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Koheleth-The Man and His World, by Robert Gordis
- Abstract
The pious editor of the book of Koheleth (Ecclesiastes), fearful of what its skepticism might do to the faith of the young, concluded the volume with a deprecatory note of warning; “Of the making of many books there is no end and much study wears one’s strength away.” Despite this caution many authors have been attracted through the ages to the heterodox verses of the worldly moralist. The Midrashic commentators, in an elaborate phrase by phrase reinterpretation, produced a devoutly pious Koheleth, a rabbi like themselves, and some of the more radical of the modern Biblical scholars have seen in the author a Greek philosopher, an intellectually assimilated Jew who strangely found his place in the sacred canon. There has been no dearth of books about Koheleth and yet one reads Dr. Gordis’s summation of his studies in this difficult text with profound gratitude.
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