The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology 3110194996, 9783110194999

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Contents
Abbreviations
Methodological and hermeneutical trends in modern exegesis on the Book of Ben Sira
Searching for structure and redaction in Ben Sira. An investigation of beginnings and endings
An historico-anthropological reading of the work of Ben Sira
Ben Sira and Qumran
The hymn to the creation (Sir 42:15–43:33): a polemic text?
“Full Wisdom is from the Lord“. Sir 1:1-10 and its place in Israel’s Wisdom literature
The secrets of God. Investigation into Sir 3:21-24
The true sage or the Servant of the Lord (Sir 51:13-30 Gr)
A common background of Ben Sira and the Psalter. The concept of hrAT in Sir 32:14-33:3 and the Torah Psalms
The interpretation of the Wisdom tradition of the Torah within Ben Sira
Ben Sira’s doctrine on the discipline of the tongue. An intertextual and synchronic analysis
The metaphor of “falling”: hermeneutic key to the Book of Sirach
Christian interpretations in the syriac version of Sirach
Blessing of the sage, prophecy of the scribe: from Ben Sira to Matthew
Sirach, or the metamorphosis of the sage
Backmatter

Citation preview

The Wisdom of Ben Sira

≥

Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies Edited by

Friedrich V. Reiterer, Beate Ego, Tobias Nicklas

Volume 1

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

The Wisdom of Ben Sira Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology Edited by

Angelo Passaro and Giuseppe Bellia

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

앝 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI 앪 to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The wisdom of Ben Sira : studies on tradition, redaction, and theology / edited by Angelo Passaro and Giuseppe Bellia. v. cm. ⫺ (Deuterocanonical and cognate literature studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-11-019499-9 (alk. paper) 1. Bible. O.T. Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus ⫺ Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Passaro, Angelo. II. Bellia, Giuseppe. BS1765.52.W57 2008 2291.406⫺dc22 2008007365

ISBN 978-3-11-019499-9 ISSN 1865-1666 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. 쑔 Copyright 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany Cover Design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin

Preface By contrast with the good reputation of its gentle and prudent author, the Book of Sirach shows itself to be laden with not a few concerns and pervaded with many enquiries as a result of the great number of questions which it continues to raise: philological, exegetical, literary, historical, theological and even confessional – from the moment when its reception among those texts which ‘defile the hands’ not only divided, as it continues to divide, the Christian tradition from the Rabbinic, but also, within those very confessions, has separated the judgement of synagogues and churches. It has been the cause of division even from the remotest times, if it is true that the book, which was not received into the Hebrew canon, was nonetheless already read at Qumran, two centuries before the so-called turning point of Jamnia. In the Christian tradition, the text is already present in the ancient Vetus Latina but, some centuries later, it would not be accepted by the fiery Dalmatian (St. Jerome) who refused to include it among the other inspired books. In the more recent history of interpretation, there is no doubt that the encumbrance of Luther’s belittling estimation (Est sicut talmud ex variis libris collectus) has weighed down on our book. His words have been transmitted to the present day as if as a platitude, consistently on the part of commentators, even if in more recent years help has come with a slow reversal of the tendency, something which has made the book the object of rigorous and specialist studies which have brought to light aspects and themes of great interest. The question of canonicity, however, could be one of the keys to reading the many problems which the text poses, starting from the fact that it is precisely our book which is among the most certain and authoritative witnesses for the tripartite architecture of the sacred books of the incipient Hebrew canon (Law, Prophets and other Writings). This witness is transmitted not only on the part of the grandson-translator, as we read in his Prologue (1, 8 and 23), but of the complex structure of the work as intended by his sage-ancestor (38:31–39:1) which seems to represent the ideal order of the library of the Greek-speaking diaspora of Alexandra. Already, at that time, the Jews of that city were employed in intense literary activity translating the prophetic books with the aim of helping those members of the community who were no longer familiar with the Hebrew language and so had need of reliable and authoritative versions in order to get to know their own tradition and to live according to the customs of the Fathers. More than for other books, an exegesis for Ben Sira is necessary which takes account of the canonical tradition but does not allow itself to be ensnared by the romantic ideal of the original document, being able to read transversely and objectively the different textual traditions so as to avoid falling

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into those conjectural reconstructions which, after all, are supported only by extra-textual presuppositions In the judgement of many, however, the principal means of access for the understanding of this book remains the critical awareness of the methodological and hermeneutical problems that are bound to the text. To understand what function the organising structure performs in a book like ours, which manifests complex and elegant compositional strategies, it would help to have a clearer perception of the cultural and theological context in which that cultural and theological process that goes under the name of the “sapientialisation” of Scripture begins. It is a current of thought running through the entire sapiential Pentateuch, which proclaims the indisputable self-identification of the Book of the Torah with Wisdom. This is a problematic and disputed identification which requires a demanding leap of degree at the theological level, imposing a bold rethinking of the concept of the Law, rather than a revisiting, and the attribution and predication to Wisdom of new characteristics, unheard-of as far as the existing sapiential tradition was concerned. A truly complex book, then, and one wholly discounted, situated on the edges of the canon, as we have said, one which puts more than one question, not only concerning the complicated state of affairs connected with its troubled textual transmission, but also precisely because of the multiplicity of texts recognised as “inspired”. A scribal work, composed of several compositional strata and several theological aims, which, in the end, challenges us with the radical and explosive question of the canonicity of the sacred books and, therefore, of the fundamental question of inspiration. However, the difficult theological questions, with their seriousness and contemporary relevance, cannot make us forget the questions, which are still open and involving, posed by the book because of its more exact systematisation within the whole of the sapiential literature. The tradition of the wise scribes of Israel had, for a long time, gained a connotation of judicious and practical enquiry, concerned with grasping the thread of the presence of God hidden beneath the transitory nature of the every-day, without neglecting to engage with the high questions of speculative theology. For this reason, more than one question vital for the faith of Israel had remained open and unsolved within its heritage. In the face of these theological problems, which touch the heart of the religious identity of a people, the work of Ben Sira has been interpreted and judged in quite diverse ways: it has been read as a book of synthesis which attempts to make up for the replies that had never been given to the realistic challenge of Job and the corrosive criticism of Qoheleth, trying to renew the threads of traditional wisdom around the leading theme of the fear of the Lord; or it has been seen as the careful interpretation of an enlightened conservative who, in a time of change, still not marked by the traumas of

Preface

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the Maccabean crisis, is seeking without too much trouble to draw the heritage of his own tradition towards the new one emerging from the Jewish diaspora in the Hellenistic world. Many claim that we are faced with a text of an apologetic nature because it displays the characteristics of a book written in the office, a sort of “curial”, and, therefore, predictably conservative, product, preoccupied with the religious behaviour of the younger generation. Is it, in the end, a work which, in the grooves of the Jerusalem and Temple tradition, pursues the aim of restoring the truth of the faith against the autonomous enquiry of human wisdom, or is it just an honest and clever attempt at dialogue between the legitimate reasonings of the world and the wisdom given in the Law of Israel? And again: what are the true motives for its incomprehensible exclusion by the Rabbinic tradition, seeing that the hebraica veritas has been shown to be a specious and inconsistent justification. On the other hand, what are the more convincing reasons for its different reception into the Christian canon on the part of the great churches? To better understand the sense and the significance of these questions and, rather than conclusive answers, to offer an attempt at shared reflection which makes it possible to guarantee some firm points concerning the results shared by criticism and so to advance the work of research, there have been collected in this volume contributions aimed at specialists in the material with evident skills, organised according to a now acclaimed multidisciplinary viewpoint which develops around composition, tradition and theology. In connection with the making of this book, there are the advice, the help and the collaboration of those who deserve our gratitude. Without their discreet availability and their generous and disinterested support, this labour could not have seen the light. Particular thanks are due to Dr. Michael Tait for his sensitive work of translation; to Dr. Salvatore Tirrito for his expert support with IT; to Giusy Zarbo and Francesco Bonanno for their generous assistance; and to the understanding colleagues and students of the Department of Biblical Studies of the Theological Faculty of Sicily at Palermo. Grateful thanks are also due to Dr. Donato Falmi, the Editor-in-Chief of Città Nuova Editrice, Rome, who has given permission for the publication of this edition in English; to Prof. Dr. Vincenz Reiterer who suggested this book for the inauguration of this new series (DCL.St); and to Dr. Albrecht Döhnert and the publishing house of de Gruyter for accepting it. Palermo, April 2008

Angelo Passaro and Giuseppe Bellia

Contents Preface................................................................................................................

V

Abbreviations ..................................................................................................

XI

MAURICE GILBERT Methodological and hermeneutical trends in modern exegesis on the Book of Ben Sira ..........................................

1

JEREMY CORLEY Searching for structure and redaction in Ben Sira. An investigation of beginnings and endings ..........................................

21

GIUSEPPE BELLIA An historico-anthropological reading of the work of Ben Sira ................................................................................

49

ÉMILE PUECH Ben Sira and Qumran ..................................................................................

79

NURIA CALDUCH-BENAGES The hymn to the creation (Sir 42:15–43:33): a polemic text? ..............................................................................................

119

PANCRATIUS C. BEENTJES “Full Wisdom is from the Lord“. Sir 1:1-10 and its place in Israel’s Wisdom literature ............................

139

ANGELO PASSARO The secrets of God. Investigation into Sir 3:21-24 ......................................................................

155

SILVANA MANFREDI The true sage or the Servant of the Lord (Sir 51:13-30 Gr) ........................

173

JAN LIESEN A common background of Ben Sira and the Psalter. The concept of hr"AT in Sir 32:14–33:3 and the Torah Psalms ................

197

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Contents

FRIEDRICH VINCENZ REITERER The interpretation of the Wisdom tradition of the Torah within Ben Sira ......................................................................

209

ALEXANDER A. DI LELLA Ben Sira’s doctrine on the discipline of the tongue. An intertextual and synchronic analysis..................................................

233

ANTONINO MINISSALE The metaphor of “falling”: hermeneutic key to the Book of Sirach ....................................................

253

GIOVANNI RIZZI Christian interpretations in the syriac version of Sirach ......................

277

ROSARIO PISTONE Blessing of the sage, prophecy of the scribe: from Ben Sira to Matthew ..........................................................................

309

ANGELO PASSARO – GIUSEPPE BELLIA Sirach, or the metamorphosis of the sage ................................................

355

Authors .......................................................................................................... Index of Modern Authors .......................................................................... Index of References ...................................................................................... Index of Subjects............................................................................................

375 377 383 409

Abbreviations AnBib AncB ATA ATD BASOR BBB BEAT BeO BET BEThL BFChTh Bib BiKi BibOr Bijdr. BJSt BK BN BUL BZ BZAW BZfr BZNW CBC CBQ CBQ.MS CRB CSB CStP DB DBS DCLY DJD DSD EHAT EJ ErIs EstB EtB EThL FNT FRLANT

Analecta Biblica Anchor Bible Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen Das Alte Testament Deutsch Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bonner biblische Beiträge Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken Judentums Bibbia e Oriente Beiträge zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher Theologie Biblica Bibel und Kirche Biblica et Orientalia Bijdragen Brown Judaic Studies Biblischer Kommentar Biblische Notizen Biblioteca Universale Laterza Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Biblische Zeitfragen Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Cambridge biblical commentary Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly. Monograph series Cahiers de la Revue Biblique Studi Biblici (Bologna) Collectània Sant Pacià Dictionnaire de la Bible Dictionnaire de la Bible. Supplément Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook Discoveries in the Judean Desert Dead Sea Discoveries Exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament Encyclopaedia Judaica Eretz Israel Estudios biblicos Études bibliques Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Filologia Neotestamentaria Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments

XII FzB HALAT HBS Hen HThR HUCA ITS JBL JJS JNWSL JQR JSHRZ JSJ JSJ.S JSOT.S JSP JSPE.S JSSt JTSt KuI LCL LeDiv LHVT LoB MoBi NCBC NCCHS NEB NTA.NF OBO OrChr OrSuec OTL PIBA PSV PWCJS QD RAC RB RBén RdQ RHPhR RivBib

Abbreviations Forschung zur Bibel Baumgartner, W. (ed.), Hebräiches und Aramäiches Lexicon zum Alten Testament, Leiden 1967-1990 Herder Biblische Studien Henoch Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College annual Indian theological studies Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic languages Jewish Quarterly Review Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman period Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman period. Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha. Supplement Series Journal of Semitic studies Judaistische Texte und Studien Kirche und Israel Loeb Classical Library Lectio Divina Zorell, F., Lexicon Hebraicum Veteris Testamenti, Romae 1984 Leggere oggi la Bibbia Monde de la Bible The new century Bible commentary Newsletter. Congregational Christian Historical Society Neue Echter Bibel Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen. Neue Folge Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Oriens Christianus Orientalia Suecana The Old Testament Library Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association Parola Spirito e Vita Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies Quaestiones disputatae Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Revue Biblique Revue bénédictine de critique, d’histoire et de littérature religieuses Revue de Qumran Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses Rivista Biblica

Abbreviations RStB RTL Sal. SBF.CMa SBFLA SBL SBL.DS SBL.EJL SBL.MS SBL.SCS SCSt Sem. SSS StBi STDJ StPB StTh SubBi TDNT ThWAT TSAJ TU VT VT.S VuF WMANT WUNT ZAW ZKTh ZThK

XIII

Ricerche Storico Bibliche Revue théologique de Louvain Salesianum Studium Biblicum Franciscanum. Collectio maior Studii Biblici Franciscani liber annuus Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature. Dissertation series Society of Biblical Literature. Early Judaism and its Literature Society of Biblical Literature. Monograph series Society of Biblical Literature. Septuagint and Cognate Studies Septuagint and Cognate studies Semitica Semitic study series Studi Biblici (Brescia) Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Studia Post-biblica Studia theologica. Scandinavian Journal of Theology Subsidia biblica Kittel, G. – Friedrich, G. (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum. Supplements Vorträge und Forschungen Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift für katolische Theologie Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

Methodological and hermeneutical trends in modern exegesis on the Book of Ben Sira MAURICE GILBERT 1. One text or, better, several texts 1.1 In Hebrew May 13, 1896 marks the starting point of modern exegesis of the book traditionally called in the West “Ecclesiasticus”. On that day, in Cambridge, Solomon Schechter identified the Hebrew text of Sir 39:15b–40:8 on a sheet of ancient paper, shown to him in that morning by Agnes Smith Levis and her twin sister Margaret Dunlop Gibson. They had bought it shortly before in the Middle East and later il would be known that this text had come from the geniza(deposit) of the Qaraite synagogue in Cairo. At that time, in Hebrew, only the rabbinic quotations of Ben Sira were known. This discovery made in Cambridge prompted others in Oxford, in London, in Paris; then in 1901, all the Hebrew texts of Ben Sira until then discovered were published in facsimiles.1 The era of the first scientific works on the Hebrew book of Ben Sira had already begun and continued until the first World War, with commentaries and critical editions by I. Lévi (1898-1901),2 N. Peters (1902, 1905, 1913),3 and R. Smend (1906),4 to mention only the most valuable. These were convinced of the authenticity of the rediscovered Hebrew texts, but the definitive confirmation was still lacking. That came when the excavations at Qumran and Masada brought to light, in 1962-1964, some ancient Hebrew fragments of Ben Sira’s book:5 these new texts were similar enough to those discovered more than half a century before to convince everybody that truly, after so many centuries, the original text of the book of Ben Sira had been recovered. But this book was not complete in Hebrew. Already with the fragments of the four medieval manuscripts coming from the Cairo geniza, identified at the end of the 19th century, almost two third

1 2 3 4 5

Facsimiles of the Fragments Hitherto Recovered of the Book of Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew, Oxford-Cambridge 1901. L’Ecclésiastique; The Hebrew Text. Der jüngst Wieder aufgefundene hebräische Text des Buches Ecclesiasticus; Liber Iesu Filii Sirach; Das Buch Jesus Sirach. Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach. BAILLET – MILIK – DE VAUX, Textes des grottes de Qumran, 75-77; SANDERS, The Psalms Scroll, 79-85; YADIN, The Ben Sira Scroll from Masada.

