Ecclesiastes*

Note: many eminent scholars have over many years denied that the book of Ecclesiastes has a well ordered structure. We can probably  attribute that view to their  lack of awareness  of the significance of inverted parallelism in Scripture. The following structure is adapted from Dorsey.

Title: author mentioned in third person 1:1

A. the brevity and insignificance of life 1:2-2:26

B. wisdom’s failure to discover life’s meaning 1:12-2:26

C. regarding time 3:1-15

D. fear God 3:16-6:12

C’. time revisited 7:1-14

B’. wisdom’s failure revisited 7:15-10:19

A’. life’s brevity revisited 10:20-12:8

Conclusion: author mentioned in third person 12:9-14

Also, Labuschagne points out that Ecclesiastes has a very precise arithmetic structure and says  “With regard to the numerical structure of Ecclesiastes Duane Christensen has remarked: “Qohelet appears to be the most finely crafted numerical composition in the Bible.” 

 6:12 is the mathematical centre of the book.

https://www.labuschagne.nl/17.ecclesiastes.structure.pdf

 

 

 

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