Article Sidebar
Published:
Sep 15, 2021Keywords:
Article Details
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publishing rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Read more here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Main Article Content
Transformative joy in Qohelet: A thread that faintly glistens
Annalie E. Steenkamp-Nel
Abstract
Qohelet prompted a rich body of work reflecting the breadth of the Old Testament book’s appeal. Few, however, interpret Qohelet’s spiritual dimension, incarnated in life. I will opt to offer an overarching framework that holds the book together and that was until now absent in the discourse on Qohelet. It will be argued that spiritual transformation provides a fruitful theoretical framework for Qohelet. I will indicate that Qohelet undertook a spiritual journey in which his experiences fostered profound spiritual transformation, and ultimately a new paradigm leapfrogging old spiritual infrastructure and choices. The framework that evolved from this effort delineates four phases, stages or movements. In order to provide clarity and enhance understanding of this concept, the analysis will be done on the basis of the leitwort (or keyword) ‘joy’. The findings point to the importance of spiritual transformation, directing readers towards a new spirituality. The article concludes with suggestions on future directions regarding Qohelet as a ‘bridge book’ to the New Testament.
