BibleProject - Wisdom of Ecclesiastes Part 1: Not Another Proverb...

Episode Date: June 18, 2016

In this episode, Tim and Jon begin their discussion on the book of Ecclesiastes. This is an interesting book in Scripture, and the author is relentlessly trying to get the reader to rethink their black and white mindset. It can be a bit depressing to read, and it doesn’t quite give you the same type of feel-good wisdom that the book of Proverbs does. The guys will try to get at what this book is trying to teach us and what the author thinks it means to live a good and godly life. In the first part of the episode (02:14-09:57), the guys talk about the two distinct voices in Ecclesiastes. We know that it was written by a son of David, which could mean an actual king, or it could mean someone who wrote in the tradition of the wisdom of the kings. Getting a little bit of context about the author will help us to figure out what this book is trying to say. In the next part of the episode (10:18-17:28), the guys discuss the Hebrew word, “hevel,” used thirty-eight times in this short book. “Hevel” is roughly translated to “vanity,” but as Tim points out, this is not the best translation. Hevel technically means smoke or vapor, but it is also used metaphorically to mean absurd or an enigma. In the next part of the episode (17:51-34:46), the guys talk about the way Ecclesiastes stands out among the other books in the Old Testament. Is this book scandalous among the Jewish Scriptures? In the final part of the episode (35:09-51:20), the guys unpack the concept of the “good life” that Ecclesiastes is teaching about. What does it mean to live a good life? What are our motives for pursuing the good life if there is so much hevel? Video: This episode is designed to accompany our video on the book of Ecclesiastes. You can view it on our youtube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeUiuSK81-0 Scripture References: Ecclesiastes Show Music: Defender Instrumental by Rosasharn Music Blue Skies by Unwritten Stories Flooded Meadows by Unwritten Stories

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

The Book of Ecclesiastes is a unique book in the Bible that is delighted and confused Christians throughout the years. Where scripture relies on ancient wisdom as core to understanding God's world, ecclesiastes bases its wisdom off of experimentation. There's no other book like it where you have this first person voice who's telling you about a lifetimes worth of experiment. The book stages a big experiment where I tried this and I went and learned about this and then here's what I concluded. The conclusion of ecclesiastes is that life is heaven, heaven, heaven, everything is heaven. And while modern translations typically translate that Hebrew word into the word meaningless,

in Hebrew, it's literally the word for smoke or vapor. Smoke is real. Like when you see it a cloud of smoke, you look at it and go, oh, that's a thing. Look at it. I can see it. I can point at it, but smoke has this unique quality that when I reach out my hands to grab onto it, there's nothing there. This metaphor that life is like smoke is lost in the translation that life is meaningless. Because what the teacher isn't saying is, I know all the answers, and I declare to you that life is meaningless. What he's saying is, I've discovered there's a glitch in the system, and things that I

thought were certain and true aren't always certain and true. Hevel, hevel, everything is hevel. He uses the word 38 times in this short 12 chapter book. Michael Fox, my doctoral advisor, he thought the best English word to capture it is absurd. Or I've come to prefer the word enigma or paradox. The wisdom of ecclesiasties. The second book in our Wisdom series, let's go. Now it's all in your head.

Okay, so Pleasianstis, let's first tee this up, let's refresh on Proverbs, so we can compare the wisdom of the Proverbs to the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. So Proverbs is this nice kind of clean, worldview, which is v-wise, fear the Lord, and things are gonna go well. Things are very likely to go well. So much so that, yeah, Lady Wisdom or the father figure in Proverbs can say, trust the Lord with all your heart, don't lean on your own understanding, be wise, fear the Lord, and it'll be health to your bones and your barns will be full of crops and you'll live long days and have a big family. That sounds great. Who doesn't want that?

Yeah, do the right thing and things will work out for you. Which, by the way, is the world view I grew up in. Like, there's a right and wrong decision at any moment. Do the right thing and things will go well for you. Yeah, and that, so yeah, Proverbs has a really valuable contribution to the Bible's wisdom literature. We can probably all from our own life experience, validate that when we make wise decisions, they usually go better. It's wise to be wise. It's wise to be wise. Yeah. So that's kind of self-evident after you've lived for a little while.

But then we get to the book of Pleasiasis and there's this massive turn here. Put some breaks on Proverbs. Yeah, and it may be that there are some cynics or skeptics when they are listening to the Proverbs saying, well, okay, I get it. And sure, that's true. A lot of the time, but it's not necessarily true all the time. I remember that time, I saved up, and then the stock market crashed.

