Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Donald R. Vance, Ph.D." <donaldrvance AT mac.com>]

There is no authorship for Qoheleth given in the text. There is no  
dating given in the text. As for your progression, do you really rate  
the style of the Prophetic (Deuteronomic) History low? It's some of  
the best writing we see in antiquity, anticipating novelistic  
developments by over two millenia. Yet it dates to ca. 550 B.C., your  
"low" period. Qoheleth has to be dealt with on content, world view,  
and style and that in comparison with other works outside the Bible.  
You have a satire on the acquisition of "wisdom and knowledge" without  
the fear of the Lord, i.e., direct experience of God, in Qoheleth. To  
pursue them without the knowledge of God is to become a cynic. These  
are the developments that are found in Apocalypticism and this is a  
later phenomenon.

Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
Oral Roberts University
dvance AT oru.edu
donaldrvance AT mac.com


On Mar 9, 2011, at 12:26 PM, K Randolph wrote:

> Donald:
>
> On what basis can you make your claims below?
>
> While it is true that we don’t have physical texts extant, there is  
> no reason to assume that the copies that we have from later are not  
> highly accurate copies of earlier texts.
>
> Not all the Biblical texts have authorship dates on them. Of those  
> that do have authorship dates, if one dates them according to the  
> claimed authorship dates, one can see a literary stylistic  
> progression from medium (Torah) to high (prophets, Job), then  
> suddenly low (post-Babylonian exile). Within this broad outline,  
> Kohelet clearly fits the high literary style typified by the pre- 
> Babylonian exile, kingdom era Biblical literature.
>
> The only contradictions I have seen to the above picture have been  
> religious (philosophical) and not linguistic, therefore off topic  
> for this list.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Donald R. Vance, Ph.D. <donaldrvance AT mac.com 
> > wrote:
> It does no such thing. What are the extant texts from the ninth  
> century to which you are comparing it? It, in fact reads very much  
> exilic and post-exilic, to the degree that a text can be dated on  
> style.
>
> Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
> Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
> Oral Roberts University
> dvance AT oru.edu
> donaldrvance AT mac.com
>
>
> On Mar 9, 2011, at 11:04 AM, K Randolph wrote:
> > Exactly. The historic evidences within the document indicate ninth  
> > century
> > BC authorship, language can be archaized, but the literary style is
> > consistent with a pre-Babylonian Exile style in a way that was not  
> > copied by
> > any post-Babylonian Exile Hebrew documents, which also shows up in  
> > the
> > poetry of the document. Therefore, the claim that the one word  
> > shows late
> > authorship is contradicted by a far greater weight of data  
> > indicating early
> > authorship.