Book Of Ecclesiastes Research Articles

The Threefold Cord of Ecclesiastes

This lecture explores the book of Ecclesiastes as a kind of exemplar of the proverbial saying in 4:12 that ‘a threefold cord is not quickly broken’. The first strand of the book – a ‘black thread’ – is the thesis in Kohelet’s teaching, that all human endeavour amounts to nothing but transience and insubstantiality. The second strand – a ‘white thread’ – is the antithesis in Kohelet’s teaching, that value can be discovered in eating, drinking, and finding enjoyment in one’s toil. And the third strand – a ‘golden thread’ – is the synthesis in the book, that one should walk a middle way, recognising the manifold vanities of life on the one hand and the value of the simple pleasures of life on the other, and striving to be neither too wicked and foolish nor too righteous and wise for one’s own good.

The The Book of Ecclesiastes: A Translation and Exegetical and Theological Commentary by Borys Hyl’ko

Книга Проповідника: Переклад та екзегетично-теологічний коментар. Борис Хілько. Київ: Видавець Н.О. Вінокурова, 2020. 528 с.; ISBN 978-966-97973-2-2 (м’яка палітурка); 170 UAH.

Philosophy of History in E. L. Doctorow’s Welcome to Hard Times and Its Affinities with the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes

Unlike the majority of E. L. Doctorow’s novels which present a revisionary account of specific periods in American history, his first novel, Welcome to Hard Times, deals with history in a more general and allegorical manner. The narrator of the novel is preoccupied with the nature of history and historical phenomena, and this preoccupation pervades the whole book, from which a philosophy of history can be derived: history is cyclic and it tends to repeat itself in a deterministic fashion. Since Doctorow was an American Jew who was influenced by the Jewish tradition, in this paper, Welcome to Hard Times is placed within a Jewish context and read from the perspective of this multilayered tradition. Hence, the novel’s philosophy of history is compared to the historical vision of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, which also espouses a cyclic conception of history, thereby demonstrating that their visions are almost identical. In Doctorow’s novel, however, this cyclic view also serves to repudiate the American Dream and its associated ideas of progress and optimism. It is further shown that the two aforementioned books also share a fatalistic and nihilistic attitude toward life, and their response to the Problem of Evil and innocent human suffering is a pessimistic one, arguing that there is no justice and moral order in the world.

Sztuka w kręgu bractw religijnych w Skalbmierzu. Addenda

This paper is an analysis of the religious brotherhoods of Skalbmierz and their Early Modern furnishings. The article discusses both the preserved objects and those known from written sources, with particular emphasis on the recent discoveries made during the restoration works. In the Early Modern era, Skalbmierz was classified as a medium- sized city in Lesser Poland, but due to the collegiate church and the school there, it was an important centre in the region. This is visible, for example, in the case of religious brotherhoods, whose number and activity are impressive, considering thesize of the city. The oldest brotherhoods are the craft guilds that have been listed in Skalbmierz since the mid-15th century. The only remnant of their activity is an altar from around 1700 with images of Saints Cryspin and Cryspinian. The literary brotherhood, listed in 1546, had also an altar in the collegiate church. Unfortunately, both the retable and its settings are known only from brief references in the inventories. The dynamic development of the confraternities in the city took place at the beginning of the 17th century. In this time, the confraternities of the Passion and of St. Anne were established. The first, modelled on the Kraków Archconfraternity of the Passion, had an altar with the image of the Crucifixion in the church (in mid-18th century it was replaced by the present one by provost Antoni Stanclewicz) and a crypt decorated with paintings. The frescoes show brethren in costumes identical to those worn by the Kraków confraternity. The 17th-century chalice belonging to the confraternity, funded by one of the townspeople, has also been preserved. The 17th-century equipment of the brotherhood of St. Anne is known only from written sources and included the altar, paraments and liturgical books. In the mid-18th century, the brethren’s retable was rebuilt, including a picture modelled on the image in the main altar of St. Anne church in Kraków. In the second half of the 17th century, the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary was established, modelled on the confraternity at the Dominican Church in Kraków. The image of Our Lady of the Snow was associated with the brotherhood altar, dated to the mid-18th century. Its careful examination, which was possible thanks to the removal of the silver robe for conservation purposes, indicates that the painting was modelled on the image from the Kraków’s church of The Holy Trinity. A lost painting of Infant Jesus, belonging to the second Rosary brotherhood, was discovered in the same altar. The image contains a complex iconographic program with the Eucharistic meaning, likewise the feretory belonging to the same confraternity with an image based on the Book of Ecclesiastes. In the summary, attention is paid to drawing inspiration from Kraków, which included the transfer of both organizational and artistic patterns, and to the role of the canons who were responsible for the complex iconography and ideological meaning of the works. It is also significant that the equipment was funded by both brethren, townspeople who did not belong to the brotherhoods and canons, which indicates the significant role that the organizations played in the life of the city.

