Everything Is Meaningless and Then You Die: How Christian Prosperity Gospel Colonized Biblical Nihilism for Motivational Bullshit

The Book of Ecclesiastes—קֹהֶלֶת (Qohelet, "the Assembler/Preacher/Teacher"), traditionally attributed to Solomon but likely composed in the late Persian or early Hellenistic period (fourth-third century BCE)—stands as the Hebrew Bible's most philosophically bleak text: twelve chapters of relentless existential pessimism declaring that everything is הֶבֶל (hevel, vapor/breath/meaninglessness), that wisdom offers no ultimate advantage over folly since both the wise and foolish die, that righteousness doesn't guarantee prosperity while wickedness often succeeds, that pleasure-seeking proves futile, that toil produces nothing lasting, and that the only reasonable response to life's absurdity is to eat, drink, and find fleeting enjoyment before the inevitable grave. This is Scripture's middle finger to optimistic theology, its sustained meditation on cosmic futility, its philosophical acknowledgment that under תַּחַת הַשָּׁמֶשׁ (tachat hashemesh, "under the sun") existence is fundamentally absurd and meaning is perpetually elusive.