Qohelet as Divine Hedonist

Abstract

This paper will demonstrate that the best descriptor of Qohelet is divine hedonist, not absurdist, skeptic, pessimist, realist, nihilist or “Preacher of Joy.” This will be done by examining the relationship between Qohelet’s hebel-judgments and his carpe diem ethic and comparing Qohelet’s strategy with that of philosopher David Hume. Qohelet’s hebel-judgments serve to deconstruct the traditional formulation of the Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang, opening space for legitimating his preferred ethic: the carpe diem. In other words, Qohelet rhetorically paints a dark and dreary world in order to buttress his main ethic, the carpe diem, an ethic that is both hedonistic (using philosophical classification) in seeking pleasure and avoiding pain (reflected in his God-fearing motif), and divine in that this ethic must align with God’s mysterious decrees.