"Nel mezzo del cammin": Queneau's Enfants du Limon

"Nel mezzo del cammin":Queneau's Enfants du Limon Ann Smock (bio) I propose to examine here, with admiration, a single novel by Raymond Queneau, Les Enfants du Limon. Its two principal elements are politics and insanity: their ways of inspiring, or exploiting, each other. Or more simply, their general resemblance. At least so it seems if one rereads the novel today. Its title—Children of the Clay, in English—suggests the other strong current running through it: the wish for a new life, and the muddy start and finish of all lives. The concatenations of politics and madness can twist unhappiness and the desire for change into grotesque shapes. Les Enfants du Limon is a crowded exhibition of such distortions. But its form suggests that its entire déroulement is a process whereby it wears itself out, uses itself up in favor of something else, something new. So, it's thinking of new life and with the idea of Lifelines in mind that I make my contribution to this collection of texts honoring Rochelle Tobias. I hope to amuse her a little, too, because Queneau is funny, and to remind her of the agitated mode of our conversations lately, during life under Trump. Finally, I mean to put into practice, on a modest scale, the proclivity for close reading that we share. Les Enfants du Limon is set between the wars in France, when fascism was on the rise. Queneau began writing it in 1930 and published it in '38. It is an extravagant combination of Dickensian genealogies, political satire, and pages and pages of archival material on nineteenthcentury French lunatics—the results of a research project Queneau undertook upon quitting the Surrealists and then didn't know what to do with. He unloaded it into Les Enfants du Limon, where it makes [End Page 697] for some very slow reading, crazy though its subject matter is. The novel includes gnostic mysticism, too, the Book of Ecclesiastes, Hegel (the master/slave relation), Goethe (a pact with the devil), and Dante (La Vita Nuova). It lays out in very broad strokes a tableau of class relations in 1930s France, with picturesque characters in each position (shopkeeper, laborer, business tycoon, banker, debutante, teacher, servant, parasite). One can take it all for a sort of puppet show with bright local color, but the entertainment is intermittently marked by some stark fact or date: the names of two Italian prisons where Mussolini stashed his enemies, for example, surface in the hazy mind of an Italian greengrocer, whose two brothers died in one or the other of them (he has forgotten which), and who is himself a refugee in La Ciotat. In the time it takes to turn a page, the February 1934 riots in Paris (fifteen people shot dead by the police) have occurred and one main character has been wiped out. Flashes of sorrow, of panic, punctuate the novel's rather festive social and political pageant. Class relations and family relations crisscross. Monsieur Jules-Jules Limon (1854–1929) founded the clan whose members—along with their servants, their suppliers, their hangers-on—provide most of the novel's characters. The web of kinship relations is complicated enough for Balzac, and the various family matters that drive the plot(s) are similarly satisfactory (money, property, marriage, remarriage, inheritance, children lost and refound). Jules-Jules Limon represents big business in the novel. He joined the telecommunications industry in the last years of the nineteenth century, when the wireless transmitter had recently been invented and the télégraphie sans fil was starting to penetrate France. He founded all the main radio stations, launched all the different brands of receivers, headed up 36 different companies—in short, "faisait suer des sous aux ondes hertziennes" (90). He married Mlle Dorothée von Cramm in 1883, and they had two children: Sophie and her much younger brother Astolphe. Sophie married Edmond de Chambernac in 1902 and had three children, Daniel, Agnès, and Noémi. After Edmond was killed at Verdun, Sophie took a second husband, le baron Salomon Hachamoth, a banker, member of the Légion d'Honneur, president of the Association des Anciens Combattants Isra...

