The commentators sometimes treat the Hebrew word qohelet("Preacher"; 1:1-2, 12; 7:27; 12:8-10) as a proper name.1However the fact that the article is present on the Hebrew word in 12:8, and perhaps in 7:27, seems to indicate that qoheletis a title: "the preacher"or "the teacher."
Internal references point to Solomon as this preacher (cf. 1:1, 12-2:26; 2:4-9; 12:9). Both Jewish and Christian interpreters believed Solomon was the writer until the eighteenth century. With the rise of literary and historical Bible criticism a widespread rejection of Solomonic authorship set in. Rejection of Solomonic authorship rests mainly on linguistic factors (vocabulary and syntax) that some scholars feel were more characteristic of a time much later than Solomon's, namely, about 450-250 B.C.2Conservative scholars have refuted this linguistic argument.3Several more or less conservative scholars have rejected Solomonic authorship.4Yet there is no information in the Bible that would eliminate Solomon as the writer.
Assuming that Solomon wrote the book in its entirety, he must have done so during his lifetime and probably during his reign (971-931 B.C.). It has seemed probable to some expositors that he may have written Song of Solomon in his youth, Proverbs in his middle life, and Ecclesiastes in his old age (cf. 2:1-11; 11:9; 12:1). This theory rests on the contents of the three inspired Bible books that he evidently wrote, specifically clues in these books about the age of their writer.
"Ecclesiastes is best placed after his apostasy, when both his recent turmoil and repentance were still fresh in his mind."5
