About the Book

From PREFACE THE following pages are a plain commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes. Those who expect to find here the advocacy of new and startling theories of this fascinatingly perplexing book will be disappointed. In the judgment of the writer there has been something too much of these things in the recent literature on Qoheleth. An endeavour is made in the following pages to examine the ...

About the Author

George Aaron Barton ---

Professor of Biblical Literature and Semitic Languages in Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania.

Contents

CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

NAME OF THE BOOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

PLACE IN THE HEBREW BIBLE. . . . . . . . . . 1

CANONICITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

TEXT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. Hebrew Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. The Septuagint Version . . . . . . . . . 8
3. The Greek Version of Aquila . . . . . . . 11
4. The Version of Theodotian . . . . . . . . 11
5. The Version of Symmachus . . . . . . . . 12
6. The Coptic Version . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. The Syriac Peshitta . . . . . . . . . . . 13
8. The Syro-hexaplar Version . . . . . . . . 14
9. Old Latin Version . . . . . . . . . . . 14
10. The Latin Vulgate . . . . . . . . . . . 15
11. The Arabic Version . . . . . . . . . . . 15
12. The Targum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
13. Quotations in the Talmud . . . . . . . . 16
14. Recensions of the Text . . . . . . . . . 17

HISTORY OF THE INTERPRETATION . . . . . . . 18

THE RELATION OF “QOHELETH” TO GREEK THOUGHT 32
1. Supposed Linguistic Influence . . . . . . 32
2. Relation to Greek Thought . . . . . . . 34

THE INTEGRITY OF ECCLESIASTES . . . . . . . . 43

QOHELETH'S THOUGHT IN OUTLINE . . . . . . . 46

WAS QOHELETH WRITTEN IN METRICAL FORM? . . 50

LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF QOHELETH . . . 52

THE RELATION OF ECCLESIASTES TO BEN SIRA . . 53

THE ATTITUDE OF THE BOOK OF WISDOM TO
ECCLESIASTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

DATE AND AUTHORSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

COMMENTARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

INDEXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

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