Determinism or Vanity? A Proposed Close Reading of the Book of Ecclesiastes

This exegetical article seeks to offer a close reading of Ecclesiastes that would allow us to surmount the difficulties associated with its exegesis. The book’s text is widely known to be replete with contrasts and antinomies that introduce a certain vagueness to its writer’s intentions. The article suggests that the reader should approach the book as if it was written as a first-person logbook which appears, superficially, to have been written in no logical order, at random, and at different times according to the order of the writer’s experiences and meditations. Such an approach would reduce the readers’ expectations for a logical order and would direct them to a deeper examination of the logical contexts scattered throughout the book. The article also presents the determinist con­texts of reality and their association with a wise person’s perspective as opposed to the randomness associated with a fool’s perspective. The writer’s sceptical descriptions of his encounter with reality and his first-person thoughts about this reality express an explicitly critical view of reality. The writ­er’s pre-reflexive doubt is thus nothing but a methodical doubt akin to Descartes’ pre-cogito doubts. An attentive reader will identify that the book’s text encompasses a reflexive/critical perspective on a sceptical view of reality. As such, the writer’s critical view voids the fool’s non-reflexive sceptical perspective (which is reflected in a superficial reading of the book’s text). The article’s close read­ing of the book thus posits a fool’s vanity which is a “vexation of spirit” (KJV) [re‘ut ruah․] among those who view reality as being coincidental. Conversely, it also posits a wise person’s vanity, which is a “vexation of spirit” [ra‘ayon ruah․], which critiques the fool’s pre-reflexive random view of reality as vanity and as a vexation of spirit [re‘ut ruah․]. This view of the wise person, whose “eyes are in his head” (2:14), is the true free will the writer is alluding to.

Ecclesiastes as a representative of Jewish theological education

This article deals with the study of the author’s personality of the Book of Ecclesiastes as a representative of theological education. Many Western scholars of the Book of Ecclesiastes assume that its author was a Jewish teacher. Since the author calls himself Ecclesiastes (ἐκκλησία, gathering of people) or Qoheleth (qahal, gathering), it seems that he gathered people for teaching. A reference to this is in the book itself: “In addition to being a wise man, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge” (Eccl 12:9). Thus, he appears to have served as a teacher of young people (Eccl 11:9) and had a group of disciples to whom he gave practical advice about life. It was a time of great changes in Israel, new circumstances of life demanded new answers, and Ecclesiastes, through studying the Holy Scriptures and through personal experience and reflection, made a critical analysis of the reality around him and those teachings that were spread among the Israelites. On the basis of this analysis, he provided answers to young people, trying to form a holistic worldview and save them from temptations: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (Eccl 12:13–14). These words have not lost their relevance today. As a result, this work can be useful for analyzing the modern education system, through the prism of Jewish religious education, which is closely related to Christian education.

Death and Evanescence in the Book of Ecclesiastes. An Interpretation of Eccl 2:13–17 and 3:16–22

The Book of Ecclesiastes talks about human death and evanescence candidly and powerfully—more so than almost any other book in the Bible. Qoheleth (Greek Ecclesiastes), a wisdom teacher and the central character in this book, takes death seriously. For him, it represents the ultimate boundary to human life, although he does not claim that there is nothing after it. Still, for him, death is as unavoidable as it is final. Therefore, he argues to treat life as a one-time opportunity, accept life's goods as a gift from God, and enjoy them.

