Hi guys, What do each of you think of Ecclesiastes? Is it literally the true words of God? Is what is written in the book of Ecclesiastes true? love, k
Ecclesiastes would only be a problem for the Christian/Jew who sees 'inerrancy', or the doctrine of the Bible as 'God's word', as consisting of God dictating what is written and the result is God's word. This is the Qur'anic theology of 'God's Word', because it is literally dictated or revealed directly and explicitly. However, whilst that is true in some places of the Bible, its 66 books are varied in nature, origin and so forth. What we often find is a point where the author was "carried along" by God, so that it is "God breathed". This allows for a beautiful array of personality, culture, lament, poetry etc within inerrancy itself, for inerrancy is not necessarily literalism. Some books of the Bible are canonical partly because of their association with a person or nation that had seen God reveal Himself, e.g. Song of Solomon. This doctrine of Inerrancy is sophisticated in the sense that it allows completely for texts like Ecclesiastes or other poetical Wisdom literature, such as Proverbs, to take flight and teach a wide range of theologies, not restricting God to just one definition but rather allowing Him, and the humanity that approaches Him, to 'breathe', theologically and thematically. Nathan
I agree. If you have to ascribe a supernatural element to it at all I see the wisdom lit as more mystical than religious
