Ecclesiastes Everything Is Meaningless “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. Wisdom Is Meaningless What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Pleasures Are Meaningless I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. Wisdom and Folly Are Meaningless Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done? I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wise have eyes in their heads, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both. Then I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said to myself, “This too is meaningless.” For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die! A Time for Everything There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. ~ Ecclesiastes

Religious Redaction in Qohelet in Light of Mesopotamian Vanity Literature Paper Title: Religious Redaction in Qohelet in Light of Mesopotamian Vanity Literature Link to Paper: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-12301225 Date: 2016 Paper Type: Biblical Studies, Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature, Textual Criticism Short Abstract: In this paper, Nili Samet argues that the pious epilogue of Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) is a later interpolation. Since this theory rests only on internal evidence, she brings external support from Mesopotamian texts: scribes there reworked “vanity” literature toward conservative, religious readings for two millennia, so conservative redaction of vanity texts was a real, recurring practice.

Believe in Order to Understand: Augustine's Concept of Faith Info This article is a reworked version of a paper written for a university seminar on Augustine. 1. The problem with the modern picture of faith In much modern thought, faith is understood as belief without sufficient evidence. Russell characterizes it this way, and so do the New Atheists. As scientific explanation expanded, appeals to God came to be seen as unnecessary explanatory assumptions, and faith was cast as the opponent of rational inquiry.