End Page 489] On the one hand, while commenting on 3:17; 11:9; and 12:14, P. affirms that Qoheleth does not exclude faith in judgment beyond the grave nor in the resurrection. On the other hand, P. maintains that, if the reader accepts the date of the book as the second century b.c.e., then one must take into consideration that such a conviction already existed at this time. Even though P. admits the possibility of the late dating of Qoheleth, he maintains that Qoheleth knew neither Greek philosophy—if this were the case, then Qoheleth reacted to this philosophy by offering a response inspired by Hebrew orthodoxy—nor the Gilgamesh Epic. As with all his predecessors, P. takes a position regarding the unity of the book. He prefers to see the book, including the epilogue in 12:9–14, as a literary whole (pp. 13, 139). He therefore divides the book in two principal parts: chaps. 1–6, which deal with the apparent futility of living in a broken world, and chaps. 7–12, which indicate how to live wisely in light of the observations of chaps. 1–6. Regarding the literary genre of the book, P. maintains that it is a “teaching document” (p. 12) or a paraenesis that seeks to exhort a person to fear God in the midst of a chaotic world. On the translation of hebel, the key word in the book, when there is an optimistic nuance, P. applies to the word terms that evoke transience, such as “breath,” “brief,” “fleeting,” “vapor,” “vacuous,” “short,” and “temporary.” However, whenever the word hebel has a negative connotation, he translates the term as “injustice” (p. 41). P., persuaded that Qoheleth knew the Genesis 1–4 narrative, believes that the author evaluated life in light of the fall and its repercussions. More precisely, he states, “It is because the universe is broken that Qoheleth makes his observations and uses the brokenness of the universe as a foil for his greater rhetorical purposes, namely, to show why humans need to keep God central in their lives” (p. 25). P. could have enriched his reflections and nuanced many of his interpretations if he had taken into account the numerous exegetical works in French that deal with the inter textual relationships between Qoheleth and Genesis 1–11. According to P., the God of Qoheleth is the answer to all the chaos of a broken world. This God is not only identical in every point to the God of the books of...