Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Stephen:

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Stephen Shead <srshead+bh AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Donald Vance said:
> > It, in fact reads very much exilic and
> > post-exilic, to the degree that a text can be dated on style.
>
> In this whole discussion, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned (unless I
> missed it?) the issues raised in recent years by Ian Young and others on
> linguistic dating of texts, including Persian loan words. I'm certainly not
> an expert on the issue (despite the fact that he was my doctoral
> supervisor!), but a summary of his general approach and argument can be
> found at http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/yount357913.shtml.
>

Interesting article. Thanks for pointing it out.

>
> …
> And one extra little question for Karl, on his assertion that 1:1 refers to
> Solomon (which I almost agree with - at least it implies him, though
> perhaps
> provocatively?), and thus clearly dates Qohelet to Solomon's reign (which I
> don't agree with):
>

Maybe I was not as clear as I hoped for, what I meant was that the first
verse, in the context of the personal statements made throughout the text,
points to Solomon. The first verse on its own could refer to a number of
kings.


> Karl, what do you make of 1:16, with "...wisdom more than *all* who were
> before me over Jerusalem..."? Who are "all" these kings?
>

Jerusalem, before David captured it and made it his capital, was a
city-state with a long history of kings. David captured it without
destroying the city, so how many records of those kings were still extant at
the time of Solomon?

>
> Regards,
> Stephen Shead
> Centro de Estudios Pastorales
> Santiago, Chile
>
>
> Karl W. Randolph.