Life? Don’t talk to me about life! – Ecclesiastes
And so we come to the most depressing book of the bible. If Marvin the paranoid android were a biblical author, Ecclesiastes is the sort of book he’d write. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s depressed robot, and his catchphrase. Ecclesiastes presents itself in a title verse as written by Solomon, a king whose name was synonymous with wisdom and great wealth. It seems a canny choice by the anonymous author, and not only because of the tradition linking Solomon with wisdom. It is the combination of riches and wisdom he wants to use to frame his meditation. Solomon, with his several hundred wives and concubines, and a palace to match the grandeur of the temple complex is a king of conspicuous and excessive wealth. Yet he is also portrayed as the wise philosopher king of Israel’s past. Because of his reputation for wisdom, the exceedingly well-off king is the perfect character to teach the author’s message: “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Long after the...