God is omnipresent. God is in heaven, on earth—everywhere. That is a very popular belief, especially in the more evangelical circles I once inhabited. God… Read More »This Too is Hebel: God is in Heaven and You Upon Earth
You are what you eat. That is a phrase we have all heard. One you might not be familiar with, however, is, “the fool is… Read More »This Too is Hebel: Toil, Envy, Self-Cannibalism, and Companionship
Better off dead. That is the message of Ecclesiastes 4:1–3. Don’t believe me? “And I turned and I saw all the oppressions (העשקים, ha-ashuqim) that… Read More »This Too is Hebel: And There Was Not for Them a Comforter
This too shall pass. This too is hebel. One of the fundamental facts of life itself is that life is unfair. Conventional wisdom posits that… Read More »This Too is Hebel: Wickedness in the Place of Justice
Early on in the final semester, one of my writing group colleagues asked me, “How does protest differ from lament?” Yikes. That was a question… Read More »This Too is Hebel: When Lament Becomes Protest
Synopsis The book of Ecclesiastes stands as one of the most confusing and controversial books in the Hebrew Bible. The author, Qoheleth, interrogates concepts of… Read More »This Too is Hebel: Introduction to Qoheleth’s Theology of Absence
Once again, I have taken an unexpected leave of absence from writing here. Hopefully it should be the last for a while. I did not… Read More »This Too is Hebel: Degrees, Jobs, and Everything Else
Another fun title with a totally unanswerable question. I could perhaps say the main character of the Bible. But instead, I think I’ll speak of… Read More »This Too is Hebel: Who is God in the Hebrew Bible?
Now that’s a fun title. Fun because I know, and you know, I cannot provide you with a single, definitive answer to the question: What… Read More »This Too is Hebel: What does Ecclesiastes Mean?