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Ecclesiastes

Qoheleth: A Continental Commentary, 2nd Edition by Norbert Lohfink (Continental: Augsburg Fortress Publishers) This new addition to the successful Continental Commentary series is a significant and fresh treatment of Qoheleth (or Ecclesiastes). A famed professor presents a startlingly new translation of this often perplexing book of the Old Testament. Lohfink also argues for a rather different interpretation of the book than one finds elsewhere. Rather than reading the book’s perspective as depressing, lost, or cynical, he highlights the elements of joy and balance. The volume includes introduction, new translation, commentary, parallel passages, bibliography, and indexes.

Lohfink creates a hypothetical setting in 3rd century B.C. Jerusalem and Alexandria under the Ptolemids. He represents Ecclesiastes as a textbook for Jews in Jerusalem, exhorting them to utilize the Greek worldview as a stepping stone to success in the increasingly competitive Hellenistic environment. However, he often understands the text's reference to be Alexandria rather than Jerusalem (e.g., 2:3-10; 8:1b-4;10:2-3, 16-17, 20).
Throughout the commentary, Lohfink represents the composition as though the text has been repeatedly manipulated by editors and copyists. Yet, late in the volume, he admits that "no theory attempting to show a variety of hands at work in the history of the book's composition has proven to be convincing" (143). In addition, he treats the autobiographical sections as fiction.

Although there are many problems with Lohfink's commentary, he at least avoids the error of concluding that pessimism is the philosophical core of Qoheleth. He rightly understands the book's theme of living joyfully in spite of one's situation in this life--even in the face of inevitable death.

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