Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Martin A. Shields" <mshields AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

> Anyone have anything to say about T.Longman's analysis of genre in Qohelet
> as a framed fictional biography according to an Akkadian pattern?

It is important to note that Longman is only arguing that there is formal
correspondence (i.e. the form of the text), not that the "meaning" of
Qohelet reflects that of any of the Akkadian texts.

> I am reading Longman (Eccl. NICOT) again after several years and find his
> hypothesis intriguing. However, not being very well read in Akkadian
> biography . . . 
> 
> 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?

In his Fictional Akkadian Autobiography, Longman identifies non-Akkadian
texts which he describes as "closely related" to the Akkadian genre. The
Akkadian is, however, the oldest and so considered to be the progenitor.

As to the significance for dating, I'm not sure his thesis *can* say a lot
about the date. If Qohelet is deliberately emulating this genre, the date
could be any time when the author could have come across the Akkadian texts,
or even any other text closely related to it. If I recall he doesn't appeal
much to the Akkadian material when discussing the date, but does say that
the linguistic evidence is not a strong basis upon which to establish a date
because it is not possible to rule out updating the language during the
early stages of transmission.

The date for Qohelet is usually established on the basis of perceived late
language and loan words (although Ian Young shows that many of these are ill
conceived in Biblical Hebrew Studies in Chronology and Typology, JSOTSup
369) and/or perceived parallels with Greek literature (and since similar
parallels exist earlier in the aNE these are not particularly compelling).

Until we find the postmark on the original envelope used to post the work to
the publishers, I don't think much headway is going to be made regarding the
date...

Regards,

Martin Shields.