Right. Or I remember. I made all the right decisions. Yeah, I did all the right things. My CPA gave me a checklist, and I did it all. Yeah, sure. Or my tax advisor. Yeah, I like worked hard and saved up and went to college. Yeah, put in my years

And I got this degree and I can't get hired anywhere. Right. What's up with that? The wise thing doesn't always work out Part of that is because it's hard to know exactly what the wisest thing always is. There's conventional wisdom. Go to college, save for time, whatever. But then in the proverbs, there's wisdom that should be universal, that you should be able to depend on. Yeah. But even with that stuff.

Yeah, that's right. I was always honest at work. Yeah. You know, I was supposed to be honest. Be honest, that's part of hearing God. So I'm always honest at work. And you know what, I lost out. It took me in the butt.

It reminds me I was working at Starbucks and I was applying to be a shift manager. And so I was meeting with the district manager and the manager of my store, getting interviewed. And the last question was, give me an example of a time that you made a wrong decision on the job. The first thing that came to mind was the day before we're closing up and you're supposed decision on the job. The first thing that came to mind was the day before we're closing up and you're supposed to clean the bathrooms and there's this whole list of things to do. And there's always like three people cleaning up.

So I went to go to the bathroom right before we're gonna leave and the bathrooms are mess. So the girl who was supposed to do it didn't do it. And I was like, well, who cares? And we left. And so I'm sitting here across from District Manager and she's asking me like, when I made a mistake and I said, oh, well, you know, a couple days ago.

And I tell her, and she looks at me and she goes, you did what? And she was shocked. Yes. She was like, you walk away. I can't believe you didn't fix that. And then I was like, oh, no, I'm not gonna get this job. I can't believe you didn't fix that.

It makes me think of, I was recently talking to a friend who works in home real estate here in Portland, which is a really hot market right now. Yeah. And she was saying, she quit one group, one company and moved to another. Basically, she just said, I wasn't cooking the numbers on listings and listing houses for more than what they're worth or less than what they're

worth or changing the number of rooms and so on, just to get people in the house. Oh, and they'd be like, oh, that was a mistake. Yeah, totally. Yes, but all of her co-workers, like that's just what you do. You change the data on the real estate listing to get people into the house. And she wasn't getting promoted, she wasn't getting as much business or sales, so she actually had to quit. So that was an example of someone who lost out because they were fearing the Lord. Yeah.

And not. So that's better. Because I actually, I got the job. Yeah. So all it's just two examples to say, you try and do the right thing, and sometimes it does work out, sometimes it doesn't. And, Proverbs doesn't seem to account

for that glitch in the system. Right. So, Ecclesiastes is a voice among the three wisdom voices in the Hebrew scriptures that says, hey, wait a minute Proverbs, you're going too fast to sin. Like do you see all of these other examples where what you're saying doesn't work out? And what about those?

Let's like, let's focus on those. And can we draw conclusions from them? And maybe life isn't as clean as we like to think of. Ecclesiastes doesn't do it in like, it goes for the jugular. Yeah. It's like, let's throw it down. Yeah.

Proverbs you've overreached. So that's fascinating. And then, so your comment earlier was, hey, this book's in the Bible isn't that funny. So like, tell me about that. Like, it doesn't seem the way that it goes for the jugular and the way that it kind of deconstructs so many things. It feels very different.

Yeah. Most other books. Yeah, it is. It has a different feel. There's no other book like it where you have this first person voice who's telling you about a lifetime's worth of experiment. The book stages a big experiment where I tried this and I went and learned about this and then here's what I concluded.

Whereas Proverbs receives the wisdom of the ages from generations past that we talked about. But Ecclesiastes is basing his conclusions on experimentation, innovating new ideas based off of experiment. My doctoral advisor, Michael Fox at the University of Wisconsin, he's retired now, but he is a Jewish scholar, he was in his late 60s when I was with him for about four years, working closely with him.

And he wrote commentaries on all the wisdom books, Joe Proverbs and Clisiestes. And his most brilliant one was on Ecclesiastes. And his way of framing it is for Proverbs, you know it's true because it's ancient and old and has been tested. And Ecclesiastes innovates in the biblical tradition because he says, you know it's true because you've tested and examined it here in the present.

And he thinks it's in the present. And he thinks it's a, in the wisdom books, it marks a new point of maybe just because it's old, doesn't mean it's true. And that's unique in the Bible. There's not many other books that say something like that. Right. Well, and then also, it deconstructs a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's asking a lot of questions and doesn't have simple answers. And which is, that seems different than most of the book. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. He's the teacher. Yeah. He's relentless in taking apart simple black and white views of God and views of the world and not the author's voice. The author of the book speaks in the first line, introducing us to the teacher. But then, yep, in chapter 1, verse 1, and then in chapter 1, verse 2, the teacher. But then, yep, in chapter 1 verse 1, and then in chapter 1 verse 2, the teacher takes over until nearly the end of chapter 12, but the last paragraph of the book is not from the teacher we've been hearing. It's from the author. And the author says positive things about what you just heard from the teacher, but he also warns you. He critiques the criticism. He critiques the criticism.

