Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Hi Ron.

There's a critical distinction to be made when it comes to literature written 
in the first person: the 'speaker' in the text is not necessarily the actual 
author. What I mean is that an author may take on the persona of someone else 
(real or fictional) and write from the perspective of that person. It's a 
very common technique. So, it is an assumption to say that because the 
'speaker' in Qohelet claims to be Solomon that Solomon must be the author. 
You might be right, but you have made a logical leap on the basis of an 
assumption to say that. Therefore, in the same way that you call for someone 
to prove the author was not Solomon, so also you would need to prove that it 
was.

Having said that, I find it very odd that the 'speaker' never actually comes 
out and calls himself Solomon. Reading the Hebrew, I would argue it is far 
more likely that the speaker (and the author?) was named Qohelet. But again, 
I cannot prove that; I can only postulate it.


Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au