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Times as Task, Not Timing: Reconsidering Qoheleth’s Catalogue of the Times

Peterson, Jesse M.

Times as Task, Not Timing: Reconsidering Qoheleth’s Catalogue of the Times Thumbnail


Authors

Jesse M. Peterson



Abstract

This essay examines Qoheleth’s Catalogue of the Times poem in Eccl 3:2–8. I argue that the two most common scholarly interpretations of the poem’s overall meaning fail to sufficiently account for its literary context and that an underdeveloped alternative reading is to be preferred. When we read the poem in light of two other closely related passages, 1:4–11 and 3:9–15, it becomes clear that a poem ostensibly about “time” is much less concerned with “timing” than is typically thought, but instead signifies Qoheleth’s frustration with the inevitable equilibrating tendency embedded into every human task.

Citation

Peterson, J. M. (2022). Times as Task, Not Timing: Reconsidering Qoheleth’s Catalogue of the Times. Vetus Testamentum, 72(3), 444-473. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10039

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Nov 11, 2021
Publication Date 2022-07
Deposit Date Feb 9, 2022
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Vetus Testamentum
Print ISSN 0042-4935
Electronic ISSN 1568-5330
Publisher Brill Academic Publishers
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 72
Issue 3
Pages 444-473
DOI https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10039

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