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Moritz F. Adam explores conceptions of time in the book of Ecclesiastes and its place in the history of thought in Hellenistic Judaism. He situates Ecclesiastes before a wider panorama of emerging apocalyptic thought and investigates how the text reflects, resists, and reworks prevailing ideas about time, history, knowledge, and meaning. Adam shows how Ecclesiastes stands at an important moment of conceptual transformation to the manner in which time was thought about in ancient Judaism, and how the book reflects new, broader, totalising, and abstract concerns in conversation with contemporary interlocutors. Through textual studies, comparative discussions and theoretical engagements with the fields of Classics and Literature, Adam challenges scholarly boundaries between wisdom, apocalypticism, and other genres, and highlights Ecclesiastes' pluralistic, open-ended discourse as a vital part of ancient Jewish thought.
Price: £128.00
Pages: 335
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Imprint: Mohr Siebeck
Series: Forschungen zum Alten Testament
Publication Date:
16 December 2025
ISBN: 9783161647970
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
Born 1997; 2018 M.A. Theology, Oxford; 2020 M.Phil., Oxford; 2024 PhD, Zurich; 2020-24 Assistant (Chair of Hebrew Bible, Zurich); 2022 Research Fellow, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; 2025 Ernest S. Frerichs Professor, Albright Institute, Jerusalem; Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism, Zurich.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Date and Compositional History of the Book of Ecclesiastes
A. Composition
B. Structure
C. Dating
D. Excursus: The Problem of the Abstract Orientation of the Book of Ecclesiastes and Its Deliberate Avoidance of Historical and Contextual References
Chapter 3: The Status Quaestionis in Scholarship on Ecclesiastes and Apocalypticism
A. Ancient Perspectives on Apocalyptic Dimensions in Ecclesiastes
B. Categories and Problems in the Modern History of Scholarship
C. On the Approach of this Overview on the Status Quaestionis
D. Wisdom and Apocalypticism Since the Middle of the 20th Century
E. Ecclesiastes and Apocalypticism in Recent Scholarship
F. Scholarly Engagements with the Subject of Time in Ecclesiastes
Chapter 4: Reflections on Method
Chapter 5: Polemic, Critique, and Intellectually Constitutive Interaction: Eccl 4:17-5:6 as a Test Case
A. Dreaming as a Mode of Revelation
B. Mediation by Angels
Chapter 6: Rhetoric and Discourse in Ecclesiastes and 4QInstruction: AComparative Test Case
Chapter 7: The Genre Apocalyptic: Rethinking Morphologies
A. What is Apocalypticism? Problems in Taxonomy
B. Prototype Theory
C. Constellations
D. Discourses in Ancient Jewish Thought - Three Propositions
Chapter 8: The Category of Time in the Book of Ecclesiastes and Its Place in the History of Ideas
A. Time as a Total Category in the Hellenistic Period
B. Time as Ordered and Arranged
C. Comparative Reflections
Chapter 9: Time and Abstraction: Moving Across Tradition as a Mode of Literary Authorisation
A. Authorisation by Ascription
B. The Historical Blending of Ideas
Chapter 10: Pluriformity and Pluralism: Literary Diversity, Hermeneutical Openness, and the Function of Texts in Second Temple Judaism
A. Ecclesiastes and Pluriformity
B. Method
C. Calendars and Total History
D. Variety and Vitality in the Dead Sea Scrolls
E. New Cultural Histories
F. Intellectual Pluralism in Ecclesiastes
G. Excursus: Literary-Theoretical Points of Comparison
Chapter 11: Conclusions