AUTHOR AND RELIABILITY

Two basic apologetics-related questions arise from the book of Ecclesiastes: first, whether the book was written by Solomon; and second, whether the book is orthodox. Regarding the first question, many scholars consider Ecclesiastes to be a late book, written between 400 and 100 BC, and therefore obviously not by Solomon who lived in the tenth century BC. Regarding the second question, many readers are troubled by the book’s apparently cynical attitude (“Everything is futile,” says 1:2), by its apparent denial of afterlife (see 3:19-20), by its recommendations to eat, drink, and enjoy life (see 5:18; 10:19), and by its seemingly indifferent attitude about morality (see 7:16-17). This second question will be addressed in the notes on Ecclesiastes.

The main argument against Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes is that the book contains a few words that do not appear in any other texts until several hundred years after the time of Solomon. This is not insignificant, but arguments based on linguistic evidence are notoriously difficult to make. Since we have a limited number of texts from the ancient Near East, it is hard to say when a given word may have entered the common speech.

We do have evidence that the author of Ecclesiastes was familiar with certain classic texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt that were written before the time of Solomon (see note at 9:8-9). But the book shows no familiarity with later literature, such as the classic Greek texts from the fifth century BC and following. This lends weight to Solomon’s being author of Ecclesiastes and creates problems for the position that Ecclesiastes was written between 400–100 BC.