He critiques the criticism. And then the author's conclusion at the end sounds like Moses, you know, Fear God, obeyed the last chapter. It's a little bit more, yeah. In line with the narrative so far. Yeah, with what, you know, you could call it biblical orthodoxy or something.

Right. So to me, that's absolutely fascinating. That this biblical author, who's anonymous, wants us to hear at length this very critical, skeptical voice and is willing even to let some go for a chapter. Yeah, let's run. Yeah, for yeah. And at the end, wants to say now, let's bring this in line with the larger biblical theology, but you really need to hear what this guy has to say. Right. It's a way of hedging a little bit on the teacher and saying, you know, don't take this too far.

You can read books all your life and make them even. And you won't get anywhere. It'll just exhaust you. He says. So don't take these words too far, but let them bother you and stick in your mind so that you aren't shattered when your life doesn't work out for you.

So interesting. Yeah, so that brings us to who is the teacher? And the author's intro just says he was a king in Jerusalem and descendant from the line of David, which makes you think, okay, Solomon, the wise man. And traditionally, this book has been, in Jewish and Christian tradition, been connected to Solomon in his old age. Because he's old and wise and he's done a lot and seen a lot. But there's some problems with that. One is that Solomon in his old age was a postate.

And you know, had hundreds of wives and political alliances and worshiped all kinds of other gods. And this seems a very unlikely book to come from the Solomon of his day. What would you imagine Solomon having written in his old age? I mean, just the biblical depiction is that his allegiance was given to many gods now in addition to Yahweh and the God of Israel. So I've never quite had that question put to me that way.

I don't know at the top of my head. I actually need to think about that question a little more. But it raises what's very interesting when the book of Proverbs, it begins saying the Proverbs of Solomon, and it goes on to give you a bunch of speeches from an anonymous father to his son, and then from Lady Wisdom. Then you get a collections of proverbs, most of which have again the Heading Proverbs with Solomon, but the last number of chapters have new Heading, so just say, these are proverbs that come from the wise ones, or from Agoor, or from Lemuel, what his mom taught him.

And so you have a book that's titled and connected to Solomon, but it tells you in it the book itself that not all of this comes from Solomon. So here we have another book that gives you a hint of a royal Solomon-like persona, but it never says Solomon in the book. And so you can say, well, it just assumes that Solomon, or you can say, no, there's something more happening here, that it's conspicuous by its absence, that the book doesn't say Solomon. It just says, a king in Jerusalem, from long ago, which raises the possibility, is this a later king? Or are we almost creating an icon of the wise voice, right? The father of the wisdom tradition,

but it doesn't necessarily mean that it was historically written by Solomon itself. Because we know the teacher is not the same as the author of the book. Right, so the author somehow came across these writings that he knew came from a king that was the son of David. And by that, that could literally mean there was a king, it could have been Solomon, it could have been another one of the sons of David, that was king at some point. Who actually wrote this and the author compiled it. Or it could mean in the tradition of the wisdom of the kings.

Yeah, similar to the song of songs. Yeah. Which says of Solomon, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was written by Solomon. In fact, there are lots of good reasons that it most likely wasn't written by Solomon. Right. And so he just was using the kingship, kind of regardless of how this was actually written. I mean, that's a possibility. Yeah, yeah, it would be an anonymous teacher

in Jerusalem or Israel, writing in the tradition of Solomon and writing from his persona. There's an Old Testament scholar named Trimper Longman who did his whole dissertation that's published now on this. It's something like Akkadian royal autobiographies. Or something like that. Akkadian's a language that's a cousin language to Hebrew. But he was studying in ancient Babylon. This was a genre of writing. From the King's court, there would be higher,

describe, wise teacher to write a book as in the first person, as if it's from the King's perspective. And so this was a type of book that people wrote in the ancient world. And it fits precisely what we see in the book of Ecclesiastes. So the author gets this kind of regardless of who wrote it, it's presented as this is the words of the son of David. The words from the royal wisdom tradition in Israel. It's also funny, there's another small detail that I've always thought was interesting. In chapter one, verse 16, the teacher says to himself, look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has

ruled in Jerusalem ever before me. Out of all the rulers of Jerusalem ever before me. And you're like, oh, what my dad. Sorry dad. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, but he didn't rule in Jerusalem. David made Jerusalem? Oh, okay. We could be wrong about this. It could come from Solomon. I just think there are reasons that make it. It's okay what someone comes and says.

And probably isn't or isn't Solomon. You don't have to freak out and go with my worldview of the by or my. Yeah, understand the Bible. Understand the Bible. Understand the Bible. Something, yeah. Shatter it.

