The Texts And Versions Of The Book Of Ben Sira

The present volume brings together studies by some of the best specialists on the texts and versions of the Book of Ben Sira. Each textual form is placed in its own historical context and analysed in regard to what explains the typical changes it contains.

This volume deals with the Hebrew texts of all nine manuscripts discovered between 1896 and 1982 of the Book of Ben Sira that is reckoned among the deuterocanonical biblical wisdom literature and was written in Jerusalem about 180 BCE. In the first part of this volume the Hebrew manuscripts are offered in facsimile, i.e. presenting the real textual state of the recovered texts. The second part of this volume offers in a more convenient and functional way than in former text editions a synopsis of all Hebrew Ben Sira texts which are available in more than one manuscript.

An insightful and groundbreaking analysis of the Hebrew text of the Book of Ben Sira, a second-century BCE wisdom text that is part of the Old Testament Apocrypha. William Robert Taylor, a respected biblical scholar, examines the vocabulary, syntax, and stylistic features of the Hebrew text, as well as its relationship to the Greek and Syriac versions. With careful attention to the nuances of the text and its cultural context, The Originality of the Hebrew Text of Ben Sira is a significant contribution to the study of Jewish and Christian scripture. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This volume is a revised and enlarged version of the author's Ph.D. dissertation (1999). It gives a comprehensive analysis of the morphosyntax and syntax of the tenses in the Hebrew text of Ben Sira. Due attention is paid to the heterogeneous character of the textual evidence (three manuscripts from the Desert of Judah and six mediaeval manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza), which complicates any linguistic study of Ben Sira. A descriptive analysis is complemented by a comparison with other contemporaneous, earlier, and later forms of Hebrew. It is argued that the Hebrew of Ben Sira is a literary language in its own right, rather than an imitation of Biblical Hebrew or a predecessor of Mishnaic Hebrew.

Now available from SBL Press Thirteen essays, some in German and others in English, tackle the complicated history of textual transmission of Sirach. This book presents the proceedings of an international conference held in 2014 in Eichstaett, Germany on the text of Ben Sira within its historical contexts.Contributors include James K. Aitken, Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, Franz Böhmisch, Anthony J. Forte SJ, Jan Joosten, Otto Kaiser, Siegfried Kreuzer, Jean-Sébastien Rey, Werner Urbanz, Knut Usener, Oda Wischmeyer, Markus Witte, Benjamin G. Wright, and Burkard M. Zapff. Features: A sociocultural and theological history of Sirach Philological and textual problems of the Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions Translation strategies based on Greek, Syriac, and Latin text traditions and related hermeneutical questions

The volume publishes the papers read at an international conference on the Book of Ben Sira, held at the Shime'on Centre, Pápa, Hungary. Renowned specialists of the field treat among others various questions of early Jewish wisdom thought, the interpretation of history, and canon forming.