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Thomas Krüger

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Qoheleth: A Commentary on the Book of Qoheleth (Hermeneia) Hardcover – May 18, 2004

by Thomas Kruger (Author), Klaus Baltzer (Editor)

4.7 5 ratings

Part of: Hermeneia (56 books)

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Qoheleth presents a special challenge not only for professional commentators but also for 'normal' readers of the Hebrew text (or a modern translation). . . . Most people in modern Western industrial societies . . . can relate without great difficulty to the reflections of the book of Qoheleth on work and rest or on behavior vis--vis those in power, and they can understand these reflections in terms of their own experiences. Nonetheless, the way in which these and other themes are handled in Qoheleth is a little puzzling. The fact that the book . . . reveals no clear organization and no overall progression of ideas may be accepted as a literary peculiarity and perhaps even strike one as interesting. Yet when one finds on various themes many statements that are highly contradictory in both the broad and the narrow context, one begins to ask what could be the point of this book and what is the purpose expressed in it. The present commentary seeks to help answer these questions.

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About the Author

Klaus Baltzer is Emeritus Professor of Old Testament in the Protestant Faculty of the University of Munich, Germany. He is author of The Covenant Formulary, (Fortress Press, 1971) and Die Biographie der Propheten (1975). He is also on the Old Testament Editorial Board of the Hermeneia series.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fortress Press; First Edition (May 18, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0800660366
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0800660369
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.97 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.7 x 1.15 x 9.64 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,766,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9,869 in Christian Commentaries (Books)
- #34,143 in Theology (Books)

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Jordan Pariah

A Good, But Not Great Critical Commentary

Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2015

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Having set my mind to the labor of understanding the wisdom of Qohelet, I attempted to assemble various commentaries to be my aid. After utilizing a great many of them, I have found this commentary to be somewhat lacking. Its translation notes, while plentiful, offer very little beyond what can be found in almost any other critical commentary—including those so old that they are now in the public domain in the United States (such as Barton's commentary in the ICC series or Ginsburg's commentary from 1861). To gain a much fuller and greater grasp of the translational and text-critical issues, I have found a friend in Seow (Anchor Yale Bible). The commentary proper, which offers a verse-by-verse explanation, is helpful, but often quite short and lacking in detail. What detail there is, it seems, is often reserved for the commentary notes at the bottom of each page, to which I am constantly turning in my quest for deeper understanding, and at which point I am often told to look at other works for more. Thankfully, I have found tremendous new insights from Fox's terse commentary in Qohelet and His Contradictions. What this commentary does better than others, it seems, is break down the structure or form of the text. Whereas Ginsburg often refers to later Rabbinic Literature and Seow often discusses the genre and characteristics of Wisdom Literature, Krüger likes to mention any texts in the ancient Near East that say something similar to what appears in a verse (though usually only appearing in the footnotes), which provides a larger cultural context for the discussion. Overall, I would recommend this commentary to serious students of the text who want a good understanding of the content of Qohelet and the issues involved with the caveat that deeper analysis, fuller exegesis, and more profound insight must be sought elsewhere.

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fdoamerica

Life is not lived in a straight Line....

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2005

All search is useless but you must never stop searching! I searched `Books in Print' and found that there are currently in print 4140 commentaries on the Bible, 56 of these are on Ecclesiastes.

In the world of Bible commentaries there are various genres. There are devotional commentaries, which are designed more to perk up your day, than your brain. There are the layman's commentaries which give sparse origin and historical information and more application for your daily life. Then there is a large swath of commentaries that are for the serious student and scholar of the Bible. These commentaries delve into the structural analysis and exegetical study of the text. The 'Qoheleth' by Thomas Kruger is of this genre. A serious, technical commentary that is designed for the same.

In this scholarly work Kruger disassembles, both linguistically and analytically, each verse. He quotes various other learned scholars who have tackled this unique book, then ads his own, howbeit scant, interpretation of the Qoheleth's voice. He gives special attention to the form and function of the book.

The Hebrew word `HEBEL' is used repeatedly throughout Ecclesiastes. It begins the book (vs.1:2) and ends the book (vs. 12:8). Many translate HEBEL to the word 'vanity'. Kruger prefers 'futile and fleeting' (ie. Nothing, illusion, absurdity, delusion, transitory). The best that we can get out of life is to eat, drink, eating, find a job that you like and enjoy what pleasure you can, while you can. These represent the highest and ultimate the only good worth striving for. This is the message that the Qoheleth sent us 2200 years ago. "For human beings, the knowledge of life's fleetingness and transitoriness in the form of chance and death bestows additional worth upon pleasure and enjoyment in the present."

This commentary on Ecclesiastes is strongly recommended for the serious student and scholar; those that desire more of a contemporary commentary will find this text obtuse and opaque.

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