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of the book were published, and the later discoveries will not change the case: in 1931, a fragment of a new manuscript (Ms E) came to light,6 as in 1982 another from a sixth one (Ms F),7 and in 1958-1959, two fragments of Ms B were also recovered.8 In fact the discovery of the Masada text launched a renewal of studies on Ben Sira. Here are mentioned works of new pioneers: Y. Yadin (1965),9 A. A. Di Lella (1966),10 J. Haspecker (1967),11 J. Hadot (1970),12 H. P. Rüger (1970),13 J. Marböck (1971),14 O. Rickenbacher (1973),15 G. L. Prato (1975).16 To these names we may today add others, among whom some who still pursuing research are present in this congress. This short historical survey should not mislead us about the reliability of the Hebrew texts of Ben Sira now available. The first problem concerns the edition of these rediscovered texts. In addition to the critical editions made at the beginning of last century, there are today two others, one published in 1973 by the Academy in Jerusalem17 and the other edited in 1997 in Leiden by P. C. Beentjes.18 Asimple comparison between these two reveals many different readings of the manuscripts. Moreover, if a present-day scholar has at his disposal the Facsimiles edited in 1901, or those of manuscripts discovered later, he will often feel that he lacks confidence in the material offered. Today, at least a common agreement on the readings of these manuscripts is surely desirable, and I whould wish to see one day soon new facsimiles, the most accurate possible. A second problem arises when, for a specific text, we have two or three witnesses in different manuscripts. These often give divergent texts. How to choose the original reading? Two scholars tried to answer this question. H. P. Rüger (1970)19 tried to show that, in these manuscripts, it is possible to suppose the confluence of two successive editions of the text, the first one (Hb I) being the only one assigned to Ben Sira. A. Minissale (1995)20 proposed a reconstruction of ten Hebrew passages of Ben Sira for which 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

MARCUS, A Fifth Ms of Ben Sira, 223-240. DI LELLA, The Newly Discovered, 226-238; BEENTJES, A Closer Look, 171-186. DI LELLA, The Recently, 153-167. Cf. note 5. The Hebrew Text of Sirach. Gottesfurcht bei Jesus Sirach. Penchant mauvais. Text und Textform. Weisheit im Wandel. Weisheitsperikopen bei Ben Sira. Il problema della teodicea. The Book of Ben Sira. The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew; ID., Errata et corrigenda, 375-377. Cf. note 13. La versione greca.

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we have at least two manuscripts, but clear and solid principles do not appear for choosing this reading instead of that. Here we can perceive the perplexity of scholars, who are often tempted to turn towards the ancient versions in Greek or in Syriac in order to resolve textual problems of the Hebrew text of Ben Sira. The critical choices made by P. W. Skehan (AncB, 1987)21 or by G. Sauer (ATD, 2000),22 not always similar, unfortunately prove the genuine complexity of the problem. However it seems to me that three theses can be accepted, over and above the global authenticity of the rediscovered texts: 1. These texts are not totally reliable. Often they propose doublets, which give two or even more different readings of the same passage. A critical analysis is therefore necessary in these cases, but not only in these. 2. The hypothesis of A. A. Di Lella (1966),23 according to which there are Hebrew retroversions from the Syriac version, should not underestimated. For the Hebrew text of Sir 51:13-30 in Ms B, this fact is evident. 3. The thesis of a second edition of the Hebrew text (Hb II), thesis assumed by many scholars, is also secure. The proof appears, for instance, in Ms A for Sir 11:15-16 and 16:15-16, which are additions known by some Greek manusripts as also by the Latin and Syriac versions. In conclusion, a hope may be expressed in form of a question: Shall we have one day a Hebrew text of Ben Sira (Hb I), on which a majority of scholars can agree?

1.2 In Greek There are two forms of the Greek version. The first one is transmitted by the great manuscripts written with uncial or capital letters, principally the Vaticanus, the Sinaiticus and the Alexandrinus. Their text gives the so called short text (Gr I). But there are other Greek manuscripts which transcribed a revised Greek version, extended with about 135 lines (Gr II): mainly the codex Venetus, written with uncial letters, and some manuscripts where the letters are no longer uncial, but minuscule, that is to say cursive. In 1909, J. H. A. Hart had published with a commentary the Gr II text of Ms 248.24 It is worth mentioning another very useful edition made by O. Wahl in 1974, in which he collected, verse by verse, the witnesses of the Greek text of the Sacra Parallela;25 this is again a Gr II text, but with some21 22 23 24 25

With SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira. Jesus Sirach/Ben Sira. Cf. note 10. Ecclesiasticus. Der Sirach-Text der Sacra Parallela.

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thing new: it contains in Greek ten additional verses known previously only in Latin. Today, for the Greek version, the critical edition prepared by J. Ziegler (1965)26 is without doubt the best. For its correct use, some characteristics of it must be borne in mind. First of all, the very rich critical apparatus must be carefully consulted. For instance, one can see in it that sometimes Ziegler proposes conjectures which have no basis in the Greek manuscripts, but are an attempt to improve the Greek text by using readings of the Hebrew. In addition, Ziegler inserts in their place with smaller letters 135 lines taken from the Gr II manuscripts; but, from this Gr II text, he does not retain, except in his critical apparatus, all the other minor changes. Lastly, Ziegler restores the original order of the chapters: in all the Greek manuscripts, Sir 33:16b – 36:13a was put before Sir 30:25 – 33:16a; this mistake was made after the translation of the Greek text, a Gr II text, into Latin, and this Latin version, in agreement with the Hebrew manuscripts and the Syriac Peshitta version, kept the original order of these chapters. In his study of the Greek version, Gr I, A. Minissale27 showed that this version is not literal, but is analogous to the manner of translating Hebrew in the midrashim and targumim. Therefore, one cannot use this Greek version without discernment to reconstruct or to correct the original text in Hebrew. It is enough to compare the Hebrew text of Sir 51:1-12 with the Greek version to observe that the latter, addressing God throughout in the second person singular, disrupts the originality of the Hebrew text; for this one, in its first half, addresses God directly, and speaks about him in the second half. The same procedure appears in Sir 4:11-19, where the Greek version changes the direct speech of Wisdom, according to the Hebrew text and the Syriac version, into a description of Wisdom’s action. About Gr II, the long version, my opinion is that it mainly depends on a Hebrew enlarged text. For instance, it happens that a verse of Gr II is only understandable if translated into Hebrew. This is the case for the Greek text of Sir 1:10cd; Minissale translates this Greek addition as follows:28 “Loving the Lord is wisdom giving glory; he imparts her to those to whom he reveals himself so that they see him”; but the second line is obscure. Therefore, I proposed in the Bible de Jérusalem (1998) that this Greek version embodies a confusion between the two Hebrew verbs to see and to fear, both in the infinitive qal with suffix, and my translation is: “to those who fear him, he imparts her”.29 The same problem arises for other traditional translations of additions in Gr II, but not only there, where mistakes are unceasingly 26 27 28 29

Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach. Cf. note 20. Siracide (Ecclesiastico), ad loc. Voir ou craindre le Seigneur?, 247-252.

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repeated without realizing the misunderstanding. The famous Greek addition in Sir 24:18cd is commonly translated: “I spread myself in all my sons, elected by him from eternity”, but I explained that a correct translation must be: “I give myself with all my fruits, always at his commands”.30 Again a last note: an addition of Gr II is sometimes considered as the translation of an authentic text of Ben Sira; this happens for Sir 1:21, but recently I tried to show the weakness of such an assumption.31

1.3 In Latin The ancient Latin version, called Vetus latina, of Ecclesiasticus was made before the 3rd century AD from a Greek extended text (Gr II). Today this Latin version, which was studied in 1899 by H. Herkenne (he already saw in Sir 1:21 an authentic text of Ben Sira),32 do not interest scholars very much, except those who propose critical editions. These are two. The first was established by the Benedictine monks of Saint Jerome Abbey in Rome (1964)33 and gives the text as it was at the time of its insertion in the Vulgate. The second gives the Vetus latina text and is published at Beuron, Germany; W. Thiele, who was the editor for Sir 1–24, began in 1987 and concluded his part in 2005;34 for Sir 25–51, another editor is awaited. For research, it is useful to consult the edition of the Latin version prepared by J. Gribomont and G. D. Sixdenier for the multi-language edition of Ben Sira (badly) published by F. Vattioni in 1968:35 these two editors have marked with special signs the parts of the version which they considered not original but as later revisions of this Vetus latina version, in order to make it conform more closely to the Greek text. Such an hypothesis, which comes from D. De Bruyne (1928),36 has been disputed by Thiele,37 who thinks that most of the Vetus latina doublets were already in the Greek text used by the Latin translator. There remains another problem not yet studied: several times the Vetus latina of Ecclesiasticus does not correspond to the Greek texts at our disposal, but rather to the Hebrew manuscripts. J. Ziegler, in his critical apparatus of the Greek version, mentioned a good number of cases. How can 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Les additions grecques et latines à Siracide 24, 196-199. L’addition de Siracide 1,21, 317-325. De veteris latinae Ecclesiastici capitibus I-XLIII. Sapientia Salomonis. Liber Hiesu filii Sirach. Sirach Ecclesiasticus. Ecclesiastico, LIII-LIV. Étude sur le texte latin. Sirach Ecclesiasticus, 103-122.

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we explain them? Were they in the Greek text used by the Latin translator? Lastly, it must be remembered that the Vetus latina of Ecclesiasticus preserves some additions unknown in Greek, like Sir 24:31VL, at the end of the Wisdom’s speech: Qui elucidant me vitam eternam habebunt.

1.4 In Syriac Unfortunately a critical edition of the Syriac Peshitta version of the book of Ben Sira, promised for decades, is still lacking, as well as any full analysis of that version. Meanwhile, one can use the edition of the codex Ambrosianus recently published with both English and Spanish translations by N. Calduch-Benages, J. Ferrer and J. Liesen (2003).38 Concerning this Syriac version, there are different opinions. According to H. P. Rüger, the translator used the enlarged Hebrew text (1970),39 but for M. D. Nelson (1988), who studied only Sir 39:27–44:18, the translator used the original text of Ben Sira (Hb I), while consulting the enlarged Hebrew text (Hb II) and also the two Greek versions (Gr I and Gr II).40 A complete study of the Peshitta version, compared with Hebrew and Greek texts, is still desirable. Meanwile, let us mention some characteristics of this Peshitta. As with the Greek version, the Peshitta does not translate literally, but after the manner of the targumim (N. Calduch-Benages e.a.),41 with omissions and also additions. One addition, only known by the Peshitta, appears instead of Sir 1:22-27 (N. Calduch-Benages, 1997,42 and T. Legrand, 1998) 43 but this Syriac addition seems to many scholars44 to translate a Hebrew text (Hb II), except that N. Calduch-Benages and her collaborators45 think that it was written by the Syriac translator himself. Moreover, the Syriac translator sometimes alters the Hebrew text he has to translate: a good example is the prayer of Sir 51:1-12, where he omits all references to calumny, which is in fact in Hebrew the main reason which provoked the prayer; doing so, the Syriac translator composed a prayer which can now be used for any kind of thanksgiving when the Lord has saved anybody from some unspecified mortal danger.

38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

La sabiduría del escriba. Cf. note 13. The Syriac Version of the Wisdom of Ben Sira. La sabiduría del escriba, 24-27 and 48-51. Traducir-Interpretar. Siracide (syriaque) 1,20c-z. Cf. KEARNS, The Expanded Text, 191. La sabiduría del escriba, 26-27 and 50-51.

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1.5 Conclusion The book of Ben Sira is not the only one in the Bible for which there is a plurality of texts. For our book, the basic fact is that they were two editions. The first one in Hebrew was translated into Greek (Hb I – Gr I), and the second, originally also in Hebrew (Hb II), is found in some Greek manuscripts (Gr II) and in the old Latin version. The Syriac Peshitta version seems to reflect both the first and the second Hebrew editions.

2. One author or, better, several authors The problem to be faced here is that of the variety of hands which touched the book of Ben Sira from the time of his writing till the transmission of the book during Antiquity.

2.1 The main author, Ben Sira Is it possible to hear the voice of Ben Sira, to read his message directly from his text; to read it, of course, on a copy – or on a copy of copy – of his own text? Today, after the discovery of his Hebrew texts, the answer is without any doubt positive, though with serious reservations. The name of this wise man is Ben Sira. This is sure, but, in Hebrew, Ms B gives a more developed name which does not correspond with that of the Greek manuscripts. Those specify that the author was from Jerusalem, a detail which, in Hebrew, Ms B does not give (Sir 50:27). About the date of his book, a majority of scholars acknowledges today that it must be fixed during the first quarter of the 2nd century BC; that means between years 200 and 175 BC, therefore before the Maccabean crisis under Antiochus IV. Ben Sira was a wisdom master. He taught young disciples: this is evident after reading in Hebrew some undisputed texts like the following ones. Before explaining that God takes care of all, Ben Sira writes: Hear me and receive my mind, to my words apply the heart. I will spread with measure my spirit and with modesty I will indicate what I know (Sir 16:24-25, Ms A).

When he advises eating temperately, he says:

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Calling the disciple to praise the Lord for all his works, even the most mysterious, “with songs of lyre and zither and so with great voice” (Sir 39:15cd, Ms B), the master concludes: Now, with all heart, rejoice and bless the name of the Holy one (Sir 39:35, Ms B).

Or before giving his teaching on true and false shame: Hear the instruction on shame, sons, and be ashamed according to my mind (Sir 41:14a.16a, Mas and Ms B).

Two other autobiographical texts in Hebrew concern the composition of his book: Therefore, from the beginning, I was convinced and I reflected and I put in writing: All the works of God are good, for every need, in proper time, he supplies (Sir 39:32-33, Ms B).

And this one, which perhaps marks the end of a stage of the book’s redaction: Even myself, the last, I stayed awake and, like a gleaner after [vintagers], with the Lord’s blessing, even myself I arrive first and, like a vintager, I filled up the wine-press! Look! I am not tired only for myself, but for all those who search [for instruction] (Sir 33:16-18, Ms E).

These autobiographical quotations come from four different Hebrew manuscripts and they are more or less similar in the Greek version, as well as in the Syriac one, except Sir 41:14a.16a (the Peshitta omits almost the whole chapter). There are two other autobiographical texts of Ben Sira, but each presents difficulties. Two of them are in Sir 51, the last chapter of the book, which, in spite of the first colophon of Sir 50:27-29, is more and more considered authentic, except for the Hebrew addition in Ms B between Sir 51:12 and 51:13. Now, this chapter 51 comprises in its first twelve verses a thanksgiving prayer, and in Sir 51:13-30, a final text on the search for wisdom. The prayer, well preserved in the Hebrew Ms B, was seriously mod-

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ified in Greek and in Syriac.46 The final text on Wisdom is incomplete in the Qumran Hebrew manuscript but, with the help of the Greek and Syriac versions and of the Hebrew retroversion of Ms B, it is possible to recombine it, in a necessarily hypothetical way.47 What shall we do then with Sir 24:30-34, where Ben Sira describes his function as master in relation to Wisdom? This passage has not yet been discovered in Hebrew. Can we trust the Greek version or the Syriac one? It is true, these versions are very similar, but they are not identical: Sir 24:34 is lacking in Syriac, without mentioning here other discrepancies between the two versions. Saying that, I want to make clear the difficulty exegetes of Ben Sira must resolve when they try to understand the autobiographical texts of Ben Sira. J. Liesen48 did much work on these characteristic texts of our wise man, who can present himself as a master precisely because he is full of Wisdom, or better: because Wisdom coming from God fills him to overflowing; to his disciples, he is able to pass on this Wisdom overflowing from himself to them. He is only a mediator of Wisdom. Never in Israel had a wisdom master spoken of himself like that. Now, the main themes of his teaching are the following. It is beyond doubt that he endeavoured to offer a synthesis of the heritage of his people. If he insists more than his predecessors on the fear of the Lord as the basic behaviour of a man who intends to be open to Wisdom offered by God, Ben Sira was also the first to show the coherence of the whole action of God. According to our wise man, Wisdom, continuously offered by God, has her best expression in the Torah and the one who truly fears God puts into practice the precepts of the Torah. Along the same lines, one can perceive why Ben Sira is interested in the biblical history recounted in the Pentateuch and in the prophets, even if he does not see, for his time, any hope for the future but in the faithfulness of the official priesthood. And this hope does not mean that Ben Sira was a priest, as H. Stadelmann (1980) claimed.49 More serene than Qohelet, Ben Sira puts his trust in the tradition of his people. He discerns the danger, not yet dramatic, of the invading Hellenism; he has doubts about the first pretentions of the incipient apocalyptic. A spiritual man, he trusts God and prayer, for him, is part of the observances of a truly wise person. Better still, Ben Sira thinks that only a wise man, contrary to a sinner, can praise the Lord (Sir 15:9-10), realizing therefore the primary vocation of the living man (Sir 17:9-10.27-28); the last ten chapters of his book (Sir 42:15–51:30) are first of all a hymn to the Lord, an invitation 46 47 48 49

On the Hebrew text, cf. GILBERT, L’action de grâce de Ben Sira. Cf. GILBERT, Venez à mon école, 283-290. Strategical Self-References, 63-74. ID., Full of Praise, especially 95-187. Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter. Cf. review of G. L. Prato: Greg 63 (1982), 560-565.

