This book examines the long-held scholarly assumptions that the Book of Ecclesiastes represents a heterodox or otherwise "minority" voice in the Hebrew Bible. Such a conclusion is based on certain theological assumptions of modern exegetes about what constitutes "orthodox" biblical teaching on the relationship between the human and the divine. An exposition of Ecclesiastes which draws upon texts throughout the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near-Eastern and Greco-Roman wisdom will show that, rather than see Qoheleth as a brilliant realist, a disillusioned pessimist or some other form of counter-cultural intellectual, he is instead comfortably at home in a speculative intellectual tradition that is ubiquitous in the biblical and classical worlds.

Product Description: In der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft wird derzeit die Frage nach der lokalen Herkunft des Gottes Yahwe, nach seiner typologischer Einordnung in das Pantheon Syriens, Israels/Palastinas und Nordarabiens in der spaten Bronzezeit und fruhen Eisenzeit sowie nach den Anfangen der kultischen Verehrung Yahwes heftig diskutiert...read more

The Song of Songs is redolent with poetic imagery, featuring as it does the love songs of a man and a woman as they explore their relationship. Down the centuries it has often been interpreted either as a sexually-charged love story or an entirely metaphorical imagining of the relationship between God and his people. In this deeply-felt book Charlie Cleverly argues that both interpretations are critical to a true understanding of this book that lies right at the heart of the Bible. If our relationships with one another and with God are not both fully in tune with our humanity, in all its richness, and with our spirituality in its highest form, then we will fall short of all we can be in our lives.Drawing on a wide range of sources, literary and theological and across the ages, Charlie Cleverly makes the case for a new, rounded understanding of this important book.