Death in Qoheleth and Egyptian Biographies of the Late Period

Revising his 1997 doctoral dissertation for the University of Chicago, Burkes looks closely at the Hebrew book of the Bible that was translated into Greek as Ecclesiastes. He finds the problem of death to be its driving theme and main concern. Of all the obsessions in the Bible, he says, only here is it death, which is part of what makes the book distinctive and often considered bizarre.