Yeah. If you really get into the book itself, or my... Yeah, understand the Bible. Understand the Bible, something. Yeah. It's flattering. Yeah. If you really get into the book itself, you realize that tying this to one specific person as the author, it doesn't matter for the interpretation of the book, really. You just get into the words and interpret the words that come from the Royal Wisdom tradition of David. Here's how the book begins. So the words of the teacher, son of David King and Jerusalem, that's the author speaking

to us. And then the author summarizes everything the teacher has to say in just one line. This is kind of like when the keynote speaker is being introduced. Yeah, that's right. It's just a quick little. Yeah, it's like the MC of the room introduces the speaker and then says, here's, here's this main idea. Yeah, yeah, enjoy.

And right off the bat, we face a translation problem. So in the new international version, the author's summary is meaningless. Meaningless is what the teacher says. Utterly meaningless. Everything's meaningless. But if I turn to the new American standard version, that was the new international version. NIV, yeah. If I turn to the new American standard, NAS, I read Vanity of Vanities.

Everything is Vanity. So meaningless to me, there's no meaning, so there's no reason behind any of that. Yes, I have surveyed and here's my authoritative conclusion. There is no meaning. There is no meaning. And then Vanity seems to be like, all of this is just an exercise and futility.

I don't know actually I haven't thought about the vanity much. What is it? I never use that word. Well, I actually I think exactly right. So I think that's the problem in modern English the way we speak it in 2016, the word vanity has two main things. Yeah, it means like self-exaltation and pride, or it's a little table to sit at to put on cosmetics. Which then speaks to like caring how you look. That self-focus, that's self-focus. And life is self-focussed.

Right. Which is not at all what is meant here. And part of that is that translation vanity comes from the King James from English 400 years ago. Yeah, that's a little different. Yeah, so the meaning of the English were just changed. So I think both of those translations get at an aspect of what the teacher is trying to say. I always hate to do this because I never want to road people's confidence in English translations

because they're great. But there are cases where they're translations and they can't fully communicate everything that the Hebrew author wants to communicate. And this is one of those times where... We're really interesting podcasted figuring out the history of why these were translated this way. I don't know I was going to be interested in. Yeah well for English it always goes back to 10 Dale. And then 10 Dale had influence over what was called the Geneva Bible and then the King James. Okay. Where the two may. But there's got to

be a story of that moment where they're like looking at this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hebrew word and they're making a decision. Yes. Yeah. Because they know what the word is and you're about to tell us what the Hebrew word is more literally. So they must have been wrestling with that. Yeah, yeah, for sure they did. And also, but also, and this is not to be prideful or anything, but their understanding of Hebrew was 500 years old. Yeah. And wasn't it complete?

Yeah. So like we, the study of ancient Hebrew over the last half millennia, I mean, as progressed enormously, just like our understanding of science in the universe is progressed. And so we actually, because at that point Hebrew wasn't a spoken language at all. Wasn't spoken anymore as biblical Hebrew and the wealth of ancient Hebrew texts and cousin languages to Hebrew hadn't been discovered and studied yet. So we have a better understanding of Hebrew than we did 400 years ago and a lot of the translation differences that Happened in modern translations are based on more recent

Scholarship so 10 Dale he's reading this he's got to make a decision and he goes with meaning no he goes with Manatee vanity which back then we don't even know it well. Yeah, the English would vanity I think it means Well, yeah, the English is vanity. I think it means, essentially means what meaningless does in modern English. Oh, really? Okay, let's see. But you tell me. A few-tiler worth less from Old French, Vanity, Self-Conceate, Utility, Lack of Resolve, from Latin, Vanity, Tatum, Emptiness, Am, aimlessness, falsity.

But then figuratively, it became about foolishness and pride. So even back then, it kinda had that sense of foolishness. Both of those, yeah. So I would humbly suggest that we just go back to the source. Yeah. And, could go to the Hebrew. Yeah, go to the Hebrew word. The Hebrew word is simple to say.

It's not hard to pronounce. Hevel. Hevel. Hevel. He-e. It's technically the letter B of the Hebrew alphabet, but it pronounces like a V. So hevel. Hevel. Hevel. And its most basic meaning is smoke or vapor. In Psalm 144, the poet says, Lord, what are human beings that you care about them? They are like hevel. Their days are like a

fleeting shadow. So, the idea is human beings here today gone tomorrow, they're like a whisp of smoke. And then the next line, they're like a fleeting shadow. So the shadow moves from the morning down all the way across and then it's gone when the sun sets, your shadow disappears. So the point is fleeting, temporary, but it's smoke, that it's a whisper smoke, that you see it, and then it's gone. So that's the most basic meaning of Hevel,

is a whisper of smoke or vapor or shadow. Ah, shadow is just in Psalm 144, it's the next poetic line, which uses a different word and different metaphor. So, but the point is that at its most basic meaning, it's a whisp of smoke that's temporary. It's here and it looks solid. You're like, oh, there it is.

