The Author Issue

I mentioned earlier that I taught Annual Conference Sunday School.  The lesson was on various verses of Ecclesiastes. 

We talked in the class about who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes.  The text itself says, “The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.”  Reading this, we might assume the author is Solomon, but he lived in 10^th Century BCE.  The earlest date of the book is probably 3rd century BCE.  Scholars can tell just by the Hebrew that was used that it doesn’t date any earlier than that.

There were a few people in the class who were very bothered by that.  They tried to find ways to confirm that Solomon wrote the book.  That led me to wonder why it mattered so much to them.  Is it Solomon's authority as a person of wisdom that he might lend to the book? Is it just that they can't get past the first verse where the author hints that he is Solomon?

And why does it matter so much to them?

Retribution Theory

In Sunday school a few weeks ago, our teacher last read some of the proverbs from the lesson:

• Proverbs 12:11, 14, 24: Those who work their land will have plenty to eat, but those who engage in empty pursuits have no sense. . . .From the fruit of their speech, people are well satisfied; their work results in reward. . . .A hard worker is in charge, while a lazy one will be sentenced to hard labor.
• Proverbs 13:11: Riches gotten quickly will dwindle, but those who acquire them gradually become wealthy.

 As she read them, I kept objecting. For example, “a hard worker is in charge, while a lazy one will be sentence to hard labor.”  Sometimes things sound like they should be right, but we can all think of instances when they are not reality.  Proverbs can be read as a list of advice from a father to a son, and when you realize this, the proverbs make the most sense, I think. 
When I was preparing for the Sunday school lesson I taught at Annual Conference, I read in the student book that scholars call this “Retribution Theology.”  It’s the belief that we get what we deserve.  If we are righteous and obey God, good things will happen to us, but if we’re evil, we’ll suffer.
 
Do you think we teach this to our children? We teach them to take turns, play fair, stand in line, obey the rules.  We reward “good” behavior with recognition. 
 
Is this how life always is? I know I can think of examples when life did not live up to retribution theology?
 
We know that what happens in life doesn't always correspond to what is fair.  We don't always get what we deserve - actually, sometimes that is good! 
 
This is where the writer of Ecclesiastes starts, I think.  He isn’t the father teaching the son the way Proverbs is.  He is the older teacher who has seen all of life, and is going to tell us about it.  To quote the teacher book again, “He begins his book with “Perfectly pointless…everything is pointless.”  He questioned the wisdom of hard work and prudent living because he had seen so many times when it hadn’t paid off.  Even if one’s hard work did result is wealth, he complained, everyone dies in the end anyway.  Why even try?