Date

8-9-2024

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Chair

Ashley E. Davis

Keywords

Qohelet, Ecclesiastes, Fear of God, Fear God, Under the sun, Vanity, Evil, Joy, Judgment, Hebel, Hevel, Vexation, Striving after wind, Wisdom, Solomon, Fallenness, Sustainment, Sin, Grace, Righteous living, Eschatological hope, Projectile themes, Qohelet's theology, Qohelet's trajectory

Disciplines

Religion | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

This study has sought to establish a basis for coherency in Qohelet’s theological appeal by analyzing a thematic trajectory underpinned by the rhetoric of Qohelet’s emphasis on vanity, joy, and judgment. These emphases follow what have been labeled projectile themes, which aim at particular points, carrying the audience from one thought to another. These thoughts are deeply correlated and best recognized as the substance forming Qohelet’s framework from which Qohelet’s teaching flows. In other words, Qohelet’s thoughts, revealed by his thematic emphasis and endpoint, function as an evangelistic appeal to a theological worldview, whereby the minds and hearts of his audience are directed to a present and future reality in the fear-God concept. This present and future reality follows the premise that humanity enters a fallen world, God sustains humanity amid the fallenness, and God preserves the lives of those who fear Him on the Day of Judgment. Hence, while meaningful advances have been made in the search for coherence in the literary approach to Qohelet’s contradicting motifs, there is still an unsettled incoherency in the overlay of Qohelet’s theology. However, in taking a thematic approach, the inconsistencies of Qohelet take on a function of thematic underpinning, whereby coherence in the course followed by the projectile themes of fallenness, sustainment, and judgment forms a framework guiding a theological trajectory aiming at an appeal to righteous living and eschatological hope.

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