That's smoke and then gun. And do you think back then, it also then meant figuratively, would be another good word like futile or? Well, we get there. That's where the the teacher is gonna apply this word and Bring out a nuance of meaning. Okay. That is not very common, but it's gonna be one of the main meanings Like is this very poetic like at this point are people gonna be like, oh, I've never really thought of that The life like hevel or is that gonna be have already become part of the world? No, it's very common.

Yeah, so Job, chapter seven, he says, I despise my life, my suffering, I wish I wasn't alive, my days are like Hevil. Yeah, the psalm says, slaves and the poor, their lives are like He heaven in the world. Isaiah 57 idols. This is actually in Isaiah and in Jeremiah, their word to describe idol statues is heaven. So there, it's not necessarily their temporary, but they seem to be solid and offer you something real.

That's empty. You like, you pray to your idol, you know, and then nothing happens. Love that metaphor, I love that image. We know how I think quite like it, do we? No. Well, I mean, vapor? I guess I think I understand now, the leading list gets there because it's like, you think there's meaning there.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You think there's something of substance there, but then it goes away. Yeah, so I think there's in any word and any language can have different nuances of meaning. So at most basic, it means temporary or fleeting, like when in the verses we just read of, it's here today, the slave and the poor person or my life, I'm a mortal human. So in chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes is a poem about death and a long one. And so in chapter 11 verse 8, the teacher says, listen, however many years somebody is going to live, you should enjoy them. Because you should remember the days of darkness they're coming and everything to come

is heaven. So what's point is, is you're young and you're youthful and your body works great, but remember it's heaven, it's here today gone tomorrow because the days of darkness are coming. So your youth and energy and health, it's fleeting, it's hevel. It doesn't mean it's meaningless. It means it's not going to be around forever, it's going to be here and then whew. And whether or not you think there's meaning in that is another question. Correct. It's only about time, that's a time factor. Here today, gone tomorrow. Your youth, your health, your life. But if you're talking about an idol and you're calling it heaven, then you would go, oh, so there's no meaning in that idol. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

And so then the word. So this is what I call it, would call the second nuance. Okay. That the teacher taps into when he uses the word heaven, he uses the word 38 times in this short 12 chapter book. He's using it constantly. And most of the times, he's not, doesn't use it to mean fleeting or temporary. He uses it to mean the way Michael Fox, my doctoral advisor, he thought the best English word to capture it is absurd. Or I've come to prefer the word enigma or paradox. So here's a couple of examples. So wait a second, sorry.

You just went to great lengths to say, hevel means like vapor or something that like, it doesn't last. And now you're saying in this book, it actually is more talking about another aspect of it, which is not whether it lasts, but whether it makes sense. Well, so the teacher is a brilliant, brilliant wordsmith. And so he's using a word that's capable of a couple of different nuances of meaning. And sometimes he'll use it to mean fleeting or temporary. Like you're young, in chapter 11, you're young, you have youth, but the days of darkness are coming, your life's heaven. But he doesn't bring out that temporary nuance of the word

in all of those 38 uses. In fact, that's a minority of how he uses the word. The majority of the times he uses the word, he means something different if you read the word in context. So yeah, give me an example. So chapter 6, first one. God allows some people to have wealth and possessions in honor, so that they lack nothing that their hearts desire. It's nice of God. So that they lack nothing that their hearts desire But God doesn't always grant them the ability to enjoy them and then one day some strangers gonna enjoy them instead. This is heaven

Or chapter 8 verse 14 You know here's something heaven that occurs in the land You know, here's something hevel that occurs in the land. Righteous people get, what wicked people deserve, and wicked people get, what righteous people deserve. This, I say, is hevel. So, what he doesn't mean is temporary. He actually means the opposite. He's saying, this is happening all the time. Yeah.

This isn't just happening on reality. This is a reality that's ongoing and constant. But it's a reality that he wants to use the same word, which means like smoke or vapor. Vapor smoke. So like it's, there's a disorientingness to it. There's a, here's my way of saying it is, it's similar to the idols that smoke is real. Like when you see it a cloud of smoke you look at it and go

Oh, that's a thing. Yeah, look at it. I can see it. I can point at it just like I can point to a rock or a door and see that's a thing. Yeah, but smoke has this unique Quality that when I reach out my hands right to grab onto it. There's nothing there. Yeah, when I reach out to hands to grab onto it, there's nothing there. When I reach out to grab a rock, it's solid, it's there. It's good. When you're looking at fog, if you're above the fog line, you're looking at it, it looks like it's nice, but it won't get you. Yeah, clouds, like clouds. Like clouds.

Yeah, like when you're a kid, you look up at the clouds and you wish you could go lay on one. Right, or you're above the clouds, you look down on a plane, and yeah, it looks really soft. But then when you're in the fog, driving around, it just looks like a haze. It's like in your, yeah. Yeah. Hevel.

