On Authourity
We swim with questions about what is truth, what is fact, and what is authoritative. What is real news that has authority, and what is fake news? There are many people who claim authority, and not all of them are worthy of it. Few wield it, and fewer still are good at articulating what is necessary to have it. Part of the problem is we have culturally dismantled the term. We use the word “authority” now only in a vestigial sense. It is long divorced from any real meaning or moral weight.1 For all of our postmodern mistrust of authority, and for all of our self-righteous rejection of all things hierarchical and institutional — we are breathtakingly silent when it comes to defining exactly what it is that we are throwing out with our bath water. Therefore, for a...
Read MoreQoheleth Chapter Seven
Translation from the Lilly Pad Bible Commentary by K.D. Frogg: 1 Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side? 2 Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide. 3 So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it. I know they’re wrong, wait and see. 4 Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection. The lovers, the dreamers and me. 5 Who said that every wish would be heard and answered when wished on the morning star? 6 Somebody thought of that and someone believed it. 7 Look what it’s done so far. 8 What’s so amazing that keeps us star gazing and what do we think we might see? 9 Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection. The lovers, the dreamers and me. All of us...
Read MoreQoheleth Chapter Six
Translation from the Anchor Bible commentary by R.B.Y. Scott: 1 One misfortune which I have observed under the sun, and which bears heavily on men [is this]– 2 a man to whom God grants riches, possessions, and an honored place [in the community], so that he lacks nothing that heart could desire, but whom God has not given the power to enjoy it– rather a stranger enjoys it instead. This is a hollow mockery and a sore affliction. 3 If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years and is prominent all his life, but does not find happiness– I declare that a stillborn child is better off than he. 4 Though its coming is futile and it departs in darkness, though its name is hidden in darkness and it has no burial place; 5 thought it never saw the sun nor knew...
Read MoreQoheleth Chapter Five
Translation from the Anchor Bible commentary by R.B.Y. Scott: 1 Be circumspect when you go to the house of God. Approach in order to learn, rather than to offer a sacrifice like that of fools who know nothing except how to do wrong. 2 Do not speak impetuously, nor think of uttering a hurried word before God. Since God is in heaven and you are on earth, let your words be few. 3 “A dream follows on much busyness, and a fool’s speech on too much talk.” 4 When you make a vow to God, do not be slow in paying it, for God has no liking for fools. Pay what you vow to pay. 5 It is better that you make no vow, than that you make a vow and fail to keep it. 6 Do not allow your tongue to put you in the wrong; and do not say to the messenger [who comes to collect it], “It was...
Read MoreQoheleth Chapter Four
Translation from the Anchor Bible commentary by R.B.Y. Scott: 1 Next I turned to consider all the acts of oppression which are done under the sun; I witnessed the tears of the oppressed who have no one to comfort them; their oppressors have power in their hands, but they themselves have no avenger. 2 I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. 3 Better off than either is he who has not yet been, and has not witnessed the evil that is done under the sun. 4 I saw that all a man’s toil and skill is expended through the desire to surpass his neighbor; this, too is an empty thing and a clutching at the wind. 5 [They say] “The fool folds his hands and consumes his own flesh.” 6 I say, “Better on handful of peace, than to...
Read More