Wisdom Literature - Proverbs and Ecclesiastes

Plugging along with the wisdom literature, I continue to note that there is such a thing as wisdom literature in the Old Testament, that wisdom comes from faithfulness to God's covenant and that the book of Proverbs leaves no doubt as to what wisdom is and what it isn't.  One can be wise or a blabbermouth, wise or a slackard, wise or a liar, wise or a lousy adulterer, wise or greedy, though mostly one can just be wise or a plain old damn fool.    Baker describes wisdom literature as giving practical advice concerning human relationships and behavior, and Proverbs is certainly full of that.  Proverbs was completed in the 5th century B.C. and my understanding of the authorship is that King Solomon is not to be literally taken as the author though many of the sayings are of his time.  There is the personification of wisdom as female in the long poem at the beginning of the book and the poem at the end about the ideal wife.  I must admit that Proverbs proved tedious reading for me. 
Much more transparent and accessible this time around was the book of Ecclesiastes, written around 300 B.C.  with its author Qoheleth, a Hebrew word meaning teacher or preacher.  Ecclesiastes is the Greek translation of  the Hebrew term.   I read Ecclesiastes about 14 years ago while a Presbyterian and took a class on the book.  In fact, it was one of the first books of the Bible that I read from beginning to end, the book of Matthew being another early read.  At that time, I was utterly bewildered as to who Qoheleth could possibly be, and I was also surprised at the number of phrases from Ecclesiates that have entered common parlance (the same is true for Proverbs as in 'the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong').  Other than that, I was pretty much lost.  Much of the class discussion, at least that I remember, centered around why Ecclesiastes was included in the Bible at all since the author expresses a sketchy pessimism and a resigned, somewhat hopeless air about the purpose of life and man's destiny.

But, Qoheleth, like Job didn't know about the good news, the gospel!  Thus how could he be anything but a bit skeptical and resigned?  The concept of an afterlife grew slowly in Biblical times and didn't really take hold until the 1st or 2nd century B.C.?   I believe the Maccabees were familiar with the concept.  Another wisdom book, The Wisdom of Solomon, speaks of life after death, but it's written in 50 B.C. unlike Ecclesiastes which dates to a good 250 years earlier.

Cain's Offering Revisited

Some time ago, I wondered why God was dissatisfied with Cain's offering. John Paul II provided some insight as I noted here.  The June 2012 Magnificat offers more insight from Saint Ephrem the Syrian.  He writes: 

Abel was very discriminate in his choice of offerings, whereas Cain showed no such discrimination.  Abel selected and offered the choicest of his first born and of his fat ones, while Cain either offered young grains or [certain] fruits that are found at the same time as the young grains.  Even if his offering had been smaller than that of his brother, it would have been as acceptable as the offering of his brother, had he not brought it with such negligence.  They made their offerings alternately;  one offered a lamb of his flock, the other the fruits of the earth.  But because Cain had taken such little regard for the first offering that he offered, God refused to accept it in order to teach Cain how he was to make an offering. For Cain had bulls and calves and an abundance of animals and birds that he could have offered.  But he offered none of these on that day when he offered the first fruits of his land.

What would have been the harm if he had brought ripe grains or if he had chosen the fruits of his best trees?  Although this would have been easy, he did not do even this.  It was not that he had other intentions for his best grains or his best fruits;  it was that, in the mind of the offerer, there was no love for the one who would receive his offering.  Therefore, because Cain brought his offering with negligence, God despised it on that account, lest Cain think either that God did not know of Cain's negligence, or that God preferred the offerings rather than those who were offering them.

From:  St. Ephrem the Syrian:  Selected Prose Works, The  Fathers of the Church, Vol. 91, 1994, CUA Press.