It's hevel. Hevel. So, here I am living my life, and I work at a real estate company, and it seems like telling the truth, ought to bring me success, because it's the right thing to do. And that's justice and that's good. And I can count on it.

It's real. We're not making up justice. We all want it to happen. We all know what everyone else to be honest with us. Yeah, totally. And we all know what justice looks like when we see it happen. It's the right thing. But then I go out and I do the right thing and the Opposed for it. I'm punished for it and I lose out. Yeah, it's heaven and

What he doesn't mean is therefore it's everything's meaningless what he means is I don't get that it seems like Justice is real. We can all know it. But sometimes when justice is done, it doesn't, good things don't happen. Bad things happen. That's heaven. That's why I think the word absurd, yeah, or enigma, or paradox, because what the teacher isn't saying is, I know all the answers, and I declare to you that life is meaningless. What he's saying is, I've discovered there's a glitch in the system and things that I thought were certain and true aren't always certain and true. And that's the definition of paradox.

It's not contradiction. Well, now it's a peri... But he have used a word that more literally means riddle or paradox or enigma. I mean, there's got to be another Hebrew word. Sure, but he chose this image in metaphor that I think once you get it. So instead of using maybe a more straightforward like word, like ser...

Lots of oriented. Yeah, lots of great. He decided, well, we're running with this word, Hevel. Typically it means smoke or vapor, but sometimes poetically can mean temporary. My life is hevel. Life is hevel, so here you day, gone to my heart. But I'm gonna take that language,

and now I'm gonna push it further and say, the wisdom of the proverbs has hevel to it, because it doesn't always seem to work out. And so now let's live in this metaphor. And like in the same way that that idol when you reach out and it just dissipates, like even when you reach out and try to do the right thing and fear God and all this stuff, there's still that sense to it as well. And it's disorienting, you're in the fog, as well. And it's disorienting, you're in the fog, you don't have the answers, it's not clear why it's confusing, it's hevel. Yeah, it's hevel. So he's innovating, he's using an existing word that has this possibility

of nuance of meaning of doesn't, it's not real or doesn't work out. And then he pushes it. Sure, well, poets do this all the time. And poets do this all the time. Yeah, they'll use the word, but in a different way in context. And then, And then that becomes,

if it becomes a popular poem, or a popular thought, then it just becomes part of vernacular. That's right. People use that word that way. Yeah, yeah. So I'm curious, like, did he do this or did this word, was this word already use this way

and he's just running with it? Well, and so that's about, yeah, that's a complex question about the development of words, meanings, and so on. What we can see is in the prophets, this idea of Hevel as not temporary, but as seeming real, but then just an illusion. They use the word Hevel to apply that idea to idols. And the teacher is using that nuance of

Hevel and applying it to all of life and wisdom and righteousness. Isn't this really scandalous, though, for a Jewish point of view in which it's like God said, here's what I promise you, and He will do it as long as you uphold your end of bargain. And so that's like keeping the commandments. And then this wisdom of the Proverbs runs with that and says, yeah, in fact, you can apply God's wisdom to all these areas in life and things go well for you. And so you know when things aren't going well, it's because you've been making a mistake and you haven't been holding up your end of the bargain.

But then you get this book and he like turns that on its head. Yes. Well, that's true, but it's not, it's not scandalous, maybe the way it is to modern Christians from a certain background. In many ways, it's very Jewish. But one of it's scandalous to it. Yeah, a better way to say that is the Bible contains within itself these words and a story from God, but then the Hebrew Bible specifically has also within itself the human response to that. So the book of Psalms is prayers for the most part, people's words to God. Some of them thinking God for his awesomeness and what he does, and then a whole bunch of them are saying, like, wait a minute, this isn't working out. What's happening? God, I'm angry. Dang it. Why don't you

do something? And so that's a whole part of the Bible, is people getting angry at God, inventing their emotion. And so here is another example of within God's word to his people is a human voice, And then God's word to His people is a human voice saying, wait a minute, it doesn't always work out the way Proverbs said it would, and that God, that human word, becomes part of God's word to His people. And so within Jewish culture, Jewish culture, as it goes on throughout history, really has always contained well, I think, this dialogue and the intention of perspectives. Yeah. It's contained within the Bible itself.

That continues on in the tradition of the... Yeah, so the Mishnah and the Talmud, these are discussions about how to live out the laws of the Torah, but it will be a whole chapter on how to obey the Sabbath, and the chapter just contains the perspective of 18 different rabbis. Right. And doesn't tell you what to conclude. It just gives you the perspective of 18 different. That's a very Jewish thing.

