Thomas Bolin, «Rivalry and Resignation: Girard and Qoheleth on the Divine-Human Relationship», Vol. 86 (2005) 245-259
This article looks at the repeated gnomic phrase in the Book
of Qoheleth, "All is vanity and a chasing after wind" (NRSV) and reads it as a
disjunctive parallelism in which the terms lbh
and xwr denote mortality and the divine spirit,
respectively, thus showing the sense of the phrase to be, "All is mortal, but
strives for immortality". Using René Girard’s concept of mimetic rivalry
clarifies this reading of the proverb, and shows it to be a concise expression
of a major theme in the Book of Qoheleth, viz., the author’s thoughts on the
difference between humanity and God, understood as paradoxical relationship
based on both similarity and difference between humans and the divine. More
importantly, Girard helps to understand more deeply how and why Qoheleth views
human proximity with the divine as the cause of conflict and pain in human life.
Because this tension is also evident in numerous other biblical and
extra-biblical texts, caution must be exercised, in referring to the Book of
Ecclesiastes as a "radical" or "heterodox" writing.
Rivalry and Resignation: Girard and Qoheleth 257
tricked by his patron Ea into refusing immortality, thus re-establishing
humanity’s position as the wise servants of the gods (47). The remark of
Anu after Adapa’s refusal, that Adapa be returned to his own, mortal,
world, demonstrates the re-establishment of distance, as in the case of
the conclusion to The Epic of Gilgamesh.
In the OT, perhaps the parade example of mimetic rivalry between
humans and God is the creation story of Genesis 2-3. Adam and Eve
exist in a state of internal mediation. They live in a paradise with the
power of divine knowledge and immortality literally “in the midst†of
their existence. When they usurp divine wisdom, Yahweh sees this as
a threat. His fear in 3,25 that human beings will become like the gods
is an expression of the mimetic rivalry — having what the mediator
has makes the subject a replacement of the mediator. To re-establish
his authority as superior, Yahweh creates a situation of external
mediation through the expulsion of the man and the woman from the
garden and the posting of a divine sentry to prevent any return (48). In
Genesis 11 one can also clearly see in the attempt to build the tower
with its top in the heavens, an example of human aggression vis-Ã -vis
the divine. Similarly, Yahweh’s confounding of human language, so
that humankind must cease its building, is another example of the
institution of distance between God and his rival subordinates (49).
While Qoheleth does not use mythic narrative to express this idea,
he is clearly concerned with the suffering that derives from humanity’s
attempts to seize what is proper to God. Qoheleth, to use Girardian
terms, repeatedly stresses to his reader that the relationship between
humankind and God is one of external mediation (50). He resolves the
(47) BARTON, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of
Ecclesiastes, 100; S. IZRE’EL, Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the
Power of Life and Death (Winona Lake 2001) 120-125.
(48) Cf., GIRARD, Things Hidden, 142. On the relationship between Qoheleth
and Genesis 2–3, see R.N. WHYBRAY, “Qoheleth as a Theologianâ€, Qohelet in the
Context of Wisdom, 239-265; DE JONG, “God in the Book of Qoheletâ€, 165;
PERRY, Dialogues with Kohelet, 24-26. H. Simian-Yofre (“Conoscere la
Sapienza: Qohelet e Genesi 2–3â€, Il Libro del Qohelet, 314-336) specifically
notes how both texts understand wisdom as the realization of limitations.
(49) P. Davies (Whose Bible Is It Anyway? [JSOTSS 204; Sheffield 1995] 95-
113) reads the Abraham cycle as a story of rivalry between Yahweh and
Abraham.
(50) Schoors (“God in Qohelethâ€, Schöpfungsplan und Heilsgeschichte.
Festschrift für Ernst Haag zum 70. Geburtstag [ed. R. BROSHDSCHEIDT – T.
MENDE] [Trier 2002] 251-270) argues that the term µyhla in the book may be best
translated as “divinityâ€.
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