Ecclesiastes falls under the genre “wisdom literature”, which includes Proverbs and Job. They don’t refer to any key historical events. They’re timeless, and constitute of a search for truth or order amidst life mysteries. It’s a twelve chaptered book of the Old Testament that contained the reflections of a royal philosopher. The author is thought to be a qoheleth, which is Hebrew for teacher or one who assembles. The word vanity appeared a lot in Ecclesiastics, and it really meant “vapor”, so in other words, it meant that everything was illusive, transitory or fleeting. Ecclesiastes had many notions similar to existentialism philosophy, which is the belief that all there is to life is our present existence. Purpose stayed hidden within under the sun, and that the righteous, evil and even animals had the same fate as they all died. The author realized that part of life’s meaning derived from cycles. There was a season for everything, and a time for every matter under heaven. The author then charged us to enjoy life and live it to the fullest, keeping in mind that we’ll face judgment from God in the end. My favorite verse in the whole of Ecclesiastes is Ecc 1:18 which reads “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow”. In the real world, while ignorance is not an excuse, it certainly is bliss.
According to Dr M. Homan, most Sumerian deities for craft were male, but Ninkasi, the goddess of beer was female. In addition, these other deities were female, and linked to beer production – Siris, Enlil, Dumuzi, Inanna, Hathor, Ceres, Dionysus and Menqet. Also, the erudite Siduri who gave advice to Gilgamesh was a beer maid. After a while, things changed in Mesopotamia after the old Babylon period, and it became more men dominated, but women still brewed beer at home. Beer was poured as libation, and offered to the gods to quench their thirst. An Ur III animal sacrifice was known as “beer pouring”. Many temples had their own brewers. Yahweh can be said to have been a heavy beer drinker since approximately 16 liters of beer were presented to him weekly. There’s also literary evidence that shows that prophets from Mari consumed beer to induce ecstatic states. Beer didn’t have a bad reputation prior to classical period. There were positive portrayals of beer in classical literature. For instance, beer was used in ancient Rome in medicines, and it was frequently listed as spoils of war.
Textual criticism or lower criticism refers to examining the actual texts that are in a piece of literature, like the bible, and comparing it to other textual witnesses, for example, the Dead Sea scrolls. Source criticism or higher criticism is an attempt to discover the original sources of the bible. It starts off with the premise that biblical writings are a combination of documents written separately, and later brought together. Source critics try to figure out as much as they can about the sources and authors of the original texts or documents. These are valuable tools because they help present a clearer picture of what we’re reading. We’re able to understand better because we know the context under which it was written.
A lot of people are under the impression that Moses wrote the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew bible. Perhaps, it’s because he was the main character. Also, in Deuteronomy 31:9, it says that “…Moses wrote down this law…” Also, a number of New Testament verses assume that Moses was the author. It’s mentioned in Matthew 19:7, Luke 2:22, Luke 20:28 and John 5:46. However, the language used in writing Deuteronomy 12-28, and its historical and theological context suggested that it was written after Moses’ day. So the “Torah” that Moses wrote according to Deut 31:9 was only 16 chapters as opposed to five books. With the aid of Source Criticism, we now know that these16 chapters of laws as they are now recorded were not completed until centuries after Moses. Also, there were a lot of doublets used. For example, there were two stories of creation. There were also contradictions, as well as internal difficulties.