It's a allow for the tension within your tradition. Yes, and the book of, excuse me, the book of Ecclesiastes does that so well with the two voices. Because the author says, listen to the words of this teacher, but listen, he's gonna give an Orthodox conclusion. And then there's me as a modern Western Christian who goes, wait a second, how can this be in the Bible?

Right, right. Because that's not from my tradition where you like, I never went to church and one guy gets up and he's like, hey, so here's, you know, how to follow Jesus and here's like, what you should think about this thing going on in the world right now. And then another guy gets up and goes, cool, that was nice, but I'm a, you know,

I think following Jesus means this. And this is what you should think about this current event. And then you go away from that service, going, okay, what do I do? That never happens. That never ever happens. So like the, like, Ecclesiastes has this like sense to it of like, what do I do with this? And what you do with it is you listen to it, then you go listen to Job, and then you have three different perspectives on how to live well in God's good world. And hopefully you've listened to all of them honestly with

an open mind, and you will be a wiser, better human if you take all three of them seriously. I think that's the point. This is stereo. Stereo. It's so different. Stereo is two things coming at you, right? From stereo. Yeah. So what's three things? Dolby surround sound. Dolby surround sound.

Dolby surround sound. Yeah, that's the wisdom books are Dolby surround sound. There's five things I think. Yeah, anyhow. Yeah, that's a good image. That's just different. I mean, it's very different than it makes me think of scripture differently. I think I come from a, well, let's boil it down to a systematic theology, which is like

the book that gives you the answers. And the way that you're saying the wisdom literature in particular written is, I'm going to give you three different books with three different points of view, and that's the answer for you. The answer is you living intention books with three different points of view and that's the answer for you The answer is you living intention between all three of these books. Yes, and they don't contradict each other They complement each other because proverbs actually never said This is airtight and how always work kind of Feels that way. Yeah, but you read it and you walk away and you feel that way sure It feels that way. Yeah, but you read it and you walk away

and you feel that way. Sure. However, it's a book of proverbs. Like the form of the book itself is a proverbs, not as I say, it's a book of proverbs, not the book of promises. Right. And so Ecclesiastes comes along and says,

you know, it's not airtight and here's a whole bunch of examples and how do you reckon and live with that? And the teacher's conclusion isn't, therefore go be a relativist or a hedonist. He's actually still going to say, it's better to be wise and fear God. But you should adjust your expectations so that your worldview isn't shattered

when horrible things happen to you for doing the right thing. So yeah, and that's the significant point of why I think meaningless is not a helpful translation. Because meaningless makes you think, oh, here's the authoritative conclusion. There is no meaning. And that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is enigma. There are some things that happen in life that are just a true glitch in the system,

and you don't know why. You're not going to be able to figure it out. Which is very, it's related then to what God says to Job. Very similar to Job, except with Job, we are given a window into the heavens, and a bit more understanding of why something happens to somebody, even though we don't actually really get the full answer. Yeah, even though it still leaves you with a ton of questions. Yeah, yeah, it's an yeah. So we'll talk about them when we get to Job. But Ecclesiastes is just saying, the system doesn't always work perfectly.

Yeah. The wisdom fear of the Lord's system. And you're not going to be able to figure it out. It's heaven. It's real. But it's also not always real. There's a kind of a agnosticism about it in some ways. Not in that he doesn't say, there's God or that there's think, but are you saying there's plenty that we can't know? Yeah, and that's okay.

And that's okay. And we're just at verse two of the book. So that's not where he ends. That's where he begins. Because he's going to have a lot of recommendations about how you deal with that and how you live well in God's world, even knowing that things are hevel. Can we talk about this first example? I just think it's so interesting. The first example?

Sixth one, the paradox. God gives some people wealth possessions in honor so that they lack nothing, their hearts desire. First of all, that sounds amazing. Yeah, talk. Yeah. Everything my heart desires, I get wealth possessions honor. I'm just stoked. God gave that to some people.

Yeah. Yeah. They get it. They get all that they wish and wanted. Which is I think what everyone really like is kind of longing for. Langing for I just want to have the stuff I need. I want to have people respect me. I want to be taken care of because my heart is always longing for things and if I had the stuff then my heart would be Saciaded. Yes. And God has given that to some people. Well, well, is that what he's saying? Is this just a thought? But the sentence goes on. Well, the sentence goes on. But can we just stop right there? Oh, like if you're a king, you kind of have that in a sense. Yeah, everything you would need. everyone is supposed to respect you. Like if you're a celebrity, like,

I think he's playing into a perception here. Okay. So he's not saying, because it's not the end of the sentence. He plays into perception that some people have well possession, honor, and everything they want, they get. Yeah. But this actually is chapter six.

