{"id":6090,"date":"2009-12-18T02:39:24","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T06:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=6090"},"modified":"2009-12-18T02:39:24","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T06:39:24","slug":"hebel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/18\/hebel\/","title":{"rendered":"“Hebel”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mist\"<\/p>\n

David Richter thinks<\/a> that Alter has \u201cskewered\u201d Frye because Frye says that hebel or \u201cvanity\u201d in the KJV sometimes means \u201cdense fog.\u201d In the passage Alter has in mind Frye says, \u201cWe see by means of light and air: if we could see air we could see nothing else, and would be living in the dense fog that is one of the roots of the word \u2018vanity\u2019\u201d (The Great Code<\/em> 124). But there is nothing here that attributes the sense of \u201cdense fog\u201d to the author of Ecclesiastes. The point Frye is making has to do with mist or vapor, not density. He asks to us imagine a world in which we could see the air. The image for such a world would be fog or mist or vapor.<\/p>\n

Shortly before this Frye has said, \u201cThis word (hebel) has a metaphorical kernel of fog, mist, or vapor, a metaphor that recurs in the New Testament (James 4:14). It thus acquires a derived sense of \u2018emptiness,\u2019 the root meaning of the Vulgate\u2019s vanitas. To put Koheleth\u2019s central intuition into the form of its essential paradox: all things are full of emptiness\u201d (123). What is it here, in a passage that Alter conveniently ignores and that says nothing about density, that calls for skewering? It is well established that the literal meaning of hebel is \u201cbreath, breeze, vapor.\u201d Tremper Longman III indicates that the word is usually used in a metaphorical way, signifying primarily either \u201cmeaningless\u201d or \u201ctransitory\u201d (The Book of Ecclesiastes<\/em> [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman\u2019s, 1998], 62). Frye\u2019s \u201cemptiness\u201d (vanitas in the Vulgate) appears to me to embrace both primary meanings. A great deal of ink has been spilt over what the author of Ecclesiastes meant by hebel, including the claim that the word refers primarily to \u201cnothingness\u201d (J.E. McKenna, \u201cThe Concept of Hebel in the Book of Ecclesiastes,\u201d Scottish Journal of Theology<\/em> 45 [1992]: 19\u201328).<\/p>\n

Some biblical critics agree with Alter that one of the primary meanings of hebel is \u201cinsubstantiality.\u201d See, for example, Douglas B. Miller, Symbol and Rhetoric in Ecclesiastes: The Place of Hebel in Qohelet\u2019s Work <\/em>(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002) and Andr\u00e9 Barucq, Eccl\u00e9siaste<\/em> (Paris: Beauchesne, 1968), 55\u20136. But not all agree. According to Michael V. Fox and Bruno Pennacchini, hebel means \u201cabsurd\u201d (Fox, \u201cThe Meaning of Hebel for Qohelet.\u201d Journal of Biblical Literature <\/em>105 [September 1986]: 409\u201327; Pennacchini, \u201cQohelet ovvero il libra degli assurdi.\u201d Euntes docete<\/em> 30 [1977]: 491\u2013501). According to Edwin M. Good it means \u201cincongruous\u201d or \u201cironic\u201d (Irony in the Old Testament<\/em> [London: SPCK, 1965], 176\u201383). The point is that the literature on the meaning of hebel is extensive, and it illustrates that Alter\u2019s confident assertion about wispiness is open to debate\u2013\u2013which is why it has been translated in so many different ways: vain, vanity, emptiness, nothing, futile, futility, meaningless, incomprehensible, incongruous, ironic, nothingness, and transitory, among others.<\/p>\n

I think Michael Happy is right in saying<\/a> that to focus on minutiae is to miss the point, but even the minutiae need to be fairly assessed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Richter thinks that Alter has \u201cskewered\u201d Frye because Frye says that hebel or \u201cvanity\u201d in the KJV sometimes means \u201cdense fog.\u201d In the passage Alter has in mind Frye says, \u201cWe see by means of light and air: if we could see air we could see nothing else, and would be living in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11,16,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-bob-denham","category-frye-and-contemporary-scholarship"],"yoast_head":"\n"Hebel" - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/18\/hebel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Hebel" - 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