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to praise him for his work in the world and in history, in which Ben Sira himself is conscious of being an example for his disciples.50

2.2 The Ben Sira’s grandson, his translator into Greek The are two documents which help to understand the part of the first translator of the book of Ben Sira: the prologue of this version and the translation itself, the short one (Gr I) transmitted in the main uncial manuscripts. The prologue, which is transmitted by these manuscripts,51 is the only text in which the translator speaks of himself – Ben Sira was his grandfather – and of his task of translator. With the majority of scholars, I take this prologue as authentic. The grandson of Ben Sira arrived in Egypt in 132 BC and during his stay there he discovered his grandfather’s book. This book seemed to him so useful for those who, outside the land of Israel, wish to be instructed, to reform their ways and to live according to the Torah, that he decided to translate it from Hebrew into Greek. Such an undertaking was not carried quickly, not only on account of the length of the book, but also because it is never easy to render into Greek what is expressed in Hebrew: the grandson insists on this challenge, which should excuse him. Moreover, putting his work in the frame of the Torah, of the prophets, and of the other Jewish books, in Hebrew as well as in the Greek Septuagint version, he probably hoped, perhaps following his grandfather himself (cf. Sir 24:32-34), that his translation would one day be officially accepted among the books which were gradually forming the future canon of the Scriptures.52 About the translation itself, B. G. Wright (1989)53 is right when he says that, when comparison with the Hebrew text is possible, it is certainly not mechanical, but that the grandson wanted first of all to deliver the message of his grandfather, its content rather than its literal words. A. Minissale (1995)54 specified that the targumic method was already applied by the grandson. It can be added that the Hebrew copy of Ben Sira’s book used by the grandson was not excellent and also that he had sometimes difficulty in understanding what his grandfather had written. We realize therefore why he tried to apologize for the quality of his translation, which altogether is not so bad. 50 51 52 53 54

Cf. GILBERT, Prayer in the Book of Ben Sira, 117-135. On this prologue, cf. PRATO, Scrittura divina, 75-97; MARBÖCK, Text und Übersetzung, 99-116. Cf. RÜGER, Le Siracide, especially 67-69. No Small Difference. Cf. note 20.

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Lastly, in Sir 50:23-24, the grandson modified the text of his grandfather: it was no longer possible to speak of the lineage of the priest Simon and of Aaron, when political interests had put an end, decades before, to the heredity of the main priestly office in Jerusalem.

2.3 The authors of the second edition One may think that a second edition became necessary for two reasons, the success of the book and theological progress after the grandson’s time. However it is still very difficult to give precise indications based on textual proofs. The main reason is that we do not have this complete second edition. I mean that changes and additions in it appear in Hebrew and Greek manuscripts in a rather chaotic way: one manuscript conveys some modifications and another, others. This signifies, it seems, that there was no “second edition” as we would understand it, but a slow and progressive evolution of the text of Ben Sira, due to many hands, each scribe choosing such or such modification. These modifications, which mainly bring the book’s eschatology up to date, seem to have been done between years 80 B.C. and 80 A.D. Some of them already appear in Hebrew, others more numerous in Greek manuscripts, where copyists were free to make their choice. Who were the authors of these changes, retouchings and additions? It seems that some distinctions have to be made. Modifications developing new eschatological perspectives, even without ever using the words “resurrection” and “immortality”, come from people who followed the path of Dan 12:1-3 and of 2 Macc 7. At the beginning of the last century, Hart (1909) thought they were Pharisees;55 but he had only compared some Greek additions with authors writing in Greek, Philo, Paul and Josephus. In 1951, C. Kearns, in his thesis presented to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, unpublished up to now, gave a new direction to the research, especially towards the apocalyptic literature ascribes to the Essenes.56 But – and this remark is important – Kearns was unable to compare the additions of the book of Ben Sira with the Qumran texts which were published after his thesis. It is true that, from 1951 till today, many scholars have studied several points of Ben Sira’s book vis-à-vis the Qumran writings. It is also true that a few scholars have compared the additions of the book of Ben Sira with the Qumran literature (Philonenko, 1986; Legrand, 1996; Rossetti, 2002-2003).57 But an 55 56 57

Ecclesiasticus, especially 272-320. The Expanded Text. PHILONENKO, Sur une interpolation, 317-321; LEGRAND, Le Siracide: problèmes textuels et théologiques de la recension longue; ROSSETTI, Le aggiunte ebraiche e greche, 607-648.

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exhaustive comparison between both is still lacking. In any case, an Essenian origin of the multiform second edition of the book of Ben Sira, or at least of a part of it, should not astonish us, when one remembers that Qumran provided fragments of the book; as also if we accept the hypothesis of Di Lella,58 according to whom the Hebrew manuscripts found in Cairo originate from Qumran. However Qumran does not explain all the additions. G. L. Prato59 showed that the three lines of Sir 17:5 probably depend on the school of Aristobulus, who was under Stoic influence. A plurality of origin of the second edition is therefore corroborated.

2.4 Latin and syriac translators There is no reason, it seems, to doubt that the Vetus latina of Ecclesiasticus was made by a Christian. Probably he was a member of a community in Roman Africa. His translation was done before the middle of the 3rd century A.D., for Cyprian of Carthage quoted several passages of it. This is all that can be said. About the author of the Syriac Peshitta version, recently there have been contrasting opinions. In 1977, M. M. Winter60 tried to prove that he was an Ebionite Christian living during the 3rd century or at the beginning of the 4th; among other things, he was opposed, said Winter, to sacrifices and priesthood; his translation would have been revised at the end of the 4th century by an orthodox Christian who inserted allusions to Jesus and to John the Baptist. In 1989, R. J. Owens61 rejected the hypothesis of an Ebionite and proposed for the date of the Peshitta of Ben Sira, with its Christian allusions, about the year 300, because already in 337 Aphrahat quoted it from memory. Lastly, in 1999, in his posthumous introduction to the Peshitta version of the Old Testament, M. P. Weitzman,62 finding in the Chronicles translation the same characteristics assigned by Winter to an Ebionite, considered that the translation of Ben Sira must have been made by a Jew of the 3rd century, a supporter of rabbinism and opposed to cultic matter, a Jew who, later, became a Christian.

58 59 60 61 62

Qumran and the Geniza Fragments of Sirach, 245-267. La lumière interprète de la sagesse, 317-346. The Origins of Ben Sira in Syriac, 237-253 and 494-507. The Early Syriac Text, 39-75. The Syriac Version, especially 216-226.

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2.5 Conclusion So many hands have touched the book of Ben Sira. For centuries it remained open to modifications, not always casual, but very often intentional, generally made by unknown authors. Already the grandson of Ben Sira adapted his grandfather’s text for his time; moreover he translated it into Greek as targumists did in Aramaic for the Hebrew Torah. After him came those who felt compelled to bring the text up to date, according to theological progress of their time, and those who inserted some philosophical explanations, which were still Jewish, but coming more from Hellenistic thought than from the Bible. The first probably were Essenes and the others, people of the Aristobulus school. Later, in the Latin church, the Vetus latina version preserves texts which are found nowhere else. And the Peshitta version, based again on the already extended Hebrew text of Ben Sira, comprises, as far as we see, some typically Christian echoes. Facing such a plurality of texts, it is by all means reasonable to search with the help of criticism the words and the thought of Ben Sira himself. But then, what will we do with the witnesses that came later? Will they have only scientific interest for scholars or will they have a purely historical and cultural value?

3. Human words or also Word of God From the hermeneutical point of view, it is impossible to avoid the fact that the book of Ecclesiasticus was acknowledged as inspired and canonical by the Catholic church, which definitively confirmed its statement in 1546 during the council of Trent. On the other hand, Protestant and Anglican Reform considers this book as one of the “Apocrypha”, and the Orthodox church does not take a common and clear position. Reason and origin of these discrepancies go back to the establishment of the scriptural canon, you might say, of the Hebrew Bible by Jewish rabbis: they never put the book of Ben Sira among the sacred books. As a result, during the patristic age,63 mainly in the 4th century and at the beginning of the 5th, most of the Church Fathers in the East, perhaps more conscious of the Jewish position, showed hesitation about the canonical value of the books which are not in the Hebrew Bible but are included in the Septuagint; among these is the book of Ben Sira. The main exception was John Chrysostom who, without any reluctance, quoted many times the Greek version of

63

Cf. GILBERT, Jesus Sirach, 878-906.

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Ben Sira. The stance taken by Jerome in Bethlehem was the most radical: his explicit refusal of the canonicity of Ben Sira’s book had an impact for centuries. However, usually, the Greek Fathers and also Jerome in Latin (after 404) often quoted the book of Ben Sira as Scripture.64 In the West, there was no discussion on the matter, so that at the end of the 4th century, under Augustine’s influence, the councils of Hippo (393) and of Carthage (397) put the book of Ecclesiasticus into their canonical lists, and in 405 Innocent I did the same in the name of the church of Rome. Now, apart from this question about the canonicity of Ben Sira’s book, there is another more complicated question. Is there an official position in the Catholic church about the variety of the texts assigned to Ben Sira? As it was explained above, we find a variety of languages: texts in Hebrew, in Greek, in Latin, in Syriac, and a variety of texts forms: either short or long, i.e. either without or with additions. For twenty years I uphold the thesis that the Catholic church never adopted a position regarding this matter.65 Neither did it declare in which language a book is said to be canonical, or according to which edition. The only statement in this matter is still that made by the council of Trent, which declared canonical the books listed in the canon, as taken as an whole and with all their parts, as they are traditionally read in the Catholic church and found in the Vulgate. Now, it does not appear that the council wanted to show a preference for the long text of Ecclesiasticus in the Vulgate. Of course, excluding it is impossible, but, as the same council had requested from the pope a correct edition of the Septuagint, the Vaticanus manuscript was chosen for this purpose, and this manuscript gives the short Greek version of Ben Sira. Such freedom in the Catholic church is not new and still exists until today. During Christian antiquity, Greek churches read either the short version done by Ben Sira’s grandson, as also Jerome when he quoted Ecclesiasticus in Latin, or the extended one, as frequently did Chrysostom and the Sacra Parallela. Latin churches read the long version of the Vetus latina – as did Ambrose and Augustine – and Syriac churches also used their enlarged version. For each of them, the text they used to read was for them sacred and canonical. Such freedom is the practice of the Holy See today. John Paul II authorized the publication of two Bibles: in 1979, the New Vulgate which for Ecclesiasticus resumes, with a few corrections, the version of the Vetus latina, i.e. the long text; in 2000, the Bible called after Blaj, a roumanian version made in 1795 by Samuil Micu who, for the book of Ben Sira, usually translated the short Greek version, with only very few additions.66 64 65 66

Cf. GILBERT, Jérôme et l’oeuvre de Ben Sira, 109-120. Cf. GILBERT, L’Ecclésiastique. Quel texte? Quelle autorité?, 233-250. Biblia de la Blaj. 1795. For instance, Sir 1:5 (Ziegler) is translated, but not Sir 1:7.10cd;

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However the Hebrew text of Ben Sira and its second enlarged edition were never used by Christians, at least as far as we know. Never that is, until the discoveries done from 1896. These Hebrew texts were only read in Judaism, at Qumran and in the medieval sect of the Quaraites. With what status? As a sacred book? Doubts may be raised. In fact Greek and Syriac churches never read the Old Testament in Hebrew. The Latin church, until the Renaissance, had indirect access to it through the translation of Jerome, but not for Ben Sira’s book, because the hermit of Bethlehem refused to translate it into Latin. On the other hand, instead of the Greek version, from the time of the discoveries of the Hebrew fragments of Ben Sira’s book, some renowned Catholic biblical scholars did not hesitate to translate them as they are: these are, for instance, A.Vaccari in 1925, L. Alonso Schökel in 1968, P. W. Skehan and A. A. Di Lella in 1987.67 From these facts, I infer some hermeneutical consequences: 1. The research of the original Hebrew text of Ben Sira (Hb I) is comparable with the principle of the hebraica veritas which prompted Jerome to translate the Hebrew Bible into Latin.68 For a Catholic, desire of hearing the authentic word of Ben Sira leads to an acknowledgement of his inspiration and of the canonical value, even if not exclusively of course, of his book in Hebrew. When at the end of the Second Vatican council, Paul VI decided to have the Vulgate corrected in the light of the original texts, he in fact renewed the principle of Jerome; I think this principle is also valid for the book of Ben Sira. Of all those who took this book in hand, he is the first whom we should call an inspired author. 2. The Septuagint has been for twenty centuries the Bible of the Greek churches and some Fathers held that this version was inspired. For the book of Ben Sira, in any case, even after the Hebrew fragments’ discoveries, the short Greek version of the great uncial manuscripts remains the complete text which allows a secure enough access to Ben Sira’s thought. It is therefore not astonishing to find this version in modern Western translations in the principal Bibles. However there are two remarks to keep in mind: - Modern Bibles in different languages often correct the grandson’s version which the great uncial manuscripts give, not so much to restore what he really should have written but to give understanding to the words of his grandfather himself, according to the Hebrew fragments. Compared with the grandfather, the grandson is less interesting.

67 68

11:15-16; 16:15-16; 24:18.24. On the contrary Sir 26:19-27 (Ziegler) was added to this edition, but was not in the great majority of the copies of the 1795 edition: cf. critical note p. 2419. VACCARI, I libri poetici della Bibbia, 331-408; ALONSO SCHÖKEL, Eclesiástico, 141-332; SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira. Among the recent scientific works going in this direction, cf. CORLEY, Ben Sira’s Teaching.

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- On the other hand, present-day scholars working on the Septuagint tend to respect this version in itself. One concludes then that both Hb I of Ben Sira and Gr II of his grandson deserve respect, without detriment to either. 3. The second edition, with changes and additions, especially in the matter of eschatology, comes from Judaism and was a great success among Christians. Witnesses of this are some Greek manuscripts and various Greek patristic texts; then the Vetus latina version, usually read in Western churches before the New Vulgate, and also the Peshitta version read over centuries in Christian communities speaking Syriac, give the same witness. For all of those who, in every part of the church, used and still use one of the enlarged version of Ecclesiasticus, it is evident that they have or have had a sacred book in hand. Therefore, some consequences follow: - This second edition, in all its different forms, keeps its theological value, i.e. each of these forms can be said, in my opinion, inspired and canonical. - Therefore, theologically, the texts peculiar to this second edition cannot be relegated to footnotes as having only an informative value. - Lastly, as much as possible, the principle of coherence of each version of this second edition of Ben Sira’s book deserves to be applied, in the same way as scholars today insist they must do for the Septuagint. In fact, what I intend to lay stress on is a necessarily wider concept of canonicity and therefore of inspiration. The authors of the second edition, multi-form though it may be, play a part in the charism of inspiration; I say that for similar reasons I used to affirm the inspiration of the original author, Ben Sira. These authors, through their translators, were received as inspired by the church. These translators, in so far as they deliver to us the second edition, are very often the only ones who give us access to it. Their translations therefore must be respected, not only from the scientific, historical and cultural point of view, but also for theological reasons: they too transmit the word of God.

4. Conclusion More than a century has passed after the discoveries of the Hebrew fragments of Ben Sira’s book, and modern research on textual criticism, history of the texts and theology has not simplified the manner of presenting the problems, many of which have not yet received adequate answers. Ecclesiasticus remains one of the most difficult books of the Bible in its interpretation and if one day we succeed in recovering the Hebrew parts of the book which are now missing, the situation would only be partly clar-

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ified. The real problem will still be the relation between Hebrew texts and ancient versions. Meanwhile, with the means at our disposal, research carries on and must proceed. If it is true that all the problems raised about this book cannot be resolved in one go, then let us proceed step by step, conscious that only a part of this mysterious book will become better known to us. More precisely, trying to reconstruct the Hebrew text written by Ben Sira is a necessity which appears today as a priority and which is related to Jerome’s principle of the hebraica veritas; other problems identified today will remain, but they must not be underestimated in the search for a correct understanding of Ecclesiasticus. Numerous researchers are therefore welcome. There is room for more.