A Classified Bibliography on Ecclesiastes

For anyone researching a topic from Ecclesiastes, a comprehensive bibliography on Ecclesiastes for this OT book is a wonderful but rather overwhelming resource. The book is a classified listing of the publications on the book of Ecclesiastes from 1900 to 2015 as selected by Russell L. Meek and David J. H. Beldman. This book originates from a 99-page bibliography compiled by Beldman for Craig Bartholomew’s Ecclesiastes commentary and Stuart Weeks’s contribution of his own bibliographical sources, ultimately resulting in what Katherine Dell evaluates as “a must have” in her endorsement.The book continues the work of Stuart Weeks, The Making of Many Books: Printed Works on Ecclesiastes 1523–1875 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2014), by gathering and organizing articles, essays, and monographs published in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish since 1900. Without annotations, the book provides a categorized bibliography based on various topics and subjects. Chapters include wide-ranging topics such as death, fear of the Lord, joy, hebel, language, and history of interpretation. Some chapters reflect scholarly issues in Ecclesiastes such as frame narrator/narrative and wisdom/pedagogy of the wise/wisdom “school.” The book also has a helpful section on methodology, which is subdivided into 7 specific methods, including newer approaches such as deconstructionism and film studies. Unexpectedly omitted from this bibliography are introductory works that discuss OT wisdom literature, such as Old Testament Wisdom Literature: A Theological Introduction (Downers Grove: IVP, 2011), by Craig Bartholomew and Ryan O’Dowd, or Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), by James Crenshaw. Furthermore, Choon-Leong Seow’s “Theology when Everything is Out of Control,” Interpretation 55 (2001): 237–49, which discusses Qohelet’s theology—and therefore perhaps other significant essays—is also missing.The categories are similar to the organization of theological dictionaries in that they are wide-ranging and alphabetically ordered. Works that relate to more than one category are listed in multiple relevant sections. For example, “Fear God and Enjoy His Gifts: Qohelet’s Edenic Vision of Life,” CTR 14 (2016): 23–34, by Russell Meek, appears in three different chapters, “God/The Divine/Fear of the Lord,” “Joy/Enjoyment/Carpe Diem,” and “Intertextuality/Inner-Biblical Allusion.” As a result, it is easy to find resources without missing related works.Since the topics are arranged in alphabetical order, the section covering the individual chapters of the book of Ecclesiastes (appropriately titled “Chapters”) follows sections titled “Authority,” “Biblical Theology,” and “Canonicity.” Although a minor incongruity, this diverges from what the preface indicates: “The layout of the bibliography is straightforward. The first category is the chapters of Ecclesiastes, where readers will find works that address—not surprisingly—particular passages in Ecclesiastes” (p. viiii). Nevertheless, the simplicity, clarity, and the expertise reflected in these categorized bibliographical lists facilitate an “easier and more efficient” scholarly engagement with secondary sources on Ecclesiastes written in multiple languages (p. viiii), commendably accomplishing the goal of the project.

Асаблівасці біблейскіх перакладаў, створаных на тэрыторыі Польскага Каралеўства i Вялікага княства Літоўскага ў XVI ст.

