Dear Friend,

 
Within the rich library of the Hebrew Bible, one book stands apart for its raw, unfiltered confrontation with life's deepest uncertainties.

When the ancient rabbis debated its place in the canon, they wrestled with its jarring candor and apparent contradictions. It doesn't promise that the righteous will always prosper, nor does it guarantee that human effort leaves a permanent mark on the world.

The book is Ecclesiastes. And what it offers instead of comfort is something rarer: one man sitting down at the end of a long life to honestly confront the hardest questions of human existence. Does anything I do matter? Is there justice in the world? How do I live knowing everything ends?

I'm writing because UATX Professor J.J. Kimche has made his acclaimed 6-part lecture series on this extraordinary book available, completely free, and I wanted you to be among the first to have it.

For 2,300 years, the greatest minds in Western civilization have wrestled with these questions through this text from St. Jerome and Martin Luther to Albert Camus.

Now Professor Kimche, who teaches Religion and Philosophy at UATX, brings all of this together in six unforgettable lectures:

• The Bible's Great Philosopher — Why Ecclesiastes is unique in all of scripture

   

• Is Everything Futile? — The devastating problem at the heart of the book

   

• How to Find Joy in a Futile World — Kohelet's surprising answers

   

• Where Is God? — The theology of a book that refuses easy comfort

   

• How to Face Death — The most haunting poem in all of literature

   

• What Does It All Mean? — 2,300 years of interpretation, from the Talmud to Camus

You can start watching the full course here, completely free:

http://connect.uaustin.org/ecclesiastes-course

Thank you for being part of what we're building at UATX, and for believing that serious ideas still deserve serious attention.

Sincerely,

Dave Ruth

Provost