{"collection":"Hypertext Bible","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_bib_web_ecc_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_bib_web_ecc_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_bib_web_ecc_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bib/web/ecc.htm","summary":"This is the biblical book of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet), a work of Hebrew wisdom literature traditionally attributed to a king of Jerusalem \u2014 likely a literary persona of Solomon. The text's central argument is that all human endeavor \u2014 labor, wealth, pleasure, wisdom, and achievement \u2014 is \"vanity\" (Hebrew *hevel*, meaning breath or vapor): fleeting, purposeless, and unable to provide lasting meaning. The Preacher supports this through autobiographical reflection: having possessed extraordinary wealth, wisdom, and pleasure, he found none of it ultimately satisfying, since death equalizes wise and foolish alike and everything one builds will pass to strangers. The work is notably distinctive for its cyclical cosmology \u2014 rivers, sun, and wind repeat endlessly, history repeats, and nothing is truly new \u2014 which frames human striving as futile against an indifferent natural order. Against this bleak backdrop, the text pragmatically recommends finding joy in simple, present pleasures (eating, drinking, enjoying one's work) as gifts from God, while urging reverence toward a God whose purposes remain opaque to human understanding. Ecclesiastes stands apart from mainstream biblical optimism by honestly confronting mortality, injustice, and the limits of wisdom, making it one of the most philosophically candid books in the Hebrew Bible.","tags":["English Bible Translations","Modern Bible Translations","New Testament"],"text":null,"title":"World English Bible: Ecclesiastes","tradition":"Hypertext Bible","translated_text":null,"word_count":5715}