Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Joel C. Salomon" <joelcsalomon AT gmail.com>]

James Read wrote:
> there is, in fact, more evidence to bring to light which hasn't been  
> mentioned, so far, in this discussion.
> 
> 1) Ben Sirach quotes frequently from showing its firm position by  
> early 2nd century BCE. This shows any later dating difficult to  
> contrive.
> 
> 2) The Babylonian talmud names the author as Solomon but states that  
> it was only written down much later (bava vatra 14b).
> 
> And so, even if proponents of components of proto-Mishnaic Hebrew  
> existing in Qohelet did ever prove to be true we have already had the  
> reason why written down for us by the tradition conveyed in the  
> Babylonian Talmud for many centuries.

In other words, "everyone's right".  Qohelet may have been composed by
Solomon, but the written form reflects the language of a later era; e.g,
we don't know what the original word was where now the text reads "pardes".

Of course this means there is no "hard" evidence that Solomon wrote the
book, but also no strong evidence against it either.

--Joel