Niniejszy artykuł ma charakter przeglądowy, jest poświęcony tłumaczeniom biblijnym, które powstały w XVI w. na terenie Rzeczpospolitej i Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego. W tekście na przykładzie wierszy 1.5–7 z Księgi Koheleta rozpatruje się konkretną technikę translatorską oraz przyczyny różnic między tekstem oryginalnym i przetłumaczonym na inny język. W badaniu zastosowano metodę analizy tekstologicznej. Autor dochodzi do następujących wniosków. Po pierwsze, może to być konflikt różnych systemów językowych, ponieważ język oryginalny i język tłumaczenia biblijnego odnoszą się nie tylko do różnych grup, ale także do różnych rodzin językowych. Po drugie, dokładności tłumaczenia może przeszkadzać odmienne rozumienie tekstu z powodu różnic religijnych. W czasie stworzenia większości słowiańskich tłumaczeń biblijnych chrześcijańska egzegetyka zasadniczo różniła się zarówno od starożytnego rozumienia świętych tekstów, jak i od interpretacji przyjętej w tradycji rabinicznej. Po trzecie, różnice intertekstualne mogą wynikać z różnic kulturowych, które nie mają nic wspólnego z systemem religijnym. Po czwarte, różnica między oryginałem a tłumaczeniem wynika z faktu, że nie wszyscy tłumacze byli równie utalentowanymi lingwistami, znali dobrze język oryginalny. Dlatego w strukturze tekstowej tłumaczenia możemy się spotkać z różnego rodzaju odchyleniami od treści i formy oryginału, aż po błędy językowe i merytoryczne.

Kohelet’s Pursuit of Truth: A New Reading of Ecclesiastes by Benjamin J. Segal

Reviewed by: Kohelet’s Pursuit of Truth: A New Reading of Ecclesiastes by Benjamin J. Segal Matthew Seufert benjamin j. segal, Kohelet’s Pursuit of Truth: A New Reading of Ecclesiastes (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2017). Pp. x + 177. $18. One review comment on the back cover of this book aroused my interest in Segal’s work. The writer of the excerpt, Rabbi Harold Kushner, recounts that his Hebrew high school teacher warned him not to read Koheleth. “Since then,” he says, “I’ve read every commentary on Kohelet I could find.” His appraisal of S.’s work in light of that remarkable statement engendered my eagerness to read: “Segal’s is the most insightful, most lucid, most persuasive one I have ever read.” For anyone who is preaching or teaching the Book of Ecclesiastes, I recommend this commentary for its unique translation alone. Though the comments and translational notes are not thorough, on some of the more complicated portions of Ecclesiastes they will give you another voice with which to interact without taking up much of your time—and there are some very insightful notes. The main portion of the commentary (pp. 11–97) contains the whole of the Hebrew text of Ecclesiastes (by and large the MT) divided into sections and interspersed with translation and commentary. The author usually does not “show his work” (i.e., how he came to his translation), which does make the work of less use for those primarily interested in the technicality of the Hebrew. Yet, having seriously engaged the words of Ecclesiastes and an impressive array of commentators, S. offers a thoughtful and intriguing—and not obviously objectionable— vision of the whole. For S., Ecclesiastes is “a tale of a failed search for certain knowledge” (p. 1). S.’s “principal contention” is the following: “This is not a philosophical tract, but the tale of Kohelet’s search” (p. 114). It is a narrative of one man’s experience of life “under the sun,” that is, “in the empirical world” (p. 139), “a retrospective collection of pieces composed over a lifetime” (p. 140), presented with all of their seeming contradictions. “Kohelet sees and describes life unadorned and undisguised, honestly and movingly” (p. 155; quoted from Haim Shapira, Ecclesiastes: The Biblical Philosopher [in Hebrew] [Or Yehuda: Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir, 2011] 223). The author of Ecclesiastes, who, according to S., is responsible for creating Koheleth and the narrator, gives “advice as to how to best survive” in a world whose way “is beyond the ken of mortal man” (p. 1). “The purpose of [Ecclesiastes] . . . is . . . to be a goad to further thought by offering challenges” (p. 147). It “has a lot more to do with asking questions than supplying definitive answers” (p. 113). “It is not an answer to all challenges, but a challenge to all answers” (p. 150). The above assessments occur in the “Brief Introduction” (pp. 1–7) and final section of the commentary, entitled “Review Essays and Further Thoughts” (pp. 101–62). These sections “expand upon points included in the introduction and in the commentary and offer new perspectives,” emphasizing “wherein the commentary differs from others” (p. 99). Here, too, S. offers a discussion of his theory of reading texts (texts are complex and often multivalent but not unlimited), a contention that there is change and progression in [End Page 127] Koheleth’s thought (his explanation for the “contradictions,” which he places in conversation with eight other explanations), a substantial defense of the translation “vapor” over against other proposals, an outlined three-part structure, and other typical introductory issues (i.e., date, authorship, and literary/religious contexts). The final two parts of the book contain several literary reflections on Ecclesiastes and twenty thought-provoking questions for discussion (e.g., “At what age should one first read Ecclesiastes?”; p. 162). My main critique of S.’s book, aside from my reservations about accepting his suggestion that there is subtle change and progression in Koheleth (too subtle to be sure), is its cursory treatment of the more obscure passages in Ecclesiastes. S. does make an interesting comment that the obscurities may be meant to embody one of the messages of the book: the world is...

