Septuagint: Ecclesiastes

The book of Ecclesiastes is generally attributed to King Solomon, however, he is not mentioned anywhere by name. Within the book the author is mentioned as being someone called the ‘ecclêsiastou’ in Greek, meaning approximately ‘female cleric,’ and qōhelet in Hebrew, possibly meaning "female member of the community." The Masoretic term probably originated in the Egyptian term qảỉ ḥnủt, meaning "high queen," suggesting the author was Solomon’s first wife. If qảỉ ḥnủt were transliterated directly into Canaanite in the era of Solomon, it would have been qhnt, which could have been rendered as qhlt by mistransliterating an L for an N.

The current view of the academic community is to regard the text as a Persian or Greek era text, something that dates to long after the time of Solomon. There is no consensus among academics as to whether it is a Persian or Greek era text, and views are largely biased by the researcher’s view of the text, and whether it looks like it is more influenced by Plato or Zoroastrianism to that specific researcher. In all fairness, the text’s constant references to the dichotomy of light and darkness is similar to some of Plato’s work, as well as the central conflict within Zoroastrianism of light versus darkness, however, the constant mentioning of ‘everything under the Sun’ could equally point to an Egyptian influence of Amen-Ra worshipers, Atum devotees, or even Atenists. Moreover, the philosophical view of the texts, in which the toil of this life is seen as insignificant in comparison to the life in heaven, is far more in tune with Egyptian New-Kingdom era philosophy than Greek or Persian philosophy, indicating that the text may well date back to the time of Solomon.

As most major Christians denominations now agree that the Proverbs ‘of Solomon’ include proverbs copied from the ancient Egyptian text called the ‘Wisdom of Amenemope’ (or Instructions of Amenemope), there is a clear precedent for New-Kingdom era Egyptian wisdom literature influencing the works traditionally associated with King Solomon, and therefore, there is no reason to rule out Ecclesiastes as dating back to circa 950 BC. As archaeologists have yet to find evidence that King Solomon existed, he is generally considered to be a fictional character by historians, however, the fact that the Book of Proverbs attributed to him includes quotes from an ancient Egyptian source does lend some credibility to his being a historical person.