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Bibliography ALONSO SCHÖKEL, L., Eclesiástico (Los libros sagrados 8,1), Madrid 1968. BAILLET, M. – MILIK, J. T. – DE VAUX, R., Textes des grottes de Qumran (DJD 3), Oxford 1962. BEENTJES, P. C., A Closer Look at the Newly Discovered Sixth Hebrew Manuscript (MS F) of Ben Sira: EstB 51 (1993), 171-186. BEENTJES, P. C., The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew. A Text Edition of all Extant Hebrew Manuscripts & A Synopsis of all Parallel Hebrew Ben Sira Texts (VT.S 68), Leiden 1997. BEENTJES, P. C., Errata et corrigenda, in: EGGER-WENZEL, R. (ed.), Ben Sira’s God (BZAW 321), Berlin – New York 2002, 375-377. Biblia de la Blaj. 1795. Editie jubiliara, Roma 2000. CALDUCH-BENAGES, N. – FERRER, J. – LIESEN, J., La sabiduría del escriba. Wisdom of the Scribe (Biblioteca Midrasíca 26), Estella (Navarra) 2003. CALDUCH-BENAGES, N., Traducir-Interpretar: la versión siríaca de Sirácida 1: EstB 55 (1997), 313-340. CORLEY, J., Ben Sira’s Teaching on Frienship (BJSt 316), Providence 2002. DE BRUYNE, D., Étude sur le texte latin de l’Ecclésiastique: RBén 40 (1928), 5-48. DI LELLA, A. A., The Newly Discovered Sixth Manuscript of Ben Sira from the Cairo Geniza: Bib 69 (1988), 226-238. DI LELLA, A. A., Qumran and the Geniza Fragments of Sirach: CBQ 24 (1962), 245267. DI LELLA, A. A., The Recently Identified Leaves of Sirach in Hebrew: Bib 45 (1964), 153-167. Facsimiles of the Fragments Hitherto Recovered of the Book of Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew, Oxford – Cambridge 1901. GILBERT, M., Voir ou craindre le Seigneur? Sir 1,10d, in: CAGNI, L. (ed.), Biblica et semitica. Studi in memoria di Francesco Vattioni (Istituto Universitario Orientale, Dipartimento di Studi Asiatici, Series Minor 59), Napoli 1999, 247-252. GILBERT, M., Les additions grecques et latines à Siracide 24, in: AUWERS, J.-M. – WÉNIN, A. (eds.), Lectures et relectures de la Bible. Festschrift P.-M. Bogaert (BEThL 144), Leuven 1999, 196-199. GILBERT, M., L’addition de Siracide 1,21. Une énigme, in: COLLADO BERTOMEU, V. (ed.), Palabra, Prodigio, Poesía. In Memoriam P. Luis Alonso Schökel, S.J. (AnBib 151), Roma 2003, 317-325. GILBERT, M., L’action de grâce de Ben Sira (Si 51,1-12), in: KUNTZMANN, R. (ed.), Ce Dieu qui vient. Mélanges offerts à Bernard Renaud (LeDiv 159), Paris 1995, 231242. GILBERT, M., Venez à mon école (Si 51,13-30), in: FISCHER, I. – RAPP, U. – SCHILLER, J. (eds.), Aus den Spuren der schriftgelehrten Weisen. Festschrift für Johannes Marböck anlässlich seiner Emeritierung (BZAW 331), Berlin – New York 2003, 283-290. GILBERT, M., Prayer in the Book of Ben Sira. Function and Relevance, in: EGGER-WENZEL, R. – CORLEY, J. (eds.), Prayer from Tobit to Qumran (DCLY 2004), Berlin – New York 2004, 117-135. GILBERT, M., Jesus Sirach: RAC 18 (1996), 878-906.

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GILBERT, M., Jérôme et l’oeuvre de Ben Sira: Muséon 100 (1987),109-120. GILBERT, M., L’Ecclésiastique. Quel texte? Quelle autorité?: RB 94 (1987), 233-250. HADOT, J., Penchant mauvais et volonté libre dans la sagesse de Ben Sira (L’Ecclésiastique), Bruxelles 1970. HART, J. H. A., Ecclesiasticus. The Greek Text of Codex 248. Edited with a Textual Commentary and Prolegomena, Cambridge 1909. HASPECKER, J., Gottesfurcht bei Jesus Sirach (AnBib 30), Rom 1967. HERKENNE, H., De veteris latinae Ecclesiastici capitibus I-XLIII, Leipzig 1899. KEARNS, C., The Expanded Text of Ecclesiasticus. Its Teaching on the Future Life as a Clue to its Origin, Diss. Pontifical Biblical Commission, Rome 1951. LEGRAND, TH., Siracide (syriaque) 1,20c-z. Une addition syriaque et ses résonances esséniennes, in: AMPHOUX, CH.-B. – FREY,A. – SCHATTNER-RIESER, U. (eds.), Études sémitiques et samaritaines offertes à Jean Margain (Histoire du texte biblique 4), Lausanne 1998, 123-134. LEGRAND, TH., Le Siracide: problèmes textuels et théologiques de la recension longue. Unpublished thesis of the Protestant Faculty of Theology of Strasbourg, Strasbourg 1996. LÉVI, I., L’Ecclésiastique ou la Sagesse de Jésus, fils de Sira. Texte original hébreu édité, traduit et commenté (BEHE.R 10,1-2), 2 vol., Paris 1898-1901. LÉVI, I.,The Hebrew Text of Ecclesiasticus (SSS 3), Leiden 1904, 19512. LIESEN, J., Strategical Self-References in Ben Sira, in: CALDUCH-BENAGES, N. – VERMEYLEN, J. (eds.), Treasures of Wisdom. Studies in Ben Sira and the Book of Wisdom. Festschrift M. Gilbert (BEThL 143), Leuven 1999, 63-74. LIESEN, J., Full of Praise. An Exegetical Study of Sir 39,12-35 (JSJ.S 64), Leiden 2000. MARBÖCK, J., Weisheit im Wandel. Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie bei Ben Sira (BBB 37), Bonn 1971; (BZAW 272), Berlin – New York 19992. MARBÖCK, J., Text und Übersetzung – Horizonte einer Auslegung im Prolog zum Griechischen Sirach, in: VONACH, A. – FISCHER, G. (eds.), Horizonte biblischer Texte. Festschrift für Josef M. Oesch (OBO 196), Freiburg/Schweiz – Göttingen 2003, 99-116. MARCUS, J., A Fifth Ms of Ben Sira: JQR 21 (1931), 223-240. MINISSALE, A., La versione greca del Siracide. Confronto con il testo ebraico alla luce dell’attività midrascica e del metodo targumico (AnBib 133), Roma 1995. MINISSALE, A., Siracide (Ecclesiastico) (Nuovissima versione della Bibbia 23), Roma 1980. NELSON, M.D., The Syriac Version of the Wisdom of Ben Sira Compared to the Greek and Hebrew Materials (SBL.DS 107), Atlanta 1988. OWENS, R.J., The Early Syriac Text of Ben Sira in the Demonstrations of Aphrahat: JSSt 34 (1989), 39-75. PETERS, N., Der jüngst Wiederaufgefundene hebräische Text des Buches Ecclesiasticus unter sucht, herausgegeben, übersetzt und mit kritischen Noten versehen, Freiburg im Breisgau 1902. PETERS, N., Liber Iesu Filii Sirach sive Ecclesiasticus Hebraice, Friburgi Brisgoviae 1905. PETERS, N., Das Buch Jesus Sirach oder Ecclesiasticus (EHAT 25), Münster 1913. PHILONENKO, M., Sur une interpolation essénisante dans le Siracide (16,15-16), in OrSuec 33-35 (1984-1986), 317-321. PRATO, G. L., Il problema della teodicea in Ben Sira. Composizione dei contrari e richiamo alle origini (AnBib 65), Roma 1975.

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PRATO, G. L., Scrittura divina e scrittura umana in Ben Sira: dal fenomeno grafico al testo sacro: RStB 12 (2000), 75-97. PRATO, G. L., La lumière interprète de la sagesse dans la tradition textuelle de Ben Sira, in: GILBERT, M. (ed.), La Sagesse de l’Ancien Testament (BEThL 51), Leuven 19902, 317-346. RICKENBACHER, O., Weisheitsperikopen bei Ben Sira (OBO 1), Freiburg/Schweiz – Göttingen 1973. ROSSETTI, M., Le aggiunte ebraiche e greche a Sir 16,1-16: Sal 64 (2002), 607-648. RÜGER, H. P., Text und Textform im hebräischen Sirach (BZAW 112), Berlin 1970. RÜGER, H. P., Le Siracide: un livre à la frontière du canon, in: KAESTLI, J.-D. – WERMELINGER, O. (eds.), Le canon de l’Ancien Testament. Sa formation et son histoire (MoBi), Genève 1984, 47-69. Sapientia Salomonis. Liber Hiesu filii Sirach (Biblia sacra iuxta latinam Vulgatam versionem ad codicum fidei XII), Città del Vaticano, 1963. SANDERS, J. A., The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa) (DJD 4), Oxford 1965. SAUER, G., Jesus Sirach/Ben Sira übersetzt und erklärt (ATD.A 1), Göttingen 2000. SKEHAN, P. W. – DI LELLA, A. A., The Wisdom of Ben Sira. A New Translation with Notes, Introduction, and Commentary (AncB 39), New York 1987. SMEND, R., Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach erklärt, Berlin 1906. STADELMANN, H., Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter (WUNT 2,6), Tübingen 1980. The Book of Ben Sira. Text, Concordance and an Analysis of the Vocabulary, Published by The Academy of the Hebrew Language and the Shrine of the Book, Jerusalem 1973. THIELE, W. (ed.), Sirach Ecclesiasticus (Vetus Latina 11/2), Freiburg 1987-2005. VACCARI, A., I libri poetici della Bibbia, Roma 1925. VATTIONI, F., Ecclesiastico. Testo ebraico con apparato critico e versioni greca, latina e siriaca, Napoli 1966. WAHL, O., Der Sirach-Text der Sacra Parallela (FzB 16), Würzburg 1974. WEITZMAN, M. P., The Syriac Version of the Old Testament. An Introduction (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 56), Cambridge 1999. WINTER, M. M., The Origins of Ben Sira in Syriac: VT 27 (1977), 237-253 and 494-507. WRIGHT, B. G., No Small Difference. Sirach’s Relationship to its Hebrew Parent Text (SBL.SCS 26), Atlanta 1989. YADIN, Y., The Ben Sira Scroll from Masada, Jerusalem 1965. YADIN, Y., The Hebrew Text of Sirach. A Text-Critical and Historical Study (Studies in Classical Literature 1), London – Paris – Den Haag 1966. ZIEGLER, J., Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach (Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum XII/2), Göttingen 1965.

Searching for structure and redaction in Ben Sira. An investigation of beginnings and endings JEREMY CORLEY Introduction One of the problems awaiting full resolution in Ben Sira studies is the question of the book’s structure. The problem has been touched on in the major commentaries, including those by Rudolf Smend (1906), Norbert Peters (1913), and Moshe Segal (third edition 1972), as well as in the combined work of Patrick Skehan and Alexander Di Lella (1987).1 In addition, there have been several important shorter studies, particularly in recent years.2 Already in 1980 Wolfgang Roth proposed a plausible redactional history for the book. More than a decade later, in his article of 1993, John Harvey sought to move “Toward a Degree of Order in Ben Sira’s Book”. Then, in a lecture published in 1997, Johannes Marböck considered “Structure and Redaction History of the Book of Ben Sira: Review and Prospects”. In the same year, Hans-Winfried Jüngling published an essay on the structure of the Book of Sirach. In 1999 Georg Sauer published his thoughts on the thematic construction of Ben Sira’s book. Furthermore, the topic has received treatment in the course of several monographs, including Josef Haspecker’s pioneering study (1967) and recent works by Lutz Schrader (1994), Jeremy Corley (2002), and Otto Mulder (2003).3 Afew scholars believe that the book lacks a deliberate structure planned by the author. For instance, Schrader sees little organized structure in Ben Sira’s composition and cites “the complete lack of connection between the individual segments, the absence of linking passages, the tensions existing within the contents, as well as the many repetitions”.4 Accordingly, Schrader believes that a student put the collection together from the author’s notes 1

2

3 4

See SMEND, Die Weisheit, xxx-xli; PETERS, Das Buch Jesus Sirach, xxxix-xlii; SEGAL, Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, introduction, 13-16; SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, xiiixvi, 21-30, 40-45, 73-74. See ROTH, On the Gnomic-Discursive Wisdom; HARVEY, Toward a Degree of Order; MARBÖCK, Structure and Redaction History; JÜNGLING, Der Bauplan des Buches Jesus Sirach; SAUER, Gedanken. See HASPECKER, Gottesfurcht, 119-25; SCHRADER, Leiden und Gerechtigkeit, 62-68; CORLEY, Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship, 22-26; MULDER, Simon the High Priest, 25-59. SCHRADER, Leiden und Gerechtigkeit, 67 (translation mine). Schrader (p. 68) sees similar cases of contradictions in the poetry of Theognis. However, contradictions do not necessarily negate the possibility of one author or editor: see Prov 26:4-5.

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after his death.5 However, Marböck makes a pertinent observation: “Questions to be put to Schrader are why the extensive arrangement of the book could not be attributed to the Siracid himself, and whether the literary and thematic shape of separate sections, or rather their connections, is not even more intensive than expected (as in 1:11–2:18)”.6 As I discuss some of these points, it will become apparent that my analysis differs from Schrader’s. The existence of many studies indicates that the question of the book’s structure is of interest, yet not fully resolved. Hence perhaps the present treatment may shed further light on the topic. One particular contribution of this article is an examination of the significance of beginnings and endings within Ben Sira’s work, both in the book as a whole and in the individual sections. In the first part of this discussion I will consider possible structural models provided by sapiential works within or outside the Bible (including the Book of Proverbs), with special reference to the openings and closings of these writings. I will then consider Ben Sira passages of special structural significance, particularly the book’s beginning and ending. Thereafter I will outline an eightfold division of the book, according to a widely accepted pattern. Next I will treat stylistic features that indicate delimitation of longer and shorter units within Ben Sira’s book, whereby the openings and closings of sections are marked. Finally, I will conclude with a brief discussion of possible redactional stages.

1. Structural models provided by other sapiential books Previous investigations into the structure of Ben Sira’s book have generally given little attention to structural models for the work, apart from the Book of Proverbs. Thematic links between Ben Sira and sapiential works from Egypt and Greece have often been suggested, without much consideration of structural features.7 This section will consider some links, both structural and thematic, that exist between Ben Sira and five works: Proverbs, Job, the prototype of Papyrus Insinger, the poetry of Theognis, and the preMaccabean sections of 1 Enoch.8 5 6 7 8

Ibid., 303. Schrader acknowledges, however, that the compiler of Ben Sira’s teaching notes acted according to a plan, based on the Book of Proverbs (p. 68). MARBÖCK, Structure and Redaction History, 79. See MIDDENDORP, Die Stellung; SANDERS, Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom . A comparison could also be made with 4Q Instruction (a Qumran text from the second or first century BC), where similar themes are treated: care of parents (Sir 3:1-16; 4Q416 2.iii.15-19); wariness in social dealings (Sir 11:29–12:6; 4Q417 1.i.7-10); an encouragement to seek wisdom (Sir 6:18-37; 14:20–15:10; 4Q417 2.i.6-13); an admonition to respect one’s wife (Sir 26:1-4.13-18; 4Q416 2.iii.19-iv.13); caution in regard to loans and guarantees (Sir 29:1-20; 4Q416 2.ii.4-7; 4Q417 1.ii.21-23).

