Happy 2006 everyone! I truly wish everyone the best for this upcoming year.

I was pleasantly surprised (tickled pink, actually) to see Loren Rosson at The Busybody and Christopher Heard at Higgaion interact with my “Happy New Year — Qohelet Style” post.

Loren, in his post “The Wisdom of Ecclesiastes,” translates my post so to speak “in terms to which non-deists can relate,” while Chris — the equally if not even more estimable scholar of the Old Testament Hebrew Bible — offered some excellent critiques of some aspects of my interpretation in his post “On Ecclesiastes.”

While I don’t have the time right now to fully respond to Chris’s comments (new semester starting and all!), I will say that he may have caught me red-handed in a hermeneutical jump in regards to “life under the sun,” but I will maintain that הבל hebel is a terminus technicus of sorts for Qohelet and therefore a specialized meaning within the book is not out of the ordinary.

So, in the words of “The Governator” (who according to this Bible Code will be re-elected in 2006), “I’ll be back.”