Ecclesiastes as Philosophy

 Measured against Greek philosophy, the Hebrew Bible is not philosophical.  The Hebrew Bible is known in Hebrew as the תנ“ך, Tanach, which stands for the three sections of the Hebrew Bible, T for the Torah, N for Nevi'im, the Prophets, and K for Ketuvim, the Writings.  This is not to say that the ancient Hebrews did not philosophize.  It is that the texts that were accepted by the Rabbis into the Tanach were not philosophical treatises.  

There are two books that might fit into a philosophical category.  They are Ecclesiastes and Job.  Job could be compared to the works of Plato, based on the dialogues that are the major part of the book.  The protagonist of Job, like Socrates, questioned his three friends in an attempt to explain why terrible things happened to him.  Socrates challenged the traditional conception of the gods, and he was executed for this.  The three friends of Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Tzofar, espoused the traditional view of God that suffering is a punishment for sin.  If Job would repent, he will be exonerated.  God threatened the three friends with death.  Job, like Socrates, challenges the divine beings, but God appears as a character in Job.

Ecclesiastes to me is clearly a philosophical text.  It presents its philosophy in various formats.  There is a poem in chapter 3 that was adapted by the Byrds into a rock song.  There are short wisdom statements, similar to the Book of Proverbs.  Then there are observations of the world that Ecclesiastes uses to prove his point.  Unfortunately, his point is very ambiguous.  It is all based on the connotations of the word הבל, hevel.  Literally, it means a mist or a vapor.  There are a number of ways to try to comprehend how life is this mist or vapor, or as it affectionately became known in my class, Mr. Vapor.

One interpretation is that life is short.  Just as the mist we exhale on a cold day evaporates in seconds, so our life ends in such a short amount of time.  Another is that life in incomprehensible.  I try to imagine what an ancient Israelite thought the vapor was.  A third is that there is nothing to life.  The mist is intangible.  It looks like something, but it is really nothing substantial.  This is how the King James translation seems to understand it, as vanity.  Everything we do is in vain.  It could be because we never really accomplish anything, or if we do accomplish something, it is not meaningful.  To Ecclesiastes, our lives are truly meaningless because we will be forgotten.

Most people can name their parents, grand-parents, and great-grand-parents.  How many can go beyond that?  If their names were not passed down to me, how meaningful could their lives have been?  When we consider the billions of people that have inhabited the earth, how many has been preserved in our historical memory.  Even if we remember their names, how much do we really know about them?  I know that Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick.  I know practically nothing else about him.  

In yesterday's blog, I mentioned the idea that change happened relatively slow in ancient times,  Ecclesiastes confirms that.  There is nothing new under the sun, according to him.  I might think I have though of something new, but it is an old idea that is being rehashed, mostly because it has been forgotten.  It is like variations on a theme in music.  Human nature does not change.  The same mistakes that were made thousands of years ago are still being made today.

The prophets of ancient Israel had only one explanation for this--the foolishness of the people. I understand that this is a simplistic answer to very complicated questions.  Not everyone has had the same opportunities and experiences, and they see the world much differently.  There may be rational reasons why the world is in the state it is in with its wars, violence, and exploitation, but I struggle to understand it.

I agree with Ecclesiastes that our world is incomprehensible,  There are the unanswerable metaphysical questions like whether God exists, what is the origin of the universe, what happens after death.  Then there are the more practical questions like why can't humanity live in peace?  Why do horrible things happen to people who do not deserve it?  Do we not understand because we don't have the ability, or because we don't try hard enough?   If we have freedom of will, we have no one to blame except ourselves.