it does his anthropology. What is hebel cannot be grasped—neither physically nor intellectually. It cannot be controlled.”31 Seow’s approach alerts us that how we translate hebel will depend to a significant extent on how we read the book as a whole; thus the hermeneutical spiral of interpretation is unavoidable. Rather than his anthropology, what is at stake in Qohelet’s quest is his epistemology, how we come to know such that we can trust the results of our explorations. Qohelet embarks on a quest
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