Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="bags27, post: 2386127, member: 6761"] I appreciate what you say about translation. But the text itself hasn't gone through translation. I'm going back to the original, which is entirely my point. It's important to look at the entire text within context. The preferred translation is chance, and given the use of fate at 9.2 and Koheleth's appeal to a resigned philosophy which is profoundly Stoic and unheard of otherwise in the TANAKH, the dating of [I]Ecclesiastes[/I] in the Hellenistic world is really compelling (in fact, it's one of the last books canonized, because the rabbis had serious doubts about its religiousity) and so, to my mind, is the preferred translation. [I]Ecclesiastes [/I]is just so obviously Hellenistic wisdom literature that it's widely accepted as such: see, for example, the mainstream publication of the Jewish Publication Society edition by Michael V. Fox. If I offended anyone with what I said about the Art Scroll editions, which is a lovely production, many volumes of which I own but do not find convincing because it has a very specific brief, I apologize. [/QUOTE]