Q 01/05

Which number one hit by the Byrds takes its lyrics almost word for word from Ecclesiastes chapter 3?

A) Mr. Tambourine Man

B) Turn! Turn! Turn!

C) Eight Miles High

D) My Back Pages

Answer · why

B) Turn! Turn! Turn!

Turn! Turn! Turn! was written by Pete Seeger, who added only the title refrain and the closing lines. The Byrds' recording is known as the American ch...

Q 02/05

Ecclesiastes 1:9, the source of a famous saying, declares that there is nothing new under what?

A) The heavens

B) The moon

C) The sun

D) The stars

Answer · why

C) The sun

The sun closes the Teacher's complaint that whatever has been done will only be done again. He uses the same three-word phrase 29 times as his shortha...

Q 03/05

In the King James Bible, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes opens his speech by declaring that all is what?

A) Folly

B) Vanity

C) Madness

D) Darkness

Answer · why

B) Vanity

Vanity here means emptiness rather than conceit, which is why many modern Bibles say 'meaningless' or 'futile' instead. The same cry returns near the ...

Q 04/05

Which American novelist took the title of his first novel, set in Paris and Pamplona, from Ecclesiastes 1:5?

A) F. Scott Fitzgerald

B) John Steinbeck

C) William Faulkner

D) Ernest Hemingway

Answer · why

D) Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway also printed the passage as an epigraph, beside Gertrude Stein's remark about a lost generation. British readers first met the novel ...

Q 05/05

Jewish and Christian tradition credits Ecclesiastes to which king of Israel, called David's son in its first verse?

A) Jehoshaphat

B) Solomon

C) Josiah

D) Rehoboam

Answer · why

B) Solomon

Solomon is never actually named in the text, which only hints at him through a fabulously rich and wise royal narrator. Its late style of Hebrew leads...