Comparative Philosophy Commons^™

Qohelet And Camus: Answering The Absurd, Christian A. Sanchez

Global Tides

Albert Camus contributed greatly to the realm of philosophy with the promotion of absurdism—the school of thought hinging on the belief in the “absurd.” Essentially the divorce between man’s desire for meaning and the universe devoid of meaning, the absurd is the dominating theme of his works. Three millennia beforehand in the Hebrew Bible, the rich discourse of Qohelet was recorded as the book of Ecclesiastes. Qohelet, a word simply meaning teacher, concludes that all is “vanity,” or in Hebrew, “hebel.” This central notion of hebel permeates his discourse on the essence of life here on earth. This article …