Toward a Redaction History of Kohelet Rabbah: A Study in the Composition and Redaction of Kohelet Rabbah 7:7

This paper examines the redaction process of Kohelet Rabbah, the long midrash on Ecclesiastes, so as to identify features specific to the late redaction. The purpose is therefore to study the text in light of its close parallels ancient and late, and to determine the relationship between these rabbinic works. I attempt to reconstruct the redactional processes and observe the ways in which the editor incorporated the traditional material which he had received into a single whole. The reconstruction of the redactional processes is helpful to observe how the original midrashic material was adapted, altered, and at times distorted by its formulator, while being given a fine new literary garb in other cases.