Publisher's Synopsis
Professor Jastrow has written a popular commentary on this "most charming" and "intensely human" book of the Old Testament. He sees in the anonymous author of Koheleth a man "who loves life and has intense sympathy with the struggles and sufferings of humanity," but who smiles at reformers with a tolerant cynicism, and never, in the midst of the fullest enjoyment of life, allows the irony of life to escape his thought. The last word is always-Vanity. Koheleth's skepticism is not truculent and aggressive. He is among the prophets and theologians of Judaism like Anatole France among the missionaries and exegetes of today -- dismissing the whole laborious structure of theodicy by the non liquet in rejoinder to its prime premises.
In an "introduction" covering over three-fourths of the book, Professor Jastrow discusses (often with unnecessary repetitions) the authorship of Koheleth, its place in the sacred canon, and the views of the "gentle cynic" on labor, politics, religion, wealth, women and pleasure. There follows a translation of the book, with critical notes justifying Professor Jastrow's reconstruction of the text. And, finally, there is an appendix containing the additions to the book by "pious commentators," by proverb mongers, and by miscellaneous glossators. This arrangement offers the author the temptation, too little resisted, to tautology. We meet the same reflections in the introduction, in the notes to the text, and in the discussion of the glosses in the appendix. For example, the interpretation of the famous passage on the "golden bowl" and the "silver cord" appears at least three times in different parts of the book. Professor Jastrow could easily have put what he has to say in half the number of pages. Even though the book is confessedly for "popular" use, its intelligibility is not helped by diffuseness.
Professor Jastrow eliminates over 60 of the 222 verses of Koheleth as additions by pious commentators to make the book appear orthodox, and proverbs inserted by a nimble-minded scribe. While making no pretensions to criticise the scientific method of so distinguished an exegete as Professor Jastrow, we may still wonder whether it is quite safe to employ so subjective a standard as he does in eliminating verses which he regards as either "manifestly inconsistent" with other utterances of Koheleth or "interruptions" of the context (p. 79) A "gentle cynic" is generally not much disturbed by either inconsistencies or interruptions. We might question, too, the statement (p. 114) that the motive of the men who determined the canon of the Old Testament was to "preserve what was best in the literary legacy of the past."
But this is only by the way. The upshot of Professor Jastrow's study, namely that Koheleth has been perverted from its true character in being made safe for orthodoxy by the pious interpolators, will readily commend itself to all his readers. The book is written in a genial temper throughout, and is a valuable contribution to the popularization of Biblical criticism.
--The Standard, Volume 6