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1.1 The Book of Proverbs Some clear similarities between Proverbs and Ben Sira occur in features of structure and form.9 The first significant aspect to observe is a general resemblance in the theological poems opening the two books. While Proverbs begins with a six-line introduction (Prov 1:1-6), Ben Sira opens with an eightline preamble (Sir 1:1-10). Thereafter, the statement of Prov 1:7 (“The fear of Yhwh is the beginning of knowledge”) is adapted, under the influence of Prov 9:10, to become the topic sentence of Sir 1:11-30: “The beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord” (Sir 1:14 Gr).10 For this poem on the fear of the Lord in Sir 1:11-30, Ben Sira copies the twenty-two-line pattern of Prov 2:122, which also refers to the fear of God (Prov 2:5). A second clear resemblance may be noted: Sir 24:1-34 has many similarities with Prov 8:1-36.11 Thus, Lady Wisdom’s first-person speech in Sir 24:3-22 is reminiscent of her first-person speech in Prov 8:4-36, with the introductory use of yna (“I”) in Prov 8:12.17 being echoed in the occurrence of evgw, (“I”) in Sir 24:3.16. Wisdom’s presence at the origin of creation is stated in Prov 8:22-31 and Sir 24:3-6. The saying in Prov 8:22 (“Yhwh created me at the beginning of his way”) finds an echo in Sir 24:9 Gr: “Before eternity, from the beginning he created me”. So too, the declaration in Prov 8:27 (“When he established the heavens I was there, when he marked a circle on the surface of the abyss”) is echoed in Sir 24:5 Gr: “The vault of heaven I circled alone, and in the depth of the abysses I walked”. Moreover, a warning against missing the opportunity of gaining wisdom appears in both passages, in each case at the end of wisdom’s speech. While Prov 8:36 declares: “One who misses me injures himself”, Sir 24:22 Gr asserts: “Those working with me will not miss the mark”. These examples show that Sirach 24 is heavily modeled on Prov 8. The most distinctive resemblance, however, is the use of an alphabetic acrostic at the end of both books (Prov 31:10-31; Sir 51:13-30), where significant verbal links enhance the structural similarity.12 The saying in Prov 9

10

11 12

SEGAL, Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, introduction, 16; MIDDENDORP, Die Stellung, 78-84; SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 43-45, 576; SCHRADER, Leiden und Gerechtigkeit, 68; SANDERS, Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom, 3-12. The biblical translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. Note the abbreviations: Hb = Hebrew; Gr = Greek; S = Syriac; L = Latin. The Hebrew manuscripts: Mas = Masada Ms (Mas 1h); HQ = Qumran Cave 11 MS (11Q5 = 11Q Psa); Ms A, Ms B = geniza Mss A and B. Cf. GILBERT, L’Éloge de la Sagesse; SKEHAN, Structures in Poems on Wisdom; SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 331-338. PETERS, Das Buch Jesus Sirach, xl and 437; SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 576. The vocabulary shared between the two acrostic poems includes four words at the start of bicola: ~mz (“consider”: Prov 31:16; Sir 51:18 HQ); dy (“hand”: Prov 31:19; Sir 51:19

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31:26 (“She opens her mouth with wisdom”) is expanded in Sir 51:25 Ms B: “I opened my mouth and spoke of her: ‘Acquire for yourselves wisdom without price’”. Most important perhaps is the reversed use of two keywords (“give” and “deeds”) in the last line of each poem. While Prov 31:31 concludes: “Give her some of the fruit of her hands, and let her deeds praise her at the gates”, Sir 51:30 Ms B ends: “Do your deeds with righteousness, and he will give you your reward in its time”. Thus, in a learned allusion to Prov 31, Ben Sira concludes his book by presenting Lady Wisdom as the truly “capable wife” whom his young male students should seek.13

1.2 The Book of Job The Wisdom of Ben Sira exhibits several structural resemblances to the Book of Job, especially at the beginning and the end. Both works open with two chapters about a God-fearing person who has to face trials.14 While Job 1:1 depicts the hero as “fearing God” (cf. Job 1:8-9), Sir 1:11-30 offers a discourse on the fear of the Lord. The immediate arrival of trials upon Job (Job 1:6–2:10) is matched by the way Sir 2:1-18 quickly warns of the testing that can afflict anyone wishing to serve God. The deliverance from trials narrated at the end of the older book (Job 42:7-14) is matched by Ben Sira’s hymn of thanksgiving for deliverance from distress (Sir 51:1-12). Moreover, God’s two lengthy speeches, proclaiming his unfathomable glory revealed in creation (Job 38:2–39:30; 40:7–41:26), correspond broadly with Ben Sira’s long poem on the divine glory in creation (Sir 42:15–43:26), while Job’s humble admission of his lack of understanding of God’s “wonders” (Job 42:2-6) matches Ben Sira’s similar confession of the limits of human powers in the face of

13

14

HQ); @k (“palm”: Prov 31:20; Sir 51:20 HQ); hp (“mouth”: Prov 31:26; Sir 51:25 Ms B). On the text of Sir 51:30 see the discussion below. The authenticity of Sir 51:13-30 has been questioned on paleographical, textual, and thematic grounds (see, for instance, MIDDENDORP, Die Stellung, 118-25; SCHRADER, Leiden und Gerechtigkeit, 75-82). Paleographical doubt on its authenticity has been cast because it occurs in the Cave 11 Qumran Psalms Scroll, though this may have been a liturgical collection of biblical psalms together with hymns of diverse origin. The textual reason is that later texts (geniza Hebrew, Greek, Syriac) alter the wording from the earliest text form in the Qumran Psalms Scroll; but there are many cases of textual corruption in the book, and the use of romantic language could account for many of the sapientializing changes. The thematic ground concerns the perceived use of the language of romantic love in the poem; yet such language in connection with wisdom appears elsewhere (Sir 15:2-3). I owe this insight to Renate Egger-Wenzel. On the connections between Sirach and Job see MIDDENDORP, Die Stellung, 75-78; SANDERS, Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom, 47-48 and 79-80. Note that both Sirach and Job are Hebrew wisdom books, and Sir 49:9 Ms B mentions Job briefly.

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the Lord’s “wonders” (Sir 43:27-33). One other significant resemblance lies in the positioning of an important poem on wisdom at the heart of both books. Job 28 is a sapiential poem that (like Sir 19:20) equates wisdom with the fear of the Lord (Job 28:28), whereas Sirach 24 is a sapiential poem that identifies wisdom with the Law of Moses (Sir 24:23). Although these similarities are not absolutely decisive, they do suggest that the Book of Job may have had some influence on the general structure of Ben Sira’s work.

1.3 The Prototype of Papyrus Insinger Although the actual copy of the demotic Egyptian wisdom writing known as Papyrus Insinger seems to date from the first century AD, its prototype from the Ptolemaic era may have served as one of the structural models for Ben Sira’s book. Jack Sanders observes four general similarities: the grouping of sayings on a particular topic into a thematic unit; the placing of warnings and exhortations into a series; the collecting of observations that begin with “there is” (or “there are”); and the use of refrains to indicate the end of a passage.15 Unfortunately the demotic text begins halfway through the sixth instruction (out of twenty-five), so we do not know how it began. Nevertheless, attention has been drawn to a similarity in order for two important passages. Early in Papyrus Insinger there is a section on respect and care for parents, particularly in their old age (1.19–2.20), a passage that strongly resembles part of Sir 3:1-16. Moreover, toward the end of Papyrus Insinger there is a lengthy celebration of the wonders of nature (30.18–33.6), which has a general structural resemblance to Ben Sira’s poem on creation in 42:15–43:33. In fact, building on the resemblances observed by Sanders for the whole of Ben Sira, we could produce a list of eight comparable passages in the same order (noting clusters of the most similar sayings): Sir 3:4-12 // P. Insinger 1.19–2.7 (care of parents); Sir 9:2-9 // P. Insinger 8.2-14 (controlling desire for women); Sir 13:9-13 // P. Insinger 10.12–11.3 (caution before a noble); Sir 33:20-30 // P. Insinger 14.3-11 (disciplining slaves); Sir 35:2-13 // P. Insinger 16.3-13 (generosity to the poor); Sir 38:18-21 // P. Insinger 19.19–20.7 (accepting bereavement); Sir 42:15-18 // P. Insinger 30.18–31.1 (praising God for his works); Sir 43:6-33 // P. Insinger 32.2-18 (marvels of God’s creation).

15

The connections noted here develop the observations of SANDERS, Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom, 69-103, esp. 88-91.

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Although this list is impressive, it ignores other similar passages that do not fit the sequence (e.g., Sir 14:3-19 // P. Insinger 17.4-10 against miserliness; Sir 30:1-13 // P. Insinger 8.21–9.20 on disciplining sons; Sir 27:22–28:7 // P. Insinger 33.7-13 on forgiveness). Thus, at best the resemblance in order is incomplete. A curious similarity exists between Sir 51:30 and the end of P. Insinger (35.11). The penultimate didactic saying in the Egyptian text concerns a divinely given reward for the sage: “The heart of the wise man, its reward is the eye of the god”.16 This saying has a similar theme to Sir 51:30 (where the versions offer a different wording). According to the geniza Hebrew text, Sir 51:30b promises a repayment given by God to the persevering seeker of wisdom: “He will give you your reward in its time”.

1.4 The poetry of Theognis The elegiac poetry of Theognis may have served as a model for some passages in Ben Sira’s book.17 The theological poems opening Ben Sira’s book (Sir 1:1–2:18) have a role faintly similar to the prayers (addressing Apollo, Artemis, and the Muses) opening the sayings of Theognis (lines 1-18). However, the most significant parallels with Theognis concern a few themes: caution in friendship (Sir 6:5-17; Theognis 61-82 and 115-28); discrimination in social relations (Sir 12:1-18; Theognis 93-114); the divine determination of fortune (Sir 11:10-19; Theognis 165-72); and proper behavior at banquets and sensible wine drinking (Sir 31:12–32:13; Theognis 467-510).

1.5 The pre-maccabean sections of the Book of Enoch Unlike the sapiential books of Proverbs, Job, Papyrus Insinger, and Theognis, 1 Enoch is usually placed in the category of apocalyptic literature. Nevertheless, 1 Enoch 92:1 (here 4Q212 ii.23) calls Enoch avwna ~yk[x] (“[wis]est of men”), and a related text from the Book of Giants (4Q203 8.4) dubs the patriarch avrp rps (“distinguished scribe”).18 Hence, because of the importance of the theme of wisdom in the Enochic writings (cf. 1 Enoch 32:3, 6; 82:2-3; 99:10), and because Ben Sira may be reacting against some of the preMaccabean Enochic texts, a brief discussion is included here.19

16 17 18 19

Translation from LICHTHEIM, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 213. MIDDENDORP, Die Stellung, 13-24; SANDERS, Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom, 29-38. GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ – TIGCHELAAR, The Dead Sea Scrolls, I, 442-443 and I, 410-411. Many connections between both works are explored by ARGALL, 1 Enoch and Sirach.

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While the Enochic corpus was surely incomplete in Ben Sira’s day, preMaccabean sections probably include most of the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36) and the Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72-82), plus parts of the Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 92-105). While Randal Argall has made thematic comparisons between Ben Sira and 1 Enoch, it is also possible to detect some general structural similarities.20 In the first place, the opening poem of Ben Sira’s book has a faint echo of the start of the Book of the Watchers. While Ben Sira begins his work with the statement: “All wisdom is from the Lord” (Sir 1:1), 1 Enoch 1:2 reports Enoch’s declaration: “‘[The vision of the Holy One of heaven was revealed to me, and I heard] it all from the words of [the Watchers] and the Holy Ones [and because I heard it from them, I knew and understood everything]”.21 Then Enoch’s call to observe heaven and earth and the rain (1 Enoch 2:1-3) has a general similarity to Ben Sira’s questioning whether any human being can fathom heaven or earth or the number of raindrops (Sir 1:2-3).22 Similarities to Enochic literature also occur in the closing sections of Ben Sira’s book. Thus, the poem glorifying God for astronomical and meteorological wonders (Sir 42:15–43:33) deals with similar phenomena to the Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72-82), although in a different style. Moreover, the Enochic Apocalypse of Weeks employs a pattern of ten weeks for Israel’s history from Enoch to the final age (1 Enoch 93:1-10; 91:11-17), while Sir 44:17–45:26 has a pattern of seven covenants from Noah to Phinehas.23 Finally, the close of the Epistle of Enoch is slightly similar to the last verse of Ben Sira’s book, where the geniza manuscript ends the final sapiential poem with the words: “Do your deeds with righteousness, and he will give you your reward in its time” (Sir 51:30 Ms B). The Ethiopic text of 1 Enoch 105:1 also speaks of a reward associated with wisdom: “Reveal it [= truth] to them with your wisdom, for you are their guides; and (you are) [or: there will be] a reward upon the whole earth”.24 20 21

22 23

24

For instance, ARGALL observes a resemblance between Sir 42:15-17 and 1 Enoch 14:20-23 (1 Enoch and Sirach, 161-62), as well as between Sir 24:13-22 and 1 Enoch 32:3-4 (ibid., 93). GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ – TIGCHELAAR, The Dead Sea Scrolls, 1.399. The reading of 4Q201 i.2-3 has been completed with reference to the Ethiopic text. A Qumran manuscript of 1 Enoch 93:2 (4Q 212 iii.22) puts a comparable declaration on the lips of Enoch: “I have come to know everything” (ibid., 1.443); cf. 1 Enoch 19:3; 81:2. Moreover, Sir 1:1-10 resembles 1 Enoch 93:11-14 in affirming human ignorance of the mysteries of the world; cf. CORLEY, Wisdom versus Apocalyptic, 275-280. There may be a polemical note here in Ben Sira’s writing. If we discount the mention of Enoch in Sir 44:16 as a later gloss, the beginning of the Praise of the Ancestors with Noah may be Ben Sira’s response to the Book of the Watchers and the Apocalypse of Weeks, with Ben Sira stressing the Noachic covenant rather than Enochic revelation. Translation by ISAAC, 1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch, 86 (compare the fragmentary text in 4Q204 frag. 5, col. i).

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As expected, our consideration of structural models for Ben Sira’s work has found the closest parallels in the Book of Proverbs. However, we have noted that Ben Sira’s book also exhibits some structural similarities with other writings, such as the Book of Job, the prototype of Papyrus Insinger, the poetry of Theognis, and even some pre-Maccabean parts of 1 Enoch.

2. Passages of special structural significance 2.1 The opening Wisdom poem (Sir 1:1-10) The sapiential poem that begins Ben Sira’s work (Sir 1:1-10) sets the tone for the whole book. Special structural significance belongs to the opening phrase (“all wisdom”), which is played upon later in the book, and which may echo a phrase from the Book of Kings and even the Epic of Gilgamesh. Admittedly, the exact phrase “all wisdom” (Sir 1:1; cf. 19:20) occurs only once in the MT in Dan 1:4 (Daniel and his three companions were skilled “in all wisdom”), but that text was probably written a few years after Ben Sira’s death. More significantly, 1 Kgs 10:4 speaks of the Queen of Sheba observing “all the wisdom of Solomon”, granted to him by God in response to his prayer at Gibeon (1 Kgs 3:9). Since the Book of Proverbs claims to contain Solomon’s wisdom (Prov 1:1), Ben Sira may be presenting his work as a new Book of Proverbs. In addition, the later author may be wishing to suggest that his book contains “all the wisdom of Ben Sira”, given to him by God in answer to his prayer (Sir 39:5-6; 51:13-14).25 The opening phrase (“all wisdom”) seems to have a structural function in the book. The second main section (4:11–6:17) begins with a bicolon that mentions both “wisdom” (4:11a Ms A has the rare form twmkx) and “all” (4:11b Ms A has lk).26 Moreover, while in most Greek Mss the opening poem of section VI ends with the phrase “all those seeking instruction (paidei,an)” (33:18 G), a few Mss read “all those seeking wisdom (sofi,an)”, which would be a play on the phrase “all wisdom” in 1:1. Furthermore, when seen as a whole, 1:1–43:33 exhibits an inclusio, whereby Sir 1:1 begins with the phrase “all wisdom” (pa/sa sofi,a), while 43:33 divides the phrase to give “everything” … “wisdom” (pa,nta ... sofi,an). In addition, Sir 19:20–20:31 (a sub25

26

Possibly Ben Sira may have wished his work to be known as the book of “All Wisdom,” just as the first word of each of the five books of the Torah serves as the Hebrew title. Similarly, the ancient title of the Epic of Gilgamesh was taken from its opening words; cf. PRITCHARD, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 72. For the eight main sections of Ben Sira’s work see the discussion of “Major Divisions of Ben Sira’s Book” below.

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unit in section IV) begins with the declaration that employs the significant phrase twice: “The fear of the Lord is all wisdom, and the practice of the law is in all wisdom” (19:20 Gr). Finally, the author’s signature in 50:27-29 Gr concludes with mention of one who “will become wise” (50:28b: sofisqh,setai) in connection with “everything” (50:29a: pa,nta). It is curious that the opening of Ben Sira, which develops biblical teaching on wisdom’s origin from Israel’s one God (Prov 2:6), exhibits some resemblances to the start of the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. Indeed, the opening phrase of the book (“all wisdom,” Sir 1:1) echoes the phrase “complete wisdom” (I.i.4) near the beginning of the Gilgamesh Epic.27 The epic opens by presenting Gilgamesh (I.i.1-6): [Of him who] found out all things, I [shall te]ll the land, [Of him who] experienced everything, [I shall tea]ch the whole. He searched (?) lands (?) everywhere. He who experienced the whole gained complete wisdom. He found out what was secret and uncovered what was hidden, He brought back a tale of times before the Flood.28

Ben Sira opens his book with a distant echo of the start of the Babylonian text. Whereas the epic opens by speaking of Gilgamesh as one who had “found out all things” and “experienced everything” and “gained complete wisdom”, Ben Sira speaks of “one [who] is wise”, the one who “created [wisdom] and saw and enumerated her” (Sir 1:8-9). Moreover, whereas the epic says that Gilgamesh “found out what was secret and uncovered what was hidden” from before the Flood, Ben Sira inquires to whom the root of wisdom has been revealed (Sir 1:6).29

2.2 Self-References (Sir 24:30-34; 33:16-18; 39:12) The sage’s three major references to his own activity occur at the start of sections V and VI and VII of the work, as indicated below in the discussion of “Major Divisions of Ben Sira’s Book”. These passages not only provide 27

28 29

This Mesopotamian text may not be so remote from Judaism around 200 BC, since links have been observed between the epic and the Enochic literature; cf. VANDERKAM, Enoch, 137 and 175. In fact, the name Gilgamesh occurs in the Qumran Book of Giants (4Q 530 ii.2; 4Q 531 17.12), while Qoh 9:7-9 (possibly written in Jerusalem in the century before Ben Sira) quotes Gilgamesh (X.iii.6-14 [Meissner Tablet]). Epic quoted from DALLEY, Myths from Mesopotamia, 50. On the opening lines of the Epic of Gilgamesh see TOURNAY, “Début de l’épopée de Gilgamesh”, 5-7. Nevertheless, later in his book Ben Sira will acknowledge that he traveled in order to discover wisdom (Sir 34:10-12; cf. 39:4), just as Gilgamesh gained wisdom through his experiences of searching lands (I.i.2-4).

