Departmental Papers (Jewish Studies)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
12-2003
Publication Source
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Volume
28
Issue
2
Start Page
192
Last Page
209
DOI
10.1177/030908920302800204
Abstract
When Elias Bickerman wrote a little volume called Four Strange Books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes was an easy choice for inclusion. As he remarks, "Ecclesiastes has no known antecedents or spiritual posterity in Jewish thought."¹ This is an exaggeration,² but even Qohelet's successors, the Jewish sages of the rabbinic period, found Ecclesiastes questionably biblical. Thus in Leviticus Rabbah 28:1, R. Benjamin B. Levi remarks, "They sought to suppress Ecclesiastes, for they found in it matters that tend toward the heretical."³ The purpose of this article is to highlight what I think is a particularly significant facet of Ecclesiastes' distinctive, and at first glance heretical, stance vis-á-vis the rest of biblical literature. This is Qohelet's emphasis on the imagery of turning.
Copyright/Permission Statement
Carasik, Michael, Qohelet's Twists and Turns, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (Vol. 28, no. 2) pp. 192-209. Copyright © 2003 SAGE. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications
Recommended Citation
Carasik, Michael, "Qohelet's Twists and Turns" (2003). Departmental Papers (Jewish Studies). 18.
https://repository.upenn.edu/jewishstudies_papers/18
Date Posted: 14 June 2017
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
This is a pre-publication version; the version of record can be found at DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/030908920302800204