Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen Shead <srshead+bh AT gmail.com>]

Karl:

Two very brief coments.


> True, you didn’t say post-exilic. The reason I assumed that is because all
> other authors that I know of argue for a post-exilic authorship, based on
> the ideas presented.
>
> But if you admit to pre-exilic authorship, then do you not run into the
> main objection cited by others that the ideas presented were common during
> the Hellenistic period, but “unknown” during the pre-exilic monarchy?
>

I don't hold much store by such arguments - and am pretty sure you don't
either! (On the other hand, I don't rule out post-exilic either.)


>
> What about the idea that a commoner wrote it and using the picture of
> Solomon as a literary foil? The first objection I see is theological, namely
> that God would not allow a book to be part of the Bible that was intended
> for all times, yet be understood only by a particular people and time. It’s
> bad enough that Hebrew language itself is only imperfectly understood, yet
> it is well enough understood that the main ideas in Tanakh are correctly
> understood. But to have a literary construct that misleads all but the
> original audience is just plain out of the picture.
>
>
As you said, the theological issues are off list. Suffice to say that I'm
pretty conservative theologically, but don't feel this to be a problem in
the way you do. For a start, whether you read the book as the work of King
Solomon or as the work of a later writer who adopted a Solomonic literary
persona makes very little difference to how you will "understand" it, in my
opinion. The message really doesn't change.

Regards,
Stephen Shead
Centro de Estudios Pastorales
Santiago, Chile