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markers of the book’s structure, but also offer glimpses into the author’s intentions.30 The most plausible theory to explain these three self-references has been proposed by Wolfgang Roth: “After Sirach had composed his first book of wisdom (1:1–23:27 and 51:1-30), he found himself compelled three times to add a section to his original book (24:1–32:13; 32:14–38:23; 38:24–50:29)”.31 Each supplementary section is prefaced by a sapiential poem: “24:1-29 precedes the first additional section as prologue, 32:14–33:15 is the prologue to the second addition, and 38:24–39:11 introduces the third”. Roth also declares that in each of these additional sections, “an autobiographical note intervenes between prologue and body of the section”– a reference to 24:30-34, 33:16-18, and 39:12. Here I will consider these three passages. The longest authorial self-reference occurs in 24:30-34, at the end of the wisdom poem introducing Part V of the book. Since the Hebrew text is unfortunately lost, the following translation will be based mainly on the Greek. I also issued forth like a channel from a river, and like a water trench into a garden. I said: I will irrigate my plantation, and I will saturate my garden plot. And behold, the channel became for me a river, and my river became a lake. Again I will make instruction shine out like the dawn, and I will show it forth even to a distance. Again I will pour out teaching like prophecy, and I will bequeath it to everlasting generations. See that not only for myself have I toiled, but for all those seeking it.

Although in this autobiographical passage Ben Sira attributes to himself a prophetic role (24:33), elsewhere he indicates that he views himself not as one of the earlier “canonical” prophets, but rather as a gleaner who gathers the fruits left behind by previous harvesters (33:16-17). It is presumably intentional that the sage’s words in 24:30-34 echo the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. Speaking in close proximity to the temple (24:10-11), Ben Sira sees his role as bringing forth water in a stream that grows from a rivulet into a large river (24:30-31). In this way, Ben Sira himself brings about what was announced for the new temple by the prophet Ezekiel

30 31

JÜNGLING, Der Bauplan, 97; cf. LIESEN, Strategical Self-References, 63-74; PRATO, Il problema della teodicea, 84-86. ROTH, On the Gnomic-Discursive Wisdom, 60. The next two quotations are also from p. 60.

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(Ezek 47:1-12). Then Ben Sira promises that his teaching will go forth like light from his base adjacent to the temple (24:32; cf. 24:27). This declaration echoes God’s statement that the divine word would go forth from Jerusalem (Isa 2:3), with the invitation to Israel to walk in the light of the Lord (Isa 2:5). The second major autobiographical section (33:16-18 Ms E) occurs at the end of the sapiential poem (32:14–33:18) introducing Part VI of the book.32 I also have been vigilant as the last person, and like a gleaner after the grape harvesters. By God’s blessing I also have advanced, and like a grape harvester I have filled my wine vat. See that not only for myself have I toiled, but for all those seeking instruction.

Here Ben Sira asserts that in his ministry of the word he has been vigilant (Sir 33:16), just as God declares at the call of Jeremiah that he is watchful over his word to perform it (Jer 1:11-12). Immediately afterward, Ben Sira employs the imagery of the vintage harvester (Sir 33:17), which echoes Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard planted on the fertile hill of Zion (Isa 5:1-7). In fact, the sage’s toil has not been simply for his own benefit, but to help his students, and indeed for everyone seeking wisdom (51:23-28). As a concluding refrain, 33:18 G matches the Greek text of 24:34. Evidently Ben Sira at the start of Part VI has deliberately echoed his words at the start of Part V, to show that he is adding another section to his book. At the opening of Part VII of the book, the author’s third major self-reference occurs in 39:12 G, at the end of the poem praising the scribe (38:24–39:12), and just before the passage on theodicy (39:13-35). Having reflected, I will again make a declaration, and I am full like the full moon.

Since he is filled with illuminating things to say (like Elihu in Job 32:18), Ben Sira compares himself to the full moon (cf. Sir 50:6). Elsewhere he expresses his fullness with images of water (24:30-33) and harvest (33:17). There is also an echo of the scribal reader of earlier prophecies (39:1), who “will be filled with the spirit of understanding” (Sir 39:6 Gr), rather like the Spirit-filled prophets Elijah, Elisha, and Micah (Sir 48:12 Gr; Mic 3:8).

32

For the lacunae in 33:16-18 Ms E I have followed SEGAL, Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, 207.

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2.3 Notice of Authorship (Sir 50:27-29) The view taken here is that the notice of authorship in 50:27-29 is the work of Ben Sira himself.33 According to some scholars, the mention of the author’s own name marks a new stage in the history of Israel’s wisdom tradition. Martin Hengel asserts that among Jewish teachers, “Ben Sira was the first to venture to emerge clearly as a personality (50:27). Here is the beginning of a new development, for the stressing of the personality of the individual teacher derived from Greek custom”.34 Influence from Greek culture is certainly possible; for instance, Theognis declares his authorship of his poetry near the start of the collection of his sayings (cf. Theognis 19-23). However, Ben Sira may also have been adapting a usage found in the Book of Jeremiah, where the prophetic words end with the statement: “Thus far are the words of Jeremiah” (Jer 51:64; cf. Job 31:40). Indeed, the author’s view of himself as a prophet whose teaching flows out like water (according to the reconstructed text of 50:27cd below) echoes his declaration at the end of the great sapiential poem opening Part V of the book (Sir 24:30-33).35 A reconstructed Hebrew text of 50:27-29 (adapted from Segal’s edition) follows:36

arys !b rz[la !b [wXyl ~ynpwa ylXmw lkX rswm twnwbtb [ybh rXaw wbl rwtpb abyn rXa ~kxy wbl l[ !twnw hghy hlab Xya yrXa ~yyx yyy tary yk qzxy lkl ~hXw[ yk Instruction in prudence and fitly spoken proverbs by Jeshua son of Eleazar son of Sira, which he prophesied in the interpretation of his heart, and which he poured forth with insights. Happy the man who meditates on these things, and one who places them in his heart will become wise. 33

34 35 36

So SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 559; SEGAL, Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, 350; HASPECKER, Gottesfurcht, 87-89 (cf. 72-75); HENGEL, Judaism and Hellenism, I, 79 and I, 131. For the view that 50:27-29 is inauthentic, see SCHRADER, Leiden und Gerechtigkeit, 66. There are also diverse scribal notes identifying the author in the various manuscripts after 51:30, but these probably do not derive from Ben Sira himself. HENGEL, Judaism and Hellenism, I, 79. Scribal notices often occur at the end of Egyptian sapiential writings, but the reference is generally to the copyist rather than to the author. SEGAL, Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, 350 (including his retroversion of 50:29a from the Greek). I have made three changes from Segal’s text. First, in 50:27a I read ylXmw (“and proverbs”), where Ms B has the strange form lXwmw (“and likeness” or “and dominion”); cf. SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 556-557. Second, in 50:27b I correct Ms B from Gr for the author’s name; cf. SKEHAN – DI LELLA, ibid. Third, in 50:27c I read abyn rXa (“which he prophesied”), where Ms B has the form [byn rXa (“which was poured forth”); cf. SMEND, Die Weisheit, 493-494.

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For one who does them will be strong for everything, for the fear of Yhwh is life.

This notice (expanding Prov 15:33a) is reminiscent of phrases occurring earlier in Ben Sira’s book. Most significantly, the terms “he will become wise” (~kxy, 50:28b Ms B) and “for everything” (equivalent to lkl, 50:29a) create an inclusio with “all wisdom” (equivalent to hmkx lk) in the opening of the book (1:1), while the concluding equation of the fear of the Lord with life (50:29b) is reminiscent of the opening poem on the fear of God (Sir 1:12; cf. Prov 14:27; 19:23).37 Moreover, Sir 50:27-29 recalls 6:37 (the end of the opening poem of Part III of the sage’s writing), with shared vocabulary including the Hebrew root !yb (“understand”, 6:37ac; 50:27d), the notion of hary (“fear”, 6:37a; 50:29b) directed toward God, the verb hgh (“meditate”, 6:37b; 50:28a), the noun bl (“heart”, 6:37c; 50:27c.28b), and the verb ~kx (“be wise”, 6:37d; 50:28b). In addition, the vocabulary of Sir 50:28 echoes the start of Part IV (14:20-21), with a particular similarity existing between 14:20a and 50:28a: 14:20a Ms A: hghy hmkxb Xwna yrXa happy the mortal who meditates on wisdom; 50:28a Ms B: hghy hlab Xya yrXa happy the man who meditates on these things.

Thus, the notice of authorship serves to emphasize important themes in the sage’s work, especially wisdom and the fear of God.

2.4 Close of the Final Acrostic Poem (Sir 51:30) According to the geniza manuscript, the acrostic poem that concludes Ben Sira’s book ends with the words: “Do your deeds with righteousness, and he will give you your reward in its time” (Sir 51:30 Ms B). We have already seen that these words exhibit a resemblance to the conclusion to the Book of Proverbs (Prov 31:31), and also to the end of P. Insinger (35.11). In fact, the geniza manuscript differs slightly from the ancient versions. On the basis of Gr and S, we may reconstruct the original Hebrew thus: wt[b ~krkX !tyw t[ alb ~kyX[m wl[p Perform your deeds before the due time, and he will give your reward in its [or: his] due time.38 37 38

Furthermore, within the Syriac version Sir 50:29 echoes 25:12 and 40:26. For the expression “before the due time” (Sir 51:30 Gr and S) see Qoh 7:17; Sir 30:24. For the phrase “in its due time” compare Deut 11:14; Ps 1:3; Prov 15:23; Qoh 3:11; Sir 4:23; 31:28; 39:16.33.34.

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If this reconstructed text is correct, its first two words form an inclusio with the ending of Part III (14:19) and the opening of the great hymn on creation (42:15cd). Moreover, the mention of “deeds” and “reward” echoes Sir 16:14, the last line of 15:11–16:14.39 In addition, the opening and conclusion of Ben Sira’s final acrostic have a curious resemblance to lines 73-76 of the Akkadian poem (also an acrostic) known as the Babylonian Theodicy, though Ben Sira’s affirmations oppose the scepticism of the Mesopotamian sufferer:40 When I was young I sought the will of (my) god, I sought my goddess with humility and prayer, and yet I had to do forced labour without reward, instead of riches my god decreed poverty for me.

We may compare the start of Ben Sira’s final poem: “I was a youth before I went wandering, and I sought her [= wisdom]” (51:13 Mas). In 51:28b Ms B (where the Greek differs slightly) Ben Sira promises riches to the seeker for wisdom: “Silver and gold you will acquire through me”. Lastly, the Hebrew sage affirms that there will indeed be a reward in due time for one who performs his allotted tasks (51:30).41

3. Major divisions of Ben Sira’s Book Leaving aside the appendices (50:25–51:30) and the grandson’s prologue to the Greek version, the bulk of Ben Sira’s book (1:1–50:24) may be divided up into eight main sections.42 Each of the eight parts starts with a sapiential poem, while the appendices end with a wisdom poem:43 39 40 41

42

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According to PRATO (Il problema della teodicea, 231), Sir 15:11–16:14 is the first half of a long passage on human sin and divine mercy in 15:11–18:14. The Babylonian text is quoted from BEYERLIN, Near Eastern Religious Texts, 135. One other point deserves consideration: the concluding of Ben Sira’s book with two poetic hymns (excluding Sir 51:12i-xvi, attested only in one geniza Hebrew manuscript). The books associated with Moses and with David both include near their end two different poetic hymns: near the end of Deuteronomy are the Song of Moses and his last blessings of the tribes (Deut 32:1-43; 33:2-29), while near the end of Second Samuel are David’s thanksgiving psalm and his last words (2 Sam 22:2-51; 23:1-7). One view is that the structure of Ben Sira (two parts of four sections each) serves to match the four major parts of the Book of Proverbs (chaps. 1-9; 10-24; 25-29; 30-31); see SEGAL, Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, introduction, 16. Alternatively, leaving aside the concluding acrostic poem in 31:10-31, the Book of Proverbs could be divided into eight sections, all except two introduced by a superscription (1:1-9:18; 10:1–22:16; 22:17–24:22; 24:23-34; 25:1–29:27; 30:1-14; 30:15-33; 31:1-9); cf. SCHRADER, Leiden und Gerechtigkeit, 65. I have adapted the following structure from SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira,

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Part I, 1:1–4:10: “Understanding Wisdom“, begun by wisdom poem (1:1-10); Part II, 4:11–6:17: “Applying Wisdom Personally“, begun by wisdom poem (4:11-19); Part III, 6:18–14:19: “Applying Wisdom Socially“, begun by wisdom poem (6:18-37); Part IV, 14:20–23:27: “Applying Wisdom to Speech and Thought“, begun by wisdom poem (14:20–15:10); Part V, 24:1–32:13: “Applying Wisdom to Household Life“, begun by wisdom poem (24:1-34); Part VI, 32:14–38:23: “Using Wisdom to Make Good Decisions“, begun by wisdom poem (32:14–33:18); Part VII, 38:24–43:33: “Demonstrating the Results of Wisdom“, begun by wisdom poem (38:24–39:12); Part VIII, 44:1–50:24: “Wisdom in History“, begun by wisdom poem (44:1-15); Appendices, 50:25–51:30, ended by wisdom poem (51:13-30).

The same refrain delimits the end of the wisdom poems opening Parts V and VI (24:34 Gr = 33:18 Gr). Similarly, another refrain occurs near the conclusion of the sapiential poem opening Part VII and at the end of the introduction to Part VIII (39:10 Gr = 44:15 Gr). Ben Sira links each of the parts together more or less immediately by means of a catchword or mot crochet:44 Part I (4:10c Ms A): !b (“son”); Part II (4:11a Ms A): hynb (“her sons”). Part II (6:16b Ms A): ~gyXy (“he will attain them”); Part III (6:18b Ms C): gyXt (“you will attain”).

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xiii-xvi. See also HARVEY, Toward a Degree of Order, 61, whence I have taken the titles of Parts I-IV, VI-VII (on p. 53 Harvey calls 32:14–33:18 a wisdom poem). The section divisions correspond to the analysis of SEGAL (Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, introduction, 16), who ends the seventh section with 43:33 and starts the eighth section with 44:1 (on this point I alter my earlier view; cf. CORLEY, Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship, 23). For different outlines of Ben Sira’s book see SMEND, Die Weisheit, xxx-xxxiv; PETERS, Das Buch Jesus Sirach, xli-xlii; MARBÖCK, Structure and Redaction History”, 66-68; JÜNGLING, Der Bauplan, 104-5; SAUER, Gedanken, 61; MULDER, Simon the High Priest, 37. Unless indicated in this footnote, all the catchwords listed occur in a Hebrew manuscript (except for the reference to the Greek in chaps. 23-24). In 4:10d and 4:12a the Greek text has a further mot crochet with the verb À avgapa,w (“love”). In 6:16b, where the text of Ms A reads ~gyXy (“he will attain them”), a singular object (“him,” as in Gr) fits the context better, so the original reading may have been wngyXy (“he will attain him”). A further mot crochet links Parts IV and V in the Syriac, which has the term “earth” in 23:27a and in 24:3b. The readings of 32:12 and 32:16 follow MINISSALE, La versione greca, 68 and 79. The verb in 38:20a follows the margin of Ms B. In 43:33b, where the Hebrew text has a lacuna, the reading ~ydysxlw (“and to the devout”) is Segal’s retroversion from the Greek (Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, 290). In addition, the untranslatable accusative particle ta in 43:33a Ms B and in 44:1b Mas serves as a further link between Parts VII and VIII.

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Jeremy Corley Part III (14:19ab Ms A): wyrxa … lk (“all … after him”); Part IV (14:22ab Ms A): lkw … hyrxa (“after her … and all”). Part IV (23:24a G): evkklhsi,an (“assembly”); Part V (24:2a G): evkklhsi,a (“assembly”). Part V (32:12b Ms B): la ... taryb (“in the fear of God”); Part VI (32:16a Ms B): yyy ary (“one who fears Yhwh”). Part VI (38:20a Ms B / Bm): bl … tyXt la (“do not set [your] heart”); Part VII (38:26b Ms B): tyXy bl (“he sets [his] heart”). Part VII (43:33b Segal): ~ydysxlw (“and to the loyal”); Part VIII (44:1a Ms B): dsx yXna (“men of loyalty”).45

Moreover, many of the parts of the book are united by inclusiones: Part II, 4:11–6:17: 4:12 Ms A: ~yyx wbha hybha (“her friends love life”); 6:16 Ms A: hnwma bhwa ~yyx rwrc (“a faithful friend is a bundle of the living”). Part III, 6:18–14:19: [stylistic inclusio with non-alphabetic acrostics] 6:18-37 = 22-line poem; 13:24–14:19 = 23-line poem. Part IV, 14:20–23:27: 14:20 S: atwntlwksbw (“and on understanding”); 23:27 S: !wlktsnw (“and they will understand”). Part VI, 32:14–38:23: 32:16 Mss BEF: aycwy (“he will bring forth”); 38:23 Ms B: tac (“going forth”). Part VII, 38:24–43:33: 38:24 Gr: sofi,a (“wisdom”); 43:33 Gr: sofi,an (“wisdom”). Part VIII, 44:1–50:24: 44:1 Ms B and Mas: dsx (“loyalty”); 44:1 Ms B: twmym (“from the days”). 50:24 Ms B: wdsx (“his loyalty”); 50:24 Ms B: ymyk (“like the days”).