Male Personal Names in the 1813–1814 Church Register of Births of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Radviliškis

The analysis of nineteenth-century personal names in Radviliškis parish was accomplished by selecting personal names from the church register of births of 1786–1798 and 1813–1814 periods. From the period of 1786–7188, 150 names of baptised boys, 292 names of fathers, and 302 names of godfathers, as well as 588 male surnames were selected. The period of 1813–1814 was represented by 199 names of baptised boys, 281 names of fathers, and 307 names of godfathers and by the surnames of 581 males. The analysis of the 1786–1798 period showed that adults were identified by a binomial personal name consisting of a name and a surname. Male names have Latin, Slavic, Germanic, Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian, Latvian and Celtic origin. At baptism, the boys were usually given the names of Latin origin. Their fathers mainly had names of Hebrew origin, and godfathers – names of Latin origin. We analysed 588 male names: 103 names had Slavic patronymic suffixes, 28 surnames Lithuanian suffixes, and 307 surnames had no clear suffixes, which allowed assigning them to any of the categories mentioned above. The analysis of the 1813–1814 period revealed that adults were identified by a binomial personal name – a name and a surname. The baptised children were given monomial names. We found 44 different names of boys, 48 different names of fathers, and 47 different names of godfathers in the analysed source and divided them by their origin. Latin names made the largest part of the male names. We found many names of Greek, Hebrew, and Germanic origin. The 588 male surnames located in the records were grouped by the available suffixes: 158 surnames had Lithuanian suffixes, 118 surnames had a Slavic suffix -sk, and 86 surnames had the Slavic patronymic suffixes -owicz, -ewicz; 186 surnames had no suffixes. This study aimed to encourage further research into the anthroponymy of Radviliškis. Hopefully, not only registers of birth will be analysed, but also other ecclesiastical books containing records essential for the study of personal names.

Not So Vain After All: Hannah Arendt’s Reception of Ecclesiastes

AbstractAlthough Hannah Arendt only explicitly references the book of Ecclesiastes in order to contrast its views with her own, she and Qoheleth parallel each other on substantive issues. After showing how an influential translation of a key motif from Ecclesiastes led Arendt to misapprehend Qoheleth, this study unpacks their intellectual common ground on matters of affirming worldly life; the nature of action; and critical views of the human heart. Yet this third area which addresses human nature also highlights a divergence between them on how thinking relates to the problem of evil.

Eclesiastés: El Colapso del Sentido

Eclesiastés: El Colapso del Sentido

The Meaning of Life in Ecclesiastes: Coherence, Purpose, and Significance from a Psychological Perspective

AbstractAttending to ongoing debates about the “meaning of life” in Ecclesiastes, this article determines how Qoheleth addressed meaningfulness by drawing on a threefold scheme of definitions for life’s meaning. These definitions are derived from psychological research and used to argue that all three conceptions appear within the book of Ecclesiastes. Qoheleth was primarily concerned with life’s “coherence,” which depends on predictable and reliable patterns in life that render it sensible, yet he also addressed life’s “purpose” and “significance.” While primarily determining how these three forms of meaning, along with their attendant ideas, are handled within Ecclesiastes itself, this article also demonstrates how resources from psychological research help to resolve debates among biblical interpreters, who agree far more than it at first appears once clearer definitions of “meaning” are employed.