J, E, P, D, R and Q refer to authors that wrote certain sections of the bible. The J source is also known as the Yahwistic source. This author referred to God as Yahweh when talking about conversations with God. J is used instead of Y because this scholarship was done in Germany where Yahweh is written as Jahwe. This author isn’t a priest, and could have possibly been a woman. The author talked about talking animals, dreams, and sex. Scholars believe that the author lived in the southern kingdom of Judah around 9th-8th century BCE. E source called God Elohim. The author is believed to have been a priest, with lineage that traced back to Moses. He’s believed to have lived in the northern kingdom of Israel, and wrote sometime during the divided monarchy, before the destruction of Israel. RJE refers to the redaction of J and E documents into one composite story. P source is believed to have been written by a priest. Their document talked about priesthood, and sacrifices. D stands for Deuteronomic, and it’s believed to have been compiled by priests living in Northern Israel before exile. There’s thought to be a second D2, an author for much of the materials in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. D2 shared a lot of theological perspectives and vocabulary with D author. D was composed during the reign of King Josiah (640-609 BCE) in order to back his reforms, then after the destruction of Judah in 586 BCE, the same person, or someone else with very similar views went back and slightly edited the text to tell the story of what happened during the destruction and exile. R stands for redactor, which was simply the person who put together the whole Torah. Q refers to the non-Markian material shared in Luke and Matthew. Three of the four New Testament Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are very similar. They’re referred to as the Synoptic Gospels. Synoptic is a Greek word which means “to view together”. Often, these three Gospels contained the same story told in the same way. Scholars believed that one of the three gospels served as the source for the other two, mainly Mark, from which Luke and Matthew got most of their information about Jesus. Sometimes, Matthew and Luke got some material that wasn’t in Mark, and the origin of this source is called Q which is German for Quelle.
Israel fell to Babylonians in 586 BCE. Following that, Cyrus, king of Persia defeated the Babylonians and allowed the Hebrews to return to their land now called Judea beginning in 538 BCE, known as edict of Cyrus. Ezra’s mission and Nehemiah’s mission took place in 458 BCE and 445 BCE prospectively. Alexander the Great (356 BCE – 323 BCE) who happened to have Aristotle for a tutor annexed Judea to his ever growing empire. However, since he had no heir, at his death, his empire was shared between his generals. Initially, the land of the Israeli was part of the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt. Then the Seleucid Kingdom of Syria conquered Judea in 198 BCE. The Hasmonean rule occurred between 165 BCE – 63 BCE, and the Romans with Herod the great ruled from 73 BCE – 4 BCE.
The book of Tobit was about Tobit, a pious Israelite taken captive by Assyrians and exiled to Nineveh. He was married to Anna, and they had a son Tobias. Everything was okay except that he buried the dead which was a direct violation of the Assyrian king’s order. As he was digging one night, he fell asleep and a bird pooped in his eyes, causing him to go blind. He was so despondent that he wanted to kill himself. Meanwhile in the faraway land of Media lived Sarah who was praying to die because she’d been married a lot of times but still remained a virgin because at every wedding night, a demon appeared and slew her husband. God heard the prayers of Tobit and Sarah and sent Raphael, the angel of healing in the form of a human named Azarias. Tobit remembered that some man owed him money in Media, and sent his son Tobias to collect. Azarias met him and they journeyed together. On the way, a fish jumped out of water and tried to swallow Tobias. They both manage to kill the fish and eat it, saving the heart, liver and gall bladder for future medicinal purposes. They arrived at Media and stayed at Sarah’s family’s house. Tobias and Sarah fell in love and got married. Tobias also collected the debt. Upon coming back to Nineveh they rubbed the fish’s gall bladder in Tobit’s eyes, and he could see again.
1 Maccabees was a story of how Antiochus turned his back on God, and forced other Jews to follow. He ordered people he ruled to offer pagan sacrifices, and a man named Mattathias refused. Not only did he refuse, he killed the royal official implementing the decree, sparking a revolt. Mattathias along with his five sons and others desiring freedom fled to the wilderness. Mattathias, an old man died, and his son carried on. After several spectacular military victories, his son also nicknamed Judah was able to retake Jerusalem and cleanse it of all its pagan paraphernalia, and had it purified. The Jews celebrated the Temple’s rededication on the 25th of Chislev, exactly three years after Antiochus had profaned the temple. This celebration is known as the Jewish Hanukkah which means dedication.
The one thing that Tobit and 1 Maccabees have in common with my project is that anything worth while isn’t necessarily easy, and that it takes just one step to bring about a huge change.
An example of a website with sound scholarship is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and one showing unsound scholarship is http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/12/06/03.html
As far as my project goes, I talked to a good friend of mine at SUNO (Southern University New Orleans) and I realized that she’s equally doing a project based on breast cancer. We’ve decided to work together in do this project on a much bigger scale than I had originally planned it.

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