Encountering Ecclesiastes

Old Testament scholar James Limburg brings fresh insight to the study of Ecclesiastes. Drawing on thirty years of teaching and thinking on the message of the book, Limburg explains why the message is so relevant for today.

It becomes obvious that Limburg has paid his dues in terms of working and thinking through Ecclesiastes. He gets the basic message of Ecclesiastes down.

He brings in a diverse chorus of helpers, from Pete Seeger to Rabbi Kushner, to aid in applying the message of the book to modern life. Some of this is good, but some of it just seems like an aging baby-boomer trying to be hip (and falling short). Furthermore, some of his discussion on how Ecclesiastes is relevant for today makes the "today" sound more like an existentialism-anguished hippie from 1969. 

A word of caution is in order, for Limburg does not believe the author of Ecclesiastes to be Solomon, instead finding a second century author who lived under Greek rule. Please save all the complaining that Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes is not a litmus test for conservativism or inerrancy. I will tentatively grant you that.  However, given that substantial evidence for Solomonic authorship has been put forth, Limburg dismisses this notion in a cavalier manner.  (Note: see the corresponding New American Commentary by Duane Garrett for an excellent discussion of authorship).

Limburg's view of authorship will have obvious ramifications for interpreting Ecclesiastes, given the large corpus of Greek philosophy that was written between the time of Solomon and the second century.

Study in Ecclesiastes is enjoyable, so it should not be a surprise that this book would be interesting. However, because of a few of the problems raised, and also on account of the brevity of this book, it does not come highly rated. I don't dismiss it altogether, but there are bettter studies on Ecclesiastes out there.