„Wszystko ma swój czas". Patrystyczna egzegeza Księgi Eklezjastesa 3,1-8

Z wczesnochrześcijańskich dzieł egezegetycznych dotyczących Księgi Eklezjastesa zachowały się nieliczne fragmenty komentarza Orygenesa, obszerna część komentarza Dydyma Ślepego, homilie św. Grzegorza z Nyssy, krótki komentarz literalny przypisywany św. Janowi Chryzostomowi, komentarz o charakterze umiarkowanie alegorycznym św. Hieronima i komentarz Grzegorza z Agrigentum, biskupa Sycylii z przełomu VI i VII wieku. Analiza zawartego w powyższych dziełach komentarza do wersetów Koh 3, 1-8 ujawnia dwojaki charakter patrystycznej egzegezy tego biblijnego tekstu: uniwersalny i indywidualny. Z jednej strony autorzy odnoszą tekst Koh 1-3 do czasu w wymiarze powszechnym, obejmującego historię zbawienia ludzkości i związanego z działalnością Opatrzności Bożej, czuwającej nad przebiegiem procesu dziejowego. Z drugiej strony interpretują ten passus w odniesieniu do życia duchowego każdego chrześcijanina, jego głębokiej relacji do Boga, procesu doskonalenia wewnętrznego, walki z wadami i nabywania cnót. Oba wymiary czasowe się przenikają: indywidualna droga człowieka do doskonałości wpisuje się w zaplanowane przez Boga dzieje zbawienia ludzkości. Każda czynność, zarówno w wymiarze indywidualnym, jak i uniwersalnym, ma swój właściwy czas wyznaczony przez Boga.

МОТИВЫ ЭККЛЕСИАСТА И ПЕСНИ ПЕСНЕЙ В ПОЭЗИИ И. К. ГЮНТЕРА (к вопросу о библейской архетекстуальности)

The problem of correlation between literature and the Bible is one of the relevant issues of contemporary literature studies, with the Bible being an 'axial' archetext of the European culture and literature, an ancient text of a crucially high axiological and aesthetical importance, performing the function of meaning- and text-generation. This research paper is focused on the investigation of the archetextual function of The Book of Ecclesiastes and The Song of Songs in J. Chr. Gunther’s (1695–1723) poetry. The concept of dialogue of cultures, especially ‘the dialogue of texts’ (M. Bakhtin), as well as the theory of intertextuality (J. Kristeva, R. Bart, G. Genette) provide theoretical and philosophical basis for the investigation. We employ a combination of cultural, historical, biographical, comparative, hermeneutic, structural and holistic analysis methods. Gunther is constantly engaged in dialogue with the Bible, no matter in what genre he creates his poetry. He is often guided by the Biblical poetics. The Book of Ecclesiastes became highly consonant with the poetry of Baroque , as it investigates tragic antinomies of the world and in a paradoxical way connects the idea of vanity and absurd of life with the call for getting joy and pleasure from its every moment. Gunther preserves the features of the Baroque worldview to a large extent, therefore the motifs of Ecclesiastes naturally permeate his lyrical poetry (spiritual and student songs, love and philosophical poems). Gunther’s hedonism is stronger in comparison to that of the ancient Hebrew poet and the Baroque poets of the 19 th century. However, his hedonism is that of a new type as it is built on the reasonable nature of a human and the natural pursuit of happiness, which is first of all seen in the poet’s student songs ( Studentenlieder ), being the first works of Rococo in German poetry. The new hedonism together with the motifs of the vanity of life, seen through the topoi of The Book of Ecclesiastes and The Song of Songs , manifests itself in Gunther’s innovative love poetry, standing out due to its special confessional manner. In the late works of Gunther, reflections on the irresolvable problem of theodicy from the perspective of The Book of Job and The Book of Ecclesiastes are intensifying and becoming organically interwoven with the aspiration to redemption and Divine love in the world. Therefore, the poet refers to the mystically understood topoi of The Song of Songs. The Biblical archetextuality allowed Gunther to express his individuality and the problems of human spirit in a deeper way during the difficult and life-changing period of time.