4. Delimitation of Ben Sira’s poetic units Although Ben Sira sometimes uses other genres (e.g., hymn, prayer, encomium), most of his book consists of didactic poems.46 In much of the work, therefore, no difference of genre indicates the start and finish of the individual units. Hence, in order to clarify the architecture of his book, Ben Sira employs several stylistic markers to delimit longer or shorter units. Three 45

46

Elsewhere Ben Sira often makes use of a catchword or mot crochet to link adjacent passages; see 12:18/13:1 (hand); 13:23/24 (rich/poor); 15:9/11 (from God); 19:17/20 (law); 49:16/50:1 (glory). Hymnic compositions include Sir 18:1-7; 39:13-35; 42:15–43:33; 51:1-12; prayers include 22:27–23:6; 36:1-22. The Praise of the Ancestors in 44:1–50:24 uses the form of an encomium, according to LEE, Studies, 206-239.

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of these markers occur frequently: inclusio, non-alphabetic acrostic, and opening/closing rhyme.47 The presence of inclusio can be a strong indicator in delimiting a passage. Examples of Ben Sira’s pericopes delimited by means of inclusio include the following eight passages: 7:18-36 (on social duties); 13:1-23 (on caution in dealing with the rich); 14:20–15:10 (on wisdom); 37:27–38:23 (on health, sickness, and death); 42:15–43:33 (on God’s glory in creation); 44:1-15 (preamble to the Praise of the Ancestors); 49:1-16 (on Israel’s early and late heroes); 50:1-24 (on Simeon the high priest).48 7:18 Ms A: bhwa (“friend”); 7:35 Ms A: bhat (“you will be loved”). 13:1 Ms A: [gwn (“one who touches”); 13:23 Ms A: w[ygy (“they make … reach”). 14:20 Ms A: hmkxb (“on wisdom”); 15:10 Ms A: ~kx (“a wise person”). 37:27 Mss BD: $vpn (“your soul/self”); 38:23 Mss BD: wXpn (“his soul/life”). 42:15a Ms B and Mas: la yX[m (“the works of God”); 43:32b Ms B: wyX[mm (“of his works”). 44:1 Ms B: hllha (“I will praise”); 44:15 Ms B and Mas: ~tlhtw (“and their praise”). 49:1 Ms B: ~X (“name”); 49:16 Ms B: ~X (“Shem”). 50:1 Ms B: wymybw (“and in his days”); 50:24 Ms B: ymyk (“like the days”).

We have already mentioned the final alphabetic acrostic describing Ben Sira’s search for wisdom (51:13-30), in imitation of the alphabetic acrostic on the “capable wife” that concludes the Book of Proverbs (31:10-31).49 Apart from Sir 51:13-30, elsewhere the sage often uses non-alphabetic acrostics of either twenty-two or twenty-three lines. The commentary of Patrick Skehan and Alexander Di Lella provides a listing: “1:11-30 (the opening poem of the book); 5:1–6:4; 6:18-37 (the opening poem of Part III); 12:1-18; 13:24–14:19 (the closing poem of Part III); 21:1-21; 29:1-20; 29:21–30:13; 38:24-34; 49:116”. In addition, the twenty-two lines in Lady Wisdom’s speech in Sir 24:317.19-22 (omitting 24:18 as a later gloss) match the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Besides these eleven non-alphabetic acrostics, we may suggest three more: 28:8-26 (23 bicola on the harm caused by a quarrelsome 47

48

49

On Ben Sira’s use of the devices of inclusio, acrostic, and rhyme, see SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 63-74. On these stylistic features in the Hebrew Bible see WATSON, Classical Hebrew Poetry, 282-287 (inclusio); 199 (non-alphabetic acrostics); 229-234 (rhyme). Other examples of poems united by inclusio include Sir 1:1-10; 1:11-30; 6:18-37; 10:19–11:6; 27:16-21; 29:14-20; 32:14–33:18; 36:1-22; cf. SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 73-74. Outside Ben Sira, inclusio occurs in biblical texts such as many Psalms (see Psalms 8; 21; 103; 104; 139; 150). On alphabetic acrostics in the Hebrew Bible see SOLL, Psalm 119, 5-34; WATSON, Classical Hebrew Poetry, 190-200. Biblical examples of non-alphabetic acrostics include Lam 5:122 (22 bicola); Ps 33 (22 bicola); Prov 2:1-22 (22 bicola); 7:6-27 (23 bicola). A list of nonalphabetic acrostics in Ben Sira appears in SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 74, from where the following quotation comes.

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tongue); 36:26–37:11 (23 bicola on discernment in choosing associates); 40:18–41:4 (23 bicola on life and death). Ben Sira’s text also has at least four double non-alphabetic acrostics: 22:27–23:27 (44 bicola on control of the tongue and of the passions); 25:13–26:27 (46 bicola on good and bad wives); 41:5–42:14 (45 bicola on shameful persons and actions); 42:15–43:26 (45 bicola on God’s glory in creation). The presence of a non-alphabetic acrostic, however, is not always conclusive in delimiting a pericope. On occasions, such an acrostic may highlight part of a wider pericope (e.g., 24:3-17.19-22 within 24:1-34; or 36:26–37:11 within 36:23–37:15; or 38:24-34 within 38:24–39:12). At other times, a non-alphabetic acrostic may serve to unite several smaller units (e.g., 5:1-8; 5:9–6:1; 6:2-4 within 5:1–6:4; or 29:1-7.8-13.14-20 within 29:1-20; or the units in 49:1-16). Opening and closing rhyme can also serve to delimit a passage. Here are four examples, taken from the pericopes previously mentioned in connection with inclusio (7:18-36; 13:1-23; 14:20–15:10; 37:27–38:23): 7:18a Ms A: ryxmb (“for a price”) // 7:18b Ms A: rypwa (“Ophir”); 7:35a G = bawk (“sick”)50 // 7:35b Ms A: bhat (“you will be loved”). 13:1a Ms A: wdy (“his hand”) // 13:1b Ms A: wkrd (“his way”); 13:23c Ms A: wrmay (“they will say”) // 13:23d Ms A: whwpdhy (“they will push him down”). 14:20a Ms A: hghy (“he will meditate”) // 14:20b Ms A: h[Xy (“he will gaze”); 15:10a Ms A: hlht (“praise”) // 15:10b Ms A: hndmly (“he will teach it”). 37:27a Mss BD: $Xpn (“your soul/self”) // 37:27b Mss BD: hl (“to it”); 38:23a Ms B: wrkz (“his memory”) // 38:23b Ms B wXpn (“his soul/life”).

Indications of the opening of a passage can be given in various other ways. First, there may be an initial call to attention, often with a command to “hear” (e.g., 23:7; 31:22; 33:19; 39:13; 41:16 Ms B and Mas [= 41:14 Gr]). Second, the author may use the address “my child” or “children” (though this may also occur within the body of a poem). We can consider the example of 37:27–38:23, a poem of four subunits dealing respectively with health (37:27-31), medicine (38:1-8), sickness (38:9-15), and death (38:16-23); in this poem, each of the four subunits except the second begins with the term “my child” (ynb) in the geniza manuscript. Third, there may be an illustrative observation from the natural world: see 3:25 (opening 3:25-29); 3:30 (beginning 3:30–4:10); 5:9 (opening 5:9–6:1); 9:10 (beginning 9:10-16); 13:1 (opening 13:123); 22:19 (beginning 22:19-26). Fourth, Ben Sira may employ a numerical proverb to begin a unit: compare 23:16 (opening 23:16-27); 25:1-2 (beginning 25:1-6); 26:28 (opening 26:28–27:7). And fifth, in the Praise of the Ances50

On this reading (a retroversion from Gr) see CORLEY, Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship, 220.

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tors there may be a play on the Hebrew name of the character: 44:19 (Abraham); 44:23g (Moses); 46:1 (Joshua); 46:13 (Samuel); 47:13 (Solomon); 47:23 (Rehoboam); 48:17 (Hezekiah).51 In addition, several common themes often serve to mark the opening of a poem or a section of a poem, though some of them can be used at other points in the poetry. One theme is the “fear of God”: 1:11 (opening 1:11-30); 10:19b Gr (beginning 10:19–11:6); 19:20 (opening 19:20–20:31); 21:11 (beginning 21:11-21). Another theme is the “beginning”: 29:21 (opening 29:21-28); 37:16 (opening 37:16-26). The conclusion of a passage can often be marked by means of a biblical allusion. Here are several examples: Sir 2:18 (ending 2:1-18) echoing 2 Sam 24:14; Sir 5:8 (concluding 5:1-8) echoing Prov 11:4; Sir 6:17 (ending 6:517) echoing 1 Sam 25:25; Sir 7:17 (concluding 7:1-17) echoing Job 25:6; Sir 10:18 (ending 9:17–10:18) echoing Job 14:1; Sir 13:23 (concluding 13:1-23) echoing Job 20:6; Sir 14:19 (ending 13:24–14:19) echoing Job 21:33; Sir 19:17 (concluding 19:4-17) echoing Lev 19:17; Sir 30:13 (ending 30:1-13) echoing 1 Kgs 12:14; Sir 40:16 (concluding 40:1-17) echoing Job 8:12; Sir 40:27 (ending 40:18-27) echoing Isa 4:6. In addition, refrains can frequently serve to indicate the conclusion of a passage (as in Psalms 46 and 67). Instances of refrains include the following: 6:4a Ms A = 19:3b Ms C (ending 5:1–6:4 and 18:30–19:3); 20:30-31 Gr = 41:14-15 G (concluding 19:20–20:31 and 41:5-15); 24:34 Gr = 33:18 Gr (ending 24:1-34 and 32:14–33:18); 31:11b Ms B = 39:10b Gr = 44:15b Ms B and Mas (concluding 30:14–31:11 and 38:24–39:12 and 44:1-15). A further refrain found in the Syriac seems authentic: 2:18d S = 6:17b S.52 There are also several themes that frequently mark the closing of a literary unit. One of Ben Sira’s favorite concluding themes is the fear of God: 1:30 (ending 1:11-30); 6:16 (concluding 6:5-17); 6:37 Ms A (ending 6:18-37); 9:16 (ending 9:10-16); 23:27 (ending 22:27–23:27); 25:6 (ending 25:1-6); 25:1011 (concluding 25:7-11); 32:12 Ms B (ending 31:12–32:13); 40:26-27 (ending 40:18-27); 50:29 (concluding 50:25-29). A second favorite concluding theme is the term “Law” or “commandments”: 6:37 (ending 6:18-37); 9:15 Gr (concluding 9:10-16); 19:17 Gr (ending 19:4-17); 23:27 (ending 22:27–23:27). Another frequent concluding theme (compare Ps 111:10; Prov 31:31) is “praise”: 15:9-10 (concluding 14:20–15:10); 31:11 Ms B (ending 30:14–31:11); 39:9-10 (concluding 38:24–39:12); 39:35 (ending 39:13-35); 44:14-15 (concluding 44:115). Furthermore, a phrase that sometimes appears at the end of a passage 51 52

On these wordplays in Sirach 44-50 see SMEND, Die Weisheit, xlii. Compare the refrain in Isa 9:11.16.20 and 10:4; or Cant 2:7; 3:5; 5:8. On refrains in biblical Hebrew verse see WATSON, Classical Hebrew Poetry, 295-299. On Ben Sira’s use of refrains see SMEND, Die Weisheit, xliii note 1. Occasionally a refrain will not mark an ending (e.g., Sir 5:6c Mss AC= Sir 16:11c Ms A).

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is “all the living”: 42:1d (ending 41:16–42:1d); 42:8 (concluding 42:1e-8); 44:23 (ending 44:17-23); 49:16 (concluding 49:1-16). Lastly, words associated with finality or death often fittingly close Ben Sira’s poems. Sometimes the term “end” appears: 7:36 (concluding 7:18-36); 11:27-28 (ending 11:7-28); 21:10 (concluding 21:1-10); 34:8 (ending 34:1-8); 43:27 (introducing 43:27-33 which concludes 42:15–43:33).53 More commonly, there is a mention of death (or the grave or worms): 7:17 (ending 7:1-17); 7:36 (concluding 7:18-36); 9:9 (ending 9:1-9); 11:28 (concluding 11:7-28); 14:19 (ending 13:24–14:19); 19:3 (concluding 18:30–19:3); 28:7 (ending 27:22–28:7); 39:11 (concluding 38:24–39:12); 44:14 (ending 44:1-15).54 When taken individually, the above-mentioned indications of delimitation may be more or less probative. However, in combination the cumulative force of these features is weighty. Several pericopes are clearly delimited by a combination of the above-mentioned stylistic features. For instance, Ben Sira employs inclusio together with a non-alphabetic acrostic to delimit several poems (1:11-30; 29:1-20; 29:21–30:13; 49:1-16). Perhaps the most clearly delimited passage is the sapiential poem in 6:18-37, which can serve to illustrate five of these points (non-alphabetic acrostic, inclusio, opening and closing rhyme, opening motif, favorite closing theme). The poem is a non-alphabetic acrostic of twenty-two lines. The composition is marked off by an inclusio: the noun hmkx (“wisdom”) is the last word of 6:18 Ms C, while the verb $mkxy (“he will make you wise”) is the last word of 6:37 Ms A. Moreover, there is significant opening rhyme: hmkx (“wisdom”) in 6:18b; hyla (“to her”) in 6:19a; htawbt (“her produce”) in 6:19b; hyrp (“her fruit”) in 6:20b. There is also closing rhyme: $bl (“your heart”) in 6:37c and $mkxy (“he will make you wise”) in 6:37d. Furthermore, the poem opens with the standard sapiential address “[my] child” (6:18 Gr), which can often (though not always) indicate the beginning of a new poem. Finally, the poem ends with two favorite closing motifs, the Law (6:37 Hb, Gr, S) and the fear of God (6:37 Hb, S; not in Gr).

53

54

In the declaration: “The end of the matter: he is the all” (Sir 43:27), Ben Sira may perhaps be reworking a saying in the epilogue to Qoheleth: “The finish of the matter: everything is heard. Fear God and keep his commands” (Qoh 12:13). Other biblical authors end pericopes with mention of death (or similar terms); see Prov 5:23; 7:27; 8:36; 9:18; Isa 22:13; Ps 137:9 (cf. Ps 55:24; Job 7:21; 8:22; 32:22). On closure in biblical poetry see WATSON, Classical Hebrew Poetry, 65.

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5. A plausible reconstruction of redactional stages In our earlier discussion of Ben Sira’s self-references, we noted Roth’s hypothesis concerning redactional stages in the book.55 According to Roth, the first edition of the book consisted of 1:1–23:27 and 51:1-30. Thereafter, three new editions cumulatively added supplements (24:1–32:13; 32:14–38:23; and 38:24–50:29). In each case, the supplement began with a wisdom poem (24:1-29; 32:14–33:15; 38:24–39:11) followed by an autobiographical note (24:30-34; 33:16-18; 39:12). In general, this theory offers a good understanding of the material. With two major changes, let us see if this proposal can be developed to make sense of the structure of the book. The first major change, following Segal,56 is to divide the last section into two supplements: 38:24–43:33 and 44:1–50:29 (but unlike Segal, to separate 50:25-29 as two postscripts). The second major change is to see the thanksgiving hymn in Sir 51:1-12, not as part of the first edition, but as a supplement to 38:23. This investigation will note literary indications to support the view that each new section represents a further redactional stage within Ben Sira’s book. Admittedly, this hypothesis of redactional stages does not explain everything about the structure, but is offered tentatively as a theory explaining as many aspects as possible. 1. First Edition (Original book = 1:1–23:27 and 51:13-30): 1:1-10, Sapiential prologue to whole book (somewhat like Prov 1); 1:11-30, Twenty-two-line poem on fear of God (like Prov 2); 2:1–23:27, Body of original book; 51:13-30, Alphabetic poem on Lady Wisdom (like Prov 31:10-31).

