Journal: Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
Volume: DBSJ 18:1 (NA 2013)
Article: A Review Article: "Ecclesiastes"
Author: Robert V. McCabe

DBSJ 18 (2013) p. 83

A Review Article: Ecclesiastes

Robert V. McCabe

Reviewed by Robert V. McCabe1

Ecclesiastes, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary, by Peter Enns. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011. 238 pp. $25.00.

Peter Enns’s commentary is a noteworthy addition to a growing number of commentaries on the book of Ecclesiastes. He earned a M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary (1989) and a Ph.D. from Harvard University (1994). He taught at Westminster from 1994 to 2008, initially as Associate Professor of Old Testament and, subsequently, as Professor of Old Testament and Hermeneutics (2005-2008). Along with Tremper Longman, he edited the Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry, and Writings.2 In 2009 this volume received Christianity Today’s “Award of Merit” and the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association’s “2009 Christian Book of the Year” award in the Bible Reference and Study category. He is currently an Affiliate Professor in Biblical Studies at Eastern University in St. Davids, PA. While Enns is a well known author of many articles and books, he may be best known for his two controversial books: Inspiration and Incarnation3 and The Evolution of Adam.4

Enns has written several articles and books on subjects related to Wisdom Literature, including Ecclesiastes. Baker published his Poetry and Wisdom in 1997. In this work, he provides over eight hundred annotated bibliographical entries on this subject. Besides editing Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry, and Writings, he also contributed an article to that volume, “Ecclesiastes 1, Book of.” Because of his expertise in Wisdom Literature, Enns is well qualified to write a commentary on this biblical book.

DBSJ 18 (2013) p. 84

Overview

Enns’s commentary is part of the Eerdmans series, The Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary, edited by J. Gordon McConville and Craig Bartholomew. The commentators in this series focus on past and present theological readings of biblical texts. In keeping with this objective, each commentary involves a paragraph-by-paragraph interaction with a biblical text. The commentaries further bridge the gap between exegesis and theology. Ecclesiastes is a significant model of this goal.

Enns’s work is divided into five sections: “Introduction” (1-29), “Commentary” (30-116), “Theological Horizons of Ecclesiastes” (117-35), “The Contr...