A worldview dialogue or parallel development of thought: ancient parallels to the book of Qoheleth 12:7

The article deals with the ancient parallels of the fifth century B.C.E. to Qoh . 12:7 (“And the dust shall return to the earth, which it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it”). First of all, these parallels include passages from Euripides: “That which is of the earth returns to the earth, the same which is born of the etheric seed returns to the heavenly pole” (“Chrysippus”; 839, 8-11 [ed. Nauck]); “the spirit is to the ether (πνεῦμα μὲν πρὸς αἰθέρα), and the body to the earth” (“The Suppliants,” 533-534; see also: fr. 971 [ed. Nauck]). Another parallel to Qoh. 12:7 is found in an Attic public inscription commemorating the Athenian soldiers killed at Potidaea (432 B.C.E.): “The ether took (their) souls, [the earth (took)] the bodies...” (IG I³, 1179, eds. Kirchhoff et al.). This view correlates with Empedocles’ assertion that there is neither birth (φύσις) nor death, but only the mixing and subsequent separation of mixed elements (cf.: B 8-9, 11, 15 [DK]), and the idea of Anaxagoras, who said that “birth and death are tantamount” to “change (ἀλλλοιοῦσθαι) only” ( Arist. GC I, 314a.14-15). In Euripides’ tragedy “Helen”, the heroine expresses the idea that all “mind” (ὁ νοῦς) “does not live” on the death of the body, it dies “in immortal ether”; but in ether the “immortal” γνώμη which the “mind” of man “possesses” persists. In analysing these fragments, the author concludes that one would rather assume a parallel development of the concepts of the afterlife in the Mediterranean region, rather than a direct influence of Hellenic religious doctrines on Jewish thought or a philosophical dialogue between Judaeans and Hellenes at the time the Book of Qoheleth was written. Keywords: Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), ancient genres of dialogue, Euripides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, immortality of spirit/soul, γνώμη, νοῦς.