Some time last year I ran across an old blog whose author had keen insight on the book of Ecclesiastes. I couldn’t decide what which post to reference, so I’ll reference some of them. You can peruse the list of his articles on the book here.

It’s Not Meaningless

Original Article

If you read the words of Kohelet (the author of Ecclesiastes) in some modern translations you will find that the endless repetition of the word “meaningless” is like Chinese water torture. Work is meaningless, pleasure is meaningless, money is meaningless, life is meaningless, wisdom is meaningless and even death is meaningless. With all this “meaningless” talk its no wonder that the book has been written off as the depressed rant of a bitter old man.

The word translated as “meaningless” is used 38 times in Kohelet’s short thesis but older translations used words such as “vanity” or “futile”. I have been told that it doesn’t make a difference which word you use but I would beg to differ. “Futile” relates to a failure to reach a destination or goal but “meaningless” tells us there is no reason to attempt to do anything at all.

For example, lets say you are three weeks into a 6 month project and your employer looks over your preliminary report and says, “You won’t get the results you want if you keep going that direction. All your effort will be an exercise in futility.” You might be upset but in the end the evaluation will save you a lot of time and energy. But if he just growls at you, “All your work is meaningless; completely and utterly meaningless,” before leaving the room, you might go online and look for a new job. There would be no reason to keep working on the project. Futile and meaningless are not the same thing.

C.S. Lewis and Kohelet

Original Article

[C.S. Lewis] argues against dissecting these difficult texts through exposition and instead, letting them wash over our souls to impart the truth they do contain.

“I have gained something I might not have gained from a flawless, ethical exposition. The shadows have indicated (at least to my heart) something more about the light. Nor would I (now) willingly spare from my Bible something in itself so anti-religious as the nihilism of Ecclesiastes. We there get a clear, cold picture of man’s life without God. That statement is itself part of God’s word. We need to have heard it. Even to have assimilated Ecclesiastes and no other book in the Bible would be to have advanced further towards the truth than some men do.”

Unfortunately, C. S. Lewis lived in an era where the prevailing winds of scholarship blew only in the direction of seeing Ecclesiastes as a nihilistic book written by a bitter old man who had fallen away from God. That idea of the book was firmly entrenched for hundreds of years and it hindered even the best thinkers from seeing what Ecclesiastes was seeking to teach us. The expositional and systematic theologies that sought to explain the Bible did us a great disservice and robbed scripture of its potency.

The Forest for the Trees

Original Article

To assist the intellectually stunted lay people to see the beauty of the tiny connections and dissections, the modern foresters devised a system of strings to guide people through the forest. People arriving at the front gate could choose a label and follow its corresponding string throughout the forest. It felt like they were discovering a greater depth to the forest, finding hidden meanings that had been missed in the simpler approach. The “words in red” string was particularly popular, at least for a time.

People were attracted to this system but it was getting harder to move about and to bask in the glory of the trees. Some of the old paths that had always been used for quiet contemplation were soon covered over in the drive to conquer the forest. As the tangle of strings and labels increased it was suggested that perhaps the trees should just be cut up into their component parts and arranged in a more logical and scientific manner, at least chronologically so the lay folk could understand the forest better. The deed was never accomplished but many of the books referred to the forest as if it were already cut to bits.

Of course it was not long before arguments began to break out on the proper way to label a branch and the correct way to attach the strings. Foresters with radical new ideas would come along and attach contradictory labels. Some tried adding neon colored strings to clearly bring out what they believed were the main ideas. Other strings suddenly appeared in the middle of the groves connecting branches in ways that made no sense at all. Their proponents would stay below and preach their idea to any that would listen, and many did or they were confused and looking for anyone who could lead them through the forest. Soon new groups were founded solely on the basis of strings tied willy-nilly throughout the forest or based on a connection between one or two small twigs.