Ecclesiastes Resources

David Plotz (the writer of the Slate article below) comments on Ecclesiastes being his favorite book of the Bible.

The famous liberal Protestant minister, Frederick Buechner, offers an easy-going and funny take on Ecclesiastes.

Slate magazine writer David Plotz offers his own perspective on Ecclesiastes. (It doesn't necessarily gel with what we've said about Ecclesiastes: Plotz's title describes it as "Godless," even though Ecclesiastes mentions God quite a bit. But it's still an interesting read.)

One of the main leaders of Conservative (Masorti) Judaism in the United Kingdom discusses the book's meaning from a religious Jewish viewpoint.

Gregory of Nyssa was one of the founding fathers of the Orthodox Christian Church. He's not mentioned so much in Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, but he's still really important to Eastern Orthodoxy. Here, he gives a very transcendent depiction of Ecclesiastes. Nice-ah.

Here are a few selections from the Jewish Talmud and Midrash, commenting on Ecclesiastes. They're pretty dense and difficult reading—so this is more just to give you a taste of what Talmudic debate looks like on paper.

An evangelical Christian professor, John Hutchison, gives an optimistic take on Ecclesiastes (vanity is "under the sun," but God is "above the sun") in this lecture (clocking in at around 90 minutes).

King Solomon has tried everything under the sun and found that it was vanity—except for one thing… (a short comedy bit).

Yee Haw! Get ready for that old-time jug-band music… about how everything is futile and empty. This is actually a work of European classical music, inspired by the idea that "all is vanity."

These operatic ditties were inspired by the saddest and most super-serious parts of the Bible. The first two are from Ecclesiastes. (Note: they're in German.)

Here's a sermon from an Eastern Orthodox priest on Ecclesiastes. And hey, like George Costanza would say—cool hat!

Out on a date? Throwing a party? Liven things up with a little classical mood music inspired by Ecclesiastes. Nothing reminds you to live it up and have a good time like some chamber music about how life is nothing but a big ol' bowl of vanity.

Here's a sermon from a Unitarian Universalist Church minister on what Woody Allen and Ecclesiastes can both teach people about searching for meaning in life.

This is a style of painting called a "Vanitas" (which is Latin for, um, "vanity"). It's meant to show the vanity of the world—but in Mignon's version, he does this in a unique way. He shows the world as a swamp, full of decay, with a bird's skeleton lying in the water, and a threatening snake popping out. Yikes.

Damien Hirst is this eccentric British artist who's done tons of weird exhibits (one of his best-known art-works is just a dead shark suspended in a tank). This is another one: a skull decked with tons of diamonds. It's pretty cool—it's definitely inspired by the Vanitas paintings, but it's supposedly meant to be more uplifting… or something.

The great illustrator Gustave Dore drew this picture of King Solomon—seated in writer mode.

The traditional Vanitas was a popular kind of painting during the Renaissance, inspired by Ecclesiastes. It was a still-life, except instead of painting a picture of peaches and pears, you painted a picture of skulls and things that reminded you of death and of how vain and fleeting life is. Admittedly, this is way more metal than peaches and pairs, and kind of like an Iron Maiden album cover.