Monday, November 16, 2015

Biblical Eloquence in Ecclesiastes 3

As I did some research on the Book of Ecclesiastes it turns out that ecclesiastes comes from the Greek word ekklesiastou which is translated as "teacher." This passage has a very compelling structure to it which seems to have been written by a master rhetorician. This is evident in the third chapter, as we see the rhetorical approach of anaphora, entangled in paralelism.

1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

The first verse is a introductory statement of what the subject matter for the following verses will be. If you notice in verses 2-8 the phrase a time to is repeated four times in each verse. It is structurally very beautiful. I almost feel like it is a poem of sorts, with the pattern of such consistency.


This is a way to help people remember a principle even without remembering every single detail, we can learn the pattern. I don't remember exactly what the specific times were, but I do remember that there is a time for everything, and I think that is what is being portrayed in this scripture with the rhetorical approaches mentioned before.
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4 comments:

  1. UnknownNovember 17, 2015 at 12:16 AM

    So luck to come across your excellent blog. Your blog brings me a great deal of fun.Thank you for taking the time to post this.yahoo forgot password help

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  2. KatelynNovember 17, 2015 at 12:30 AM

    Isn't it interesting that the structure of a piece of writing can convey just as much meaning as the writing itself?

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  3. UnknownNovember 17, 2015 at 9:37 AM

    I completely agree with what you said. I too can remember "A time to" but obviously we won't remember everything there is a time for. It was very intelligent of this writer to put it in that way because he does get the main point across, which is that there is a time for everything.

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  4. UnknownNovember 17, 2015 at 12:31 PM

    I agree that we don´t always remember the specific ¨times¨ that are mentioned but we remember the structure. The structure itself has been very comforting to me because it reminds me that life is a cycle with ups and downs, but it never ends.

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