Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor & Julie Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>]

Clay wrote:
> 
> Anyone have anything to say about T.Longman's analysis of genre in
Qohelet
> as a framed fictional biography according to an Akkadian pattern?
> 
> I am reading Longman (Eccl. NICOT) again after several years and find
his
> hypothesis intriguing. However, not being very well read in Akkadian
> biography . . .

As I recall, I wasn't terribly impressed with his argument. You should
probably read his published dissertation to get the context of his
argument (something I didn't do at the time that I read his commentary
but went back to years later). Personally, I don't object much to his
characterization of Akkadian autobiography, but I'm not convinced that
the structure he lays out is distinctive enough to place Qohelet in the
same category.
> 
> What linkage is there between the genre identification and the dating
of
> the
> book? If we go with the late post-exilic date does that rule out the
> Akkadian biography genre or vise versa?

I think Longman says the book is post-exilic, but I don't recall how
specific he gets. I do remember him writing off the linguistic arguments
for the book's date as inconclusive. If his connection between the two
literatures could be established, I don't know that it would provide
much of a top limit for dating. (For that matter, unless you could show
who got the idea from whom, it might be hard to be too strict about the
earliest possible date for Qohelet on this basis.) A lack of evidence
that the genre continued into the Persian and Hellenistic periods could
be a result of time and chance failing to preserve anything relevant.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics