Coping with Transience

Book excerpt: Coping with Transience is a delightful study of Ecclesiastes that interprets its most significant themes on the basis of its keyword hebel. 'Vanity', 'irony', and 'the absurd' are either the traditional or latest meanings thought to be behind Ecclesiates' hebel, yet each in its own way renders the contradictory or confusing. A more natural, yet still biblical meaning of the word is 'the temporary'. This is the term Eccesiates uses for his advice on how to cope with the brevity of life. Once the word 'temporary' is understood, the book becomes immediately consistant within itself, and supportive of much of the biblical worldview. Coping with Transience interprets Ecclesiates from a biblical and ancient Near Eastern perspective, without the impositions of modern existentialism, or extra-biblical redefinitions of hebel.