Allegories of life, death and immortality in the book of Ecclesiastes 12:5b–7

Analyzing the famous passage Eccl. 12:5b–7, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that the expression "the almond tree blossomed" (12:5bα) contains the allegory of man’s birth and his young years; the phrase "the locust/locust tree became loaded" (12:5bβ) can be interpreted as an indication of the mature, productive/fruitful years of human life activity; the allegory of the caper, falling to winter ("and the caper bush fell"; 12:5bγ), correlates with the metaphorical description of old age and the approach of death in Eccl. 12:1b–2. So, one can assume that the passage Eccl. 12:5bα–γ includes the allegories of man's earthly birth, making up of his personality, maturity and old age in the form of natural phenomena that take place in Judea throughout the year — approximately from the second half of January to December. The allegory of the breaking "silver cord" (Eccl. 12:6aα), symbolizing the earthly demise, can be understood as a break in the connection between the spirit and the flesh of man (cf.: Eccl. 12:7). In 12:6аβ–b, Ecclesiastes adduces the allegories of death, expressed through the broken vessels ("golden bowl", "jar", a certain "vessel"), symbolizing the human body. The context also suggests that an allusion to the human spirit implicitly present in these allegories as well, which is symbolized by olive oil (in the "golden bowl") and water (in the "jar" and in the "vessel"), – not directly called, but contextually implied – returning to their eternal Fountain (cf.: Jer. 2:13, 17:13, also: Ps. 36:10) when their temporary receptacles are broken. The "spring" and the "well" (Eccl. 12:6b) are veritable symbols of life, and in the light of Eccl. 12:7b – perhaps symbols of eternal life in the Book of Ecclesiastes. As for the allegory of "the golden bowl", it clearly goes back to Zech. 4:2–3. In the light of the allegorical picture attested in Zech., chap. 4, and the text of Eccl. 12:7b, the allegory of Eccl. 12:6aβ – "the golden bowl will crack" – can presuppose implicitly not only the death of the body/"the golden bowl", but also that its contents – "oil", symbolizing the spirit abided in the body – will merge with the "oil" of the Divine Luminary, scil., with the Spirit of God.

Kazatel 3,10-11: Bohem položená překážka porozumění, nebo lidská nechápavost i přes Boží obdarování?

In this paper I deal with the tenth and eleventh verses of Ecclesiastes chapter 3. The eleventh verse in particular constitutes almost a nightmare for translators. First, I examine the range of Czech translations of these verses. I consequently deal with single words or collocations and finally explore the context and links with other passages in the book of Ecclesiastes. My aim is to seek out a convincing exposition of these biblical verses.

Agedness’ Terms in the Book of Ecclesiastes the Twelfth Sanitation : A Comparative Semitic Linguistic Study

This study is devoted to tackle senility (Agedness) in the Book of Ecclesiastes which is the twenty one Book of the Old Testament. It is called so "Kazr" and Ecclesiastes in the seventieth translation. The name Ecclesiastes refers to Sleman Ibn Dawood the king in Jerusalem who is a one of the pioneers in Jerusalem who is known for his wisdom and richness.
 Sleman in his senility preaches a great lesson of his life, and the strength of his soul, through expressing his feelings and attitudes towards the life. Hence, he refers to his actual experience while being a king, indicating that everything was false. In this paper, we talked about what the word "Aya" means in the Book of Ecclesiastes. We have also compared between the two "Aya"s as they consist of a noun and, a letter and a vowel. In case of their recurrence, they are not to be compared for fear of confusion.