Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [121]
As Rabbi Joseph Telushkin puts it, “Like adults, children need discipline, but the equation of discipline with beating is an example of very bad advice in a good book. In these two verses, morality is turned upside down: People who don’t beat their children are made to appear unloving, while those who do beat them (some of whom, one must assume, are sadists) are rewarded by being told that this proves that they are loving parents.” (Biblical Literacy, p. 344)
There are sure and effective means of teaching lessons, instilling discipline, and even punishing children’s misbehavior that do not involve physical violence. In an era of commonplace child abuse, even hinting that the Bible condones such behavior is a grievous mistake.
Nothing New Under The Sun
ECCLESIASTES
Sheer futility, Qoheleth says, everything is futile. (Eccl. 12:8 NJB)
Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. (Eccl. 12:12)
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During the 1960s, there may have been no more widely quoted Bible verses than the words from Ecclesiastes that provided Pete Seeger with the lyrics for “Turn, Turn, Turn,” which became a hit single for the Byrds. Americans of a certain age may also recall that President Kennedy admired these verses and they were read at his funeral. Ironically, those verses come from one of the most unusual, and for many, confounding, books of the Bible.
BIBLICAL VOICES
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace. (Eccl. 3:1-8)
PLOT SUMMARY: ECCLESIASTES
Anyone who thinks that the Bible is a simplistic book offering pat answers to challenging questions hasn’t read Job or Ecclesiastes. These two books also refute those orthodox and fundamentalist Bible believers who condemn anyone who dares to question God or the divine plan. While much of the Hebrew scripture depicts an orderly universe in which the faithful can find hope even in the most desperate moments, Ecclesiastes—like Job—is a searching, skeptical book. Both books not only accept the uncomfortable questions, they honor them. As the editors of the New Jerusalem Bible comment in introducing Ecclesiastes: “The book is valuable for its uncomfortable and questioning faith, and its inclusion in the Bible is a reassurance for all who share this attitude.”
The book’s first few opening words, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (the Jerusalem Bible uses “futility”), set the author’s darkly brooding tone and themes: the futility of chasing after riches and wisdom, and the inevitability of death. At times, the author of Ecclesiastes expresses such hedonistic, cynical ideas that some rabbis sought to suppress the book. Its popularity, its ultimate acceptance of God’s will, and the belief that Solomon was its author were apparently enough to secure Ecclesiastes a place in the “Writings,” the third section of the Hebrew scriptures. In the Christian Old Testament, Ecclesiastes is part of the “Wisdom” literature that includes the books of Job and Proverbs.
Like Proverbs and the Song of Solomon, the book was traditionally attributed to King Solomon, the idealized “wise man” of Israelite history. But scholars have pointed out that the language,