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Qohelet and His Contradictions is unavailable, but you can change that!

Biblical scholar Michael V. Fox seeks to address the complexities and so-called “absurdities” of Ecclesiastes, or “Qohelet,” the Hebrew word for the preacher. He focuses not on resolving the contradictions, but on seeing them as part of the overall structure and meaning of the book. Fox gives an in-depth introduction to the historical exegetical studies of Ecclesiastes and explains his own...

“absurdité”—“dans la ligne de certaines philosophies modernes” (1968:55). Barucq says that the Hebrew word “signifie quelque chose d’inconsistant, comme le souffle, le néant”, and further notes that “il est bien entendu que Dieu en dirige le sens mais I’homme ne perce pas le mystère de cette action. C’est la faillite de la sagesse” (pp. 55f.). While Qohelet would agree with this statement, it is not what he means by the word hebel. As I see it, hebel designates not the mysterious but rather (and this is a fundamental
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