Multiple Authors?

Chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes poses a delightful problem for scholars. The content of the chapter is random, out of sync with the rest of the book, and inconsistent with earlier and later chapters. This raises an important question, "Why was Qoheleth so self contradictory?" Here are some of the answers I've read.  

1. He was demon possessed and saw no internal inconsistencies. This notion is echoed by Bible commentator C. I. Scofield of Scofield Bible fame. He wrote, "These reasonings of man apart from divine revelation are set down by inspiration just as the words of Satan" (p. 702).
2. He was being intentionally obtuse, sarcastic, and provocative but really didn't believe many of his utterances. This is the view of Baptist pastor/teacher Bob Utley who wrote, "Remember this is a tongue-in-cheek (like, “under the sun”) sarcasm on life without God."
3. He was in such existential pain he included in his "journal" comments as he felt them with no concern for  internal consistency. It was stream of consciousness babbling from a wounded, unbelieving soul. This is my take on Chuck Swindoll (Living on the Ragged Edge) and Derek Kidner (The Message of Ecclesiastes).
4. He wasn't being self contradictory. He wrote coherently, consistently, and presented a unified message. It was other well meaning but clumsy editors who added quips and quotes to Qoheleth's manuscript. This is the position of a 1919 commentary, A Gentle Cynic by Morris Jastrow.

Option 4 seems most likely to me. Multiple authors raises questions of inspiration which we can explore later. But the evidence for multiple authors seems most compelling.

1. Our English Bibles call this book Ecclesiastes which is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word, “Qoheleth” which means “one who assembles a group." The title is therefore the work of a Greek translator. Nothing is lost by this change, but it does remind us the words we read go through the filter of others’ packaging.
2. Additions at the end of other books of the Bible are common: Job 31:40, Prov. 30, Mark 16.  Somebody added a postscript to the Pentateuch describing Moses’ death. He didn’t write it himself.
3. Most works of the Ancient Near East (ANE), including the Bible, were anonymous. Printed (written) words were secondary to spoken words. This explains why Jesus never wrote a book.
4. Hebrew language has many words for speaker, none for author. Scribes were mere copyists of others’ words or even their own.
5. Most works of ancient literature were edited by later redactors. This was common AND a sign of a work’s popularity.
6. The notion of individual authorship is a later invention, unknown in ANE.
7. Psalms were by multiple authors yet are known as works of David.
8. Proverbs was by Solomon AND the men of Hezekiah, Lemuel, Proverbs 22:17; 24:23. Chapter 30 is attributed to Agur, Son of Jakeh.
9. Chapter and verse divisions were not in the original. Somebody added these later.
10. The final paragraph in Ecclesiastes 12 is either by the author in the third person or an addition by an editor.
11. The phenomenon of writers adding to previously written stuff continued to the days of Shakespeare whose early plays were his emendations of earlier plays.  In our own day think Wikipedia.
12. Ecclesiastes’ lament, “the writing of many books,” seems to disparage written words, a likely interpretation if a later editor was trying to downplay the pessimism of Qoheleth.
13. The modern crime of plagiarism was unknown in the ANE. Adding one’s own comments wasn’t odd, unethical, or unusual.
14. Jastrow speculates that an anonymous philosopher put unorthodox words into print and to increase his credibility posed as rich, wise (1:16), King like Solomon (1 Kings 5:9-11). Later editors uncritically believed it actually was by Solomon and spiffed up the unorthodox text by adding orthodox glosses, proverbs, and insertions. The problem is that the additions contradicted the philosopher’s original text. 
15. Jastrow further muses that had these editors not added orthodox glosses the book would never have made it into the canon, it was just too unorthodox.

Why is this important to me? Because I'm debating whether or not to put these glosses in the mouth of a guest teacher. If I keep Mr. Q in front of the class uttering all these contradictory phrases the class will be shocked. As I have one student say, "My brain just got whip lashed." 


On the other hand, but putting Mr. Q's TA up front she can blather on however she wishes and the inconsistencies will lose their sting. We just chalk it up to two minds coming up with different slants on things. 


The problem with this: another commentator, George Barton (1908), thinks there were up to nine redactors. Do I put nine guest speakers up front? Then my brain will get whip lashed!


Such are the issues I'm debating as I create this graphic novel. I can't wait to see what I decide!

Ecclesiastes 7:1-2 (second draft)

The Creative Process

Here's a brief summary of the creative writing process. As mentioned in recent posts, I've written "dialog" for chapters 1-6. There are 12 chapters in Ecclesiastes so at this half way point I jump in at Ecclesiastes 7:1.

Mr. Q says, "A good name is better than perfume."

I muse over this, pondering what a classroom of 20-somethings might think of this statement. I know how the class has responded to the first six chapters of Mr. Q's lectures so I'm not entirely adrift; there are precedents, patterns, and familiar (although still nondescript) characters.

I jot a student's initial response, "Finally Mr. Q is giving us something practical we can use." (There's been a history of complaints by the students regarding Mr. Q's pointless laments about the pointlessness of life).

Another student chimes in summarizing what they think Mr. Q is getting at, "A reputation that stinks can't be eliminated with cologne."

Another says, "A pleasant impression that lasts comes not from a bottle but from good behavior."

A fourth says, "It's better to work on our insides than our outsides."

This is all pretty benign stuff and is my attempt to flesh out the point of Mr. Q's words. Knowing, however, what Mr. Q's next words will be I set up a gag with student number five, "Thank you, Mr. Q! My hopes for this class have been restored." (end of six panel strip).

(beginning of next six panel strip). Mr. Q: "And the day of death is better than the day of birth."

I softened the first half of verse one (perfume comments) in order to highlight the hard edge of the second half of verse one, "death is better than life" to which student five on the previous page now laments, "My optimism just vanished."

Frequent readers of Ecclesiastes may gloss over the absurdity of Mr. Q's last comment. My ambition as a writer/artist is to say, "Not so fast! Did you hear what Mr. Q just said?" With dialog and (eventual) cartoons I hope to give Mr. Q a voice, a hearing, an opportunity to explain himself (through student's words) for his outrageous comments and Ecclesiastes 7:1b is one of the more outrageous.

I'll record the completion of this teacher/student exchange in my next post. But first another note concerning process. There are 222 verses in Ecclesiastes. If I chop each in half (or thirds) and give each it's own six panel cartoon strip, I'll be creating between 450 and 500 strips. Since the setting of these strips is inside a university classroom there will be no car crashes, leaps from tall buildings, or exotic beach scenes. It's going to be a lot of talking heads. This sounds boring so my ambition is to create exquisite caricatures and dialog.

To keep the dialog crisp and engaging I will expunge every superfluous word, arcane reference, and lumbering sentence. To do this I am walking the fine line between past, present, and future. I know what I've written in the first six chapters (past) so there is some context (present). And I have a general grasp of what Mr. Q will say (future). But...I do not look ahead more than a few verses to see what's coming. The circle of light cast by a flashlight illumines one's steps only a few feet at a time; the scope of light I'm working with is only a few verses at a time. I really do feel like I'm groping in the dark, step by step, verse by verse, slowly marching to the end of chapter 12.

Once dialog for all 12 chapters is complete I'll do "grand" editing, checking for flow, lags, lulls, and lumpy prose. For example, I introduced Mr. Q's TA in about chapter five which was a mistake. She should be introduced earlier since her role will be to elaborate on Mr. Q's utterances.

So this is the process. Next post: how I turned perfume and death days into grist for philosophical reflection.