Ecclesiastes: what some other people reckon

These aren't the perspectives that I promised would be analysed in detail, but just some summaries from commentators.

St Jerome (c. 347 – 420)

Saw the book as a call to embrace the ascetic life in order to escape the vanities of this world. Strangely, he also says "the Hebrews says that ... this book ought to be obliterated, because it asserts that all the creatures of God are vain, and regards the whole thing as nothing, and prefers eating and drinking and transient pleasures before all things." Weird

Crenshaw (1987)

"life is profitless; totally absurd. The world is meaningless. Virtue doesn't bring reward. The deity stands distant, abandoning humanity to chance and death."

Ogden (1987)

"The book's thesis ... is that life under God must be taken and enjoyed in all its mystery."

Like any of these? Why not?

A clarification of a fun discussion

There's been a big bunch of discussion on all things sin and depraved going on lately between Simon (here and here + comments) and Nathan (here and here + comments) and myself.

My thoughts (here and here + comments) aren't actually centred on quite the same focus as Simone and Nathan's, from what I can tell. My point is merely to give an anthropology which gives an acceptable approximation of the Scripture's testimony about us. In so doing, I've dealt with the area of sin as a matter of necessity.

My point, though, hasn't been to create a method for dealing with temptation. No how-to guides here.

And so, in this way, I say a hearty 'amen' to many of the points made by both Nathan and Simone. Particularly, to many of the things that Nathan said from Romans 6 in his post on righteousness.

I'll try to engage with their thinking on temptation (which, to me, seems ultimately to be the context for Simone's thinking) and the 'stance' of the Christian life in general (which seems to be the context for Nathan's thinking) in the next couple of days.