It's a culmination of a line of thought that started in back in chapter two. is that even people who get those things paradoxically hate their lives. Yeah. Which is so true of a lot of times. Yes, and how they all that they had to go through to acquire all of that stuff by the time they have it all, they're stressed out and can't sleep at night and old and exhausted. So he finishes and says, they lack nothing, their hearts desire, but those are the same people usually that God hasn't granted an ability to enjoy them because they had to kill themselves to get all this. And then they die. And someone else enjoys it. And all of their wealth goes on

to irresponsible trust fund kids or whatever, like on to somebody else and strangers get to benefit from everything that they worked for, but the person who worked for it, you know, dies because of ulcers. Or even when they're alive. Like it's other people. Yes, that's right. Get to enjoy the things that they've accomplished. So he says, here's an example where somebody worked hard, feared the Lord was wise, got all this stuff. They lacked nothing, their hearts desire, but their life actually became miserable to them through acquiring all of that. And then they didn't even truly get to enjoy it,

other people enjoy it. That's heaven. It's heaven, it's like somebody lived by Proverbs three. You know, I was like, trust the Lord. Well, you took a story about that. Someone that we know who got really famous, got all this money, like, but was upright dude, and just was killing it.

He's just like, you know, writing books and like, whatever. And then we find out, like, you tell me like, yeah, he's actually really really depressed And it's like is now addicted to whatever and now blah. It'd be like oh my goodness Bummer, I'm like how did it really is gut wrenching to know that like man You you had it and made and then then you went and gambled this way or you went and did that Yeah, or you just weren't able to enjoy it because of... Or you're just depressed.

Yeah, the mindset that you're accomplishment. And then it would be frustrating to be like, why does it have to be that way? There's a, and there wouldn't be a clear answer. Yes. Yeah, so yeah, he's wealth possessions honor. Those are the very things that Proverbs said, you would get by living wise.

Here you are, you're having a lord and you've got them and you hate your life and you can't enjoy it. It's heaven. Again, it's not meaningless. That's a paradox. Yeah, that's not how the system's supposed to work. You're supposed to. It's a troubling kind of glitch that the Proverbs didn't expose. And notice he begins. He says, God gives some people this. So this is how it works out sometimes. Right. Some people have wealth possessions on her, and it's great. They have big families, and they are happy, and die at a ripe old age.

But not everybody. So again, Proverbs doesn't give you the exceptions to the rule. And Ecclesiastes comes and says, let's talk about those exceptions. Right. Because they expose that things aren't as black and white as you thought. They're heaven. It's a paradox, which is different than a contradiction. I think you hear a meaning list and you say, oh, it's a contradiction.

Life has no meaning. And the tea, what's a contradiction in the biblical worldview where life has meaning because God created it with a purpose. So there's meaning to life. Yeah, but a contradiction means I know because I have surveyed all the data and know this is a genuine contradiction.

These can't exist together. Right. And that's different than paradox. Paradox is saying, from my vantage point, with the limited data and perspective that I have, I can't see how the reconciles go together. It doesn't mean they're not reconcilable. It just means I can't reconcile them,

but I'm not God and I'm, and I think that's what the teacher's trying to say. From here under the sun, which is a phrase he uses 28 times, here humans who are not transcendent and above all, we look at life and what we see is paradox sometimes. From our vantage point under the sun, we can't discern why these things are happening as well. Just because I can't see meaning in some thing that happens in my life doesn't mean there isn't meaning.

It just means I don't have the perspective to see what it is. And you might never have that perspective. And you most likely will never have that perspective. Like Job never got that perspective and like the teacher. The book is not trying to make you into an atheist. The book is trying to make you a humble theist, a humble fear of God to know that you should fear God, keep his commandments as the author says at the end, but don't expect that everything's always going to work out for you.

Tragedies will happen. Things won't work out. And it doesn't mean that everything is always going to work out for you. Tragedies will happen. Things won't work out. And it doesn't mean that God's not good. It just means that life is full of paradoxes under the sun. And that humbles you, and then that forces you to say, well then, how do I, what are my motives for pursuing the good life if there's so much heaven. I'll remind you of the day. That's the end of part one in our conversation of Clisiasis. In the next episode, we'll continue this conversation and we'll dive into the

specific arguments that the teacher makes to prove that the world is in fact hevel. We make videos and we put them on YouTube. This conversation is going to be turned into a short animated video that explains the wisdom of Ecclesiastes and it will be out in the summer of 2016. We also have out an animated overview of Proverbs. Really love it. It came out beautifully. Then we'll finish off that series with an overview of Job that will come out in the fall. We also have a lot of other videos. We have outlines of every book of the Bible in a read scripture series. Those are all on YouTube.

You can find them at youtube.com slash the Bible project. You can download them for free off of our website, use them in church, school, at home with your families, any way that you want to use them. We're on Twitter at join Bible Proge and on Facebook, Facebook.com slash the Bible project. Say hi to us, we'll catch you next time. Thanks for being a part of this with us. From now on, no regrets.