Jeff

When Fox says ‘absurd’ he means it in the sense used by the French philosopher Albert Camus. The problem with the term “absurd” is that its meaning in English has shifted and so what we commonly mean by “absurd” is not what Fox (or Camus) meant. Consequently, Fox suggests “senseless” is a close equivalent in meaning in modern English.

Ecclesiastes is a puzzling book. R. B. Y. Scott remarked, IIRC, that it is the strangest book in the Bible. It’s not strange in the way Revelation is strange, it’s strange because so much of it simply doesn’t seem to fit. Yet so many people tell me it’s one of their favourite books, so thanks for writing about it (although I’m going to offer a somewhat different approach to it below).

But here the Preacher uses the metaphor of vapour to constantly point to the fleetingness of human life under the sun.

There’s a problem with your basic premise here: it doesn’t work. “Vanity” cannot mean “fleeting” throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. Here’s why:

1. It isn’t easily derived from the phrases employed as parallels to הבל (heel) in Ecclesiastes (e.g. Eccl 2:21; 4:8; 6:2; etc.).

2. “Fleeting” simply doesn’t fit as a valid conclusion to many of the teacher’s observations (“the teacher” is a translation of the Hebrew “Qohelet” used to identify the speaker of most of the words of the book, but not the source of the words in the prologue and epilogue of the book). It implies that the teacher’s concerns are ultimately unimportant because they’re only temporary (e.g. Eccl 2:15). In Eccl 3:19, how is death ‘fleeting’? In 11:8 how is “everything that is to come” ‘fleeting’? It goes against the teacher’s point to read הבל in 8:14 as ‘fleeting’ when the verse is obviously about the perceived injustice of the circumstances described. These are not ‘fleeting’ but they are ‘senseless’.

3. The LXX consistently translates הבל with ματαιότης (mataiotēs). This does not mean ‘fleeting’ (and if the translators of the LXX had wished to express this notion there were other terms available such as πρόσκαιρος [proskairos]). The same point can be made for terms chosen in other early translations.

So it doesn’t clarify the main thrust of the book of Ecclesiastes to say everything is fleeting.

Rather, הבל is employed as a metaphor throughout the book and we ought to recognise that a single English term is unlikely to do it justice everywhere it occurs. Nonetheless, since the teacher’s concern as a wise man was to make sense of the world around him — to discover what profit there is in all that we labour to do (1:3), the suggestion of Michael V. Fox (followed by many other scholars) that the term should be understood to mean ‘senseless’ (Fox uses ‘absurd’ but admits that, in light of changing English usage of this term, ‘senseless’ captures the sense he is after) fits the context well. Life simply doesn’t make sense and his sense of justice is violated by the fact (see Eccl 7:15; 8:14).

So for the teacher, any attempt to make sense of the world failed. In spite of all his endeavours driven by the most profound Solomonic wisdom, he could not make sense of it, as summarised in the repeated refrain of the book. The advice he drew from this conclusion was simple: “make the most of your life, enjoy it when you can, because I can’t offer any definitive advice on how to live that will guarantee a good life.”

But that is not the end of the matter. The final word of the book is not left to the teacher, it comes from another voice in Eccl 12:9–14. This voice agrees with the teacher: the world makes no sense, and man’s endeavours to make sense of it, to work out how to make life worthwhile, are doomed to fail. We don’t need to repeat the teacher’s quest, he’s done it for us, and shown it to be futile.

This final voice has something to add, something the teacher didn’t consider. And that is that God has spoken (the teacher never includes God’s words in his attempts to make sense of the world), God has told us what to do, and so this final voice tells us: in spite of the apparent senselessness of the world, we are to fear God and obey him.

I’ve often thought a video clip version of TW2L would be great, and I’m surprised there isn’t one available. Something a few minutes long, with visuals, animated text, images, etc, spoken words.

When I search Youtube for ‘Two ways to live’ I’m flooded with results for Joyce Meyer.