Note the inclusio for 1:11–23:27, with the phrase fo,boj kuri,ou (“fear of the Lord”) in 1:11 matching the similar phrase fo,bou kuri,ou (“than fear of the Lord”) in 23:27. If the original book ended with Sir 22:27–23:27 (control of tongue and of passions) before 51:13-30 (acrostic on Lady Wisdom), there is some similarity with Proverbs 30-31, namely: Prov 30:5-6 (words); 30:18-20 (adultery); 31:2-3 (adultery); 31:8-9 (words); 31:10-31 (acrostic on capable woman). Because Proverbs 30-31 lacks anything corresponding to the thanksgiving in Sir 51:1-12, it is better to see the thanksgiving as having been inserted for the third edition (see below).

55 56

ROTH, On the Gnomic-Discursive Wisdom, 60. SEGAL, Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, introduction, 16.

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2. Second Edition (1:1–32:13 and 51:13-30), including a supplement on “Applying Wisdom to Household Life” (24:1–32:13): 24:1-29, Sapiential prologue; 24:30-34, Autobiographical note; 25:1–32:13, Body of first supplement.57

An inclusio for 25:1–32:13 is provided by the Semitic root ~lX (“be complete/be at peace”), since the term !ymlX (“at peace”) in 25:1 S (where the Hebrew text is lost) matches the verb ~lXw (“and fulfil”) in 32:12 Mss BF. 3. Third Edition (1:1–38:23 and 51:1-30), including a new supplement on “Using Wisdom to Make Good Decisions” (32:14–38:23) plus a thanksgiving psalm (51:1-12): 32:14–33:15, Sapiential prologue; 33:16-18, Autobiographical note; 33:19–38:23, Body of second supplement;58 51:1-12, Psalm of deliverance (like 2 Sam 22 near end of book of Samuel).

There is a semantic inclusio for 33:19–38:23, whereby the injunction in 33:2021 not to give power to other living persons before one’s death (33:21, “living”) is balanced in 38:20-23 by the recommendation of moderate mourning by the living after another person’s death (38:23, “dead”).59 There are several reasons for suggesting that the hymn in 51:1-12 may have been added at this stage. First, it relates to the saying of 34:13: “I have often been in danger of death, but have escaped because of these experiences” (NRSV). Second, the thanksgiving for deliverance from death in 51:112 could smoothly follow the treatment of death in 38:16-23. Third, because Proverbs 30–31 has nothing corresponding to this hymn, it does not match the concluding parts (22:27–23:27 and 51:13-30) of the first edition according to the pattern presented above. 4. Fourth Edition (1:1–43:33 and 51:1-30), including an extra supplement on “Demonstrating the Results of Wisdom” (38:24–43:33): 38:24–39:11, Sapiential prologue; 39:12, Autobiographical note; 39:13–43:33, Body of third supplement.60 57 58 59 60

Note the opening feature of numerical proverbs (25:1-2), and the closing motif of praise of God (32:13). Observe the opening motif of the call to attention (33:19), as well as the closing motif of death (38:23). There is also a verbal inclusio: 33:21 Ms E has $dw[ (“you still”), while 38:20 Ms B has dw[ (“still”). Note the opening call to bless God (39:14c-15), as well as the closing motif of praise of God (43:27-33).

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We can suspect an inclusio of four Hebrew words for 39:13–43:33: 39:14cd Segal: wyf[m lk l[ yyy … wnt 39:14cd Gr: dia,dote … ku,rion evpi. pa/sin toi/j e;rgoij (“Give … the Lord for all that he made”); 43:33 Segal: !tn … yyy hf[ lkh ta 43:33 Gr: pa,nta … evpoi,hsen ov ku,rioj , … e;dwken (“The Lord made everything, … he gave …”).61

Note that 42:15–43:33 consists of a double non-alphabetic acrostic of 45 bicola (42:15–43:26) followed by a sapiential doxology of 8 bicola (43:27-33). The longer section (42:15–43:26) is unified by inclusiones of the Hebrew root l[p, “do,” and the noun !wcr, “will”: 42:15 Mas: wncr l[pw (“and the doer/doing of his will”); 43:26 Ms B: !wcr l[py (“it does [his] will”).

The conclusion (43:27-33) is unified by the word lkh (“everything”) in 43:27 Ms B and 43:33 Ms B, while its length of 8 bicola matches the length of the book’s opening poem (1:1-10), which also mentions “all” in its opening and closing lines (1:1 and 1:10). Furthermore, the ending “he has given wisdom to the devout” (43:33b Gr) loosely echoes the ending of the book’s first poem, “he has lavished it [= wisdom] on those who love him” (1:10b Gr). A few references in the latter part of the book suggest that the author had had to face up to his own mortality, since 40:1–41:13 deals respectively with life’s miseries (40:1-17), death (41:1-4), and a concern for honorable descendants (41:5-13). Earlier passages also had suggested that Ben Sira was ageing: the trials of ill health (30:14-17); keeping possessions till one’s deathbed before distributing them (33:20-24); dealing with sickness (37:27–38:15); mourning the dead (38:16-23). 5. Fifth Edition (1:1–51:30), including the last supplement on “Wisdom in History” (44:1–50:24), plus a further numerical proverb (50:25-26) and the author’s signature (50:27-29): 44:1-15, Sapiential prologue; [This preamble to the Praise of the Ancestors replaces the autobiographical note;] 44:17–50:24, Body of fourth supplement; 50:25-29: Numerical proverb and author’s signature.

There is an inclusio for 44:17–50:24, with the word wtyrbbw (“and by his covenant”) in 44:17 Ms B matching tyrb (“covenant”) in 50:24 Ms B.

61

See SEGAL, Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, 260 and 290.

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The Praise of the Ancestors (44:1–50:24) is the most highly structured portion of Ben Sira’s book.62 Five aspects of the structuring deserve attention here. First, 44:1–45:26 and 46:1–50:24 both end with a similar doxology (45:25e-26; 50:22-24), with each doxology being preceded by a lengthy description of priestly activity (45:6-25d; 50:1-21).63 Second, the caesura between 45:26 and 46:1 marks the canonical division between the Torah segment (44:17–45:26) and the Prophets segment (46:1–49:16).64 Third, the Torah section consists of a description of seven persons (from Noah to Phinehas) with whom God made a covenant.65 Fourth, several poems consist of eight or sixteen or thirty-two lines: Moses is allocated 8 bicola (45:1-5), both David and Solomon receive 16 bicola each (47:2-11 and 47:12-22), and Aaron is given 32 bicola (45:6-22). Fifth (as already noted), Ben Sira often introduces his characters with wordplay on their Hebrew names (Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Solomon, Rehoboam, Hezekiah).

6. Conclusion While we cannot solve every problem of the structure of Ben Sira’s book, comparison with other sapiential writings indicates that to some extent Ben Sira followed existing models. The greatest similarity is with the Book of Proverbs, but there are lesser structural resemblances with the Book of Job, the prototype of Papyrus Insinger, the poetry of Theognis, and the pre-Maccabean portions of 1 Enoch. Consideration of opening and closing features has led to some interesting observations. Special structural significance belongs to several key passages. In the book’s opening (Sir 1:1-10), the author sees “all wisdom” as a divine gift available for those who love him (possibly a contrast with the opening of the Epic of Gilgamesh). The three main authorial self-references (24:30-34; 33:16-18; 39:12) attest to Ben Sira’s consciousness of being in the tradition of Israel’s prophets, and offer hints about stages in the book’s development. Ben Sira’s third-person signature in 50:27-29 suggests a deliberate authorial conclusion to his work, prior to the appendices in 50:25–51:30. The final alphabetic acrostic indicates an intentional modeling of Ben Sira’s work on 62 63 64 65

Besides LEE, Studies , see MACK, Wisdom and the Hebrew Epic; MARBÖCK, Die ‘Geschichte Israels’, 103-123; GOSHEN-GOTTSTEIN, Ben Sira’s Praise, 235-267. LEE, Studies, 6 and 12-15. GOSHEN-GOTTSTEIN, Ben Sira’s Praise, 241. MARBÖCK, Die ‘Geschichte Israels’, 109-118. Mention of the covenant with David also appears in 45:25. I disregard the reference to Enoch in Mss of 44:16 as a later gloss, since it is absent from the Masada Ms.

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the Book of Proverbs, while the last line (51:30) offers an affirmation of the value of perseverance, in a curious contrast to the sufferer’s lament in the Akkadian acrostic poem known as the Babylonian Theodicy. The widely accepted division of Ben Sira’s book into eight major parts (each begun by a wisdom poem) is supported by the presence of catchwords (mots crochets) linking each part to the preceding material. Such internal poetic evidence suggests that the book has been put together carefully and deliberately. To indicate the delimitation of passages, Ben Sira very frequently employs stylistic devices, particularly inclusio, non-alphabetic acrostics of twenty-two or twenty-three lines, and opening/closing rhyme. Sometimes the beginning of a unit is indicated by features such as a call to attention or use of the address “my child”. The end of a unit may be marked by biblical allusions, refrains, or favorite closing themes (such as the fear of God). Indeed, the sapiential poem in 6:18-37 is delimited by five of these stylistic features (non-alphabetic acrostic, inclusio, opening and closing rhyme, opening address, and favorite closing themes). The three major authorial self-references (24:30-34; 33:16-18; 39:12) appear to offer information about the book’s redactional stages. It is likely that the first edition of the book consisted of 1:1–23:27 and 51:13-30. Thereafter, three new editions cumulatively added supplements, each one beginning with a wisdom poem (24:1-29; 32:14–33:15; 38:24–39:11) and an autobiographical note (24:30-34; 33:16-18; 39:12). Since the Praise of the Ancestors (44:1–50:24) is a self-contained unit of its own, it forms the last supplement for the book’s final edition (the fifth). This tentative reconstruction seems to make most sense of the evidence, but cannot be proven. Proposing redactional stages is largely hypothetical, since apart from the self-references in a few passages, we have little direct evidence of the author’s literary intentions. However, the plausible theory of Roth provides the basis for the proposal here, which is admittedly based mainly on circumstantial evidence. This hypothesis is not intended as the last word on the subject, but as a possible way of seeing a literary progression through Ben Sira’s writing. In conclusion, I note that despite the textual problems, many indications of the author’s careful construction of the book become apparent with patient study. I am sure that more aspects remain to be uncovered by future readers.

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SCHRADER, L., Leiden und Gerechtigkeit: Studien zu Theologie und Textgeschichte des Sirachbuches (BET 27), Frankfurt a.M. 1994. SEGAL, M. Z., Se¯per ben-Sîra¯’ hasˇsˇa¯le¯m, Jerusalem 19723. SKEHAN, P. W., Structures in Poems on Wisdom: Proverbs 8 and Sirach 24: CBQ 41 (1979), 365-379. SKEHAN, P. W. – DI LELLA,A. A., The Wisdom of Ben Sira. ANew Translation with Notes, Introduction, and Commentary (AncB 39), New York 1987. SOLL, W., Psalm 119: Matrix, Form, and Setting (CBQ.MS 23), Washington, DC 1991. SMEND, R., Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach erklärt, Berlin 1906. TOURNAY, R. J., Début de l’épopée de Gilgamesh: nouveau fragment cunéiforme: RB 106 (1999), 5-7. VANDERKAM, J. C., Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (CBQ.MS 16), Washington, DC 1984. WATSON, W. G. E., Classical Hebrew Poetry (JSOT.S 26), Sheffield 19862.

An historico-anthropological reading of the work of Ben Sira GIUSEPPE BELLIA The work of Ben Sira is the only book of Old Testament Scripture of which we possess spatio-temporal coordinates recognised by all as accurate and reliable. To set it against the background of its times, however, it is necessary to take up the lesson of annalistic historiography with much more determination. Sirach is an anomalous wisdom text. It was at one time much loved by the ancient generations of Christians who made it the object of public reading in the Church to the extent of changing its name to Ecclesiasticus, according to the explanation passed down by Cassiodorus. Today, by contrast, it does not meet with much of a consensus among the specialists. So as not to slide into the hermeneutic inertia of an exegetic understanding that is perforce repetitive, we must attempt a multidisciplinary reading, making use of new approaches. The problem of historical reconstruction in texts like ours, however, is that of not being able to distinguish satisfactorily, in the weave of the narrative, the literary composition which explains the facts from the truth of what happened. This risks confusing the interpretative witness of the memory passed on with the historical fact narrated and this with the real event.1 According to the now valued and revealing paradigm of reading history proposed by Paul Ricoeur, in order to obtain this separation between the explanatory level of writing history, which should be based on documents and objective, and the interpretative level of historiography, which remains in the sphere of literature, it is necessary to try new ways.2 In order to grasp the historico-social identity which the author shares with his addressees behind the tapestry of the text, we need to make the historicalcritical method work alongside the diachronic contribution offered by the material culture and, above all with the various human disciplines (psychology, sociology, economics, history of thought) which more than others allow us to investigate the cultural universe underlying the work of the author and implicitly shared with his addressees.

1

2

A useful indication with which to recognise the realistic significance of the historical narrative and to distinguish pseudo-explanations from non-ideological arguments, is to be found in HEMPEL, The Function, 241. From the vast production of RICOEUR, one could look at Il conflitto delle interpretazioni; Dell’interpretazione. Saggio su Freud; Tempo e racconto, La configurazione nel racconto di finzione, Il tempo raccontato; and, further, La memoria, la storia, l’oblio.

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In order to avoid a reduction of the hermeneutic solely to the documentary level, as I have already explained in other essays, it seems more productive to consider a Biblical text in its totality and, therefore, as the bearer of multiple memory, of wide range.3 The historico-anthropological approach shows, above all with regard to ancient texts, a reliable flexibility and an adequate competence in introducing a more realistic understanding of the sense and of the true intention of a sapiential writing which, more than others, together with rather complex textual make-up, presents a narrative clothing which is extremely refractory in reflecting a real historical society. This difficulty is increased by the fact that the sapiential tradition of Israel, different from what happened in classical Greece which had learned to distinguish between historiography and mythology, had not elaborated effective criteria of historical criticism.4 In the face of texts that are enigmatic on the documentary level, it seems to me illuminating yet again to make use of the historiographical criterion which F. Braudel borrowed from the thought of H. Bergson, distinguishing the past as “time” and “duration”.5 “Time” is an abstract concept, malleable and inert, easily tamed by historians, and by exegetes, and is a different thing from “duration” which, with its distance, short, medium, and long articulates temporal happenings, defining them as “events”, “trends”, and “structures”. In fact, these times can be distinguished because they are bound respectively: to the event-based history of political and military life with its tumultuous and spectacular happenings; to the more stable organisational sphere of institutional forms, the economic and cultural systems of society, even if these are not always evident; and, finally, to the material and environmental life of the great cultured civilisations in their almost immobile geo-historical stability.6 The historiographical viewpoint of the annalist school, which is not limited to the simple descriptive observation of facts, values and magnifies the mediatory role of the historian, his creative imagination which reconstructs 3 4

5 6

I am referring to my Historical and Anthropological reading of the Book of Wisdom, 83-91. Already, starting from Herodotus, Greek historiography had gradually elaborated adequate criteria and methods to distinguish the spatium historicum from mythical narration, establishing the requirement to base a documented account on the factual truth of the reality narrated. Cf. CANFORA, La storiografia greca, in particular 26-43 and 61-74. Similar processes of distiniguishing have been encountered in the historical literature of the Hittites and of the Old Testament. Cf. CANCIK, Mythische und historische Wahrheit Interpretationen. The “Summa” of this way of understanding history is Civiltà e imperi del Mediterraneo. For Braudel’s vision of history see the critical renewal of it by VOVELLE, Storia e lunga durata, 49-80; it is always useful to consult BRAUDEL (ed.), Problemi di metodo storico. For a balance sheet of the latest tendencies of the third generation of the “Annales”, see BURKE, Una rivoluzione storiografica, 70-102, with a bibliography on 139-157.

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the truth of events, joining them up in an universe of sense in which the past shows its profound disposition to interpret a present which is open to the future.7 Without this mediation, which prepares for a holistic and circular understanding of the real, there is no understanding of the past, no understanding of history. Something similar, as we shall see, must have happened to Ben Sira, the scribe, who, perhaps, the first to find himself faced with the mediation of the “book of the Law”: the written work, with its process of becoming literary tends to give a literary unitary organisation to the knowledge of the past, aimed at transforming the addressee, thus objectivising a tradition and bringing it to an end. This is an action which requires from the sage a difficult task of mediation, demanding at the same time a precise assumption of identity.8 In these pages, following a method which has already been tested, the enquiry will be carried out in three stages: first I shall present, in brief, the historico-literary framework of the book, seeking, in the second phase, to arrive at the culture of the text with a sociological and anthropological investigation; finally, with a historico-anthropological reading, I shall try to discover the real context of the work of Ben Sira.9

1. The historico-literary framework of the book It must immediately be remembered that the work of Ben Sira has reached us by way of a varied and complex process of textual transmission, Greek, Latin, Syriac and, finally, Hebrew. The Hebrew text, which is incomplete, has reached us only in the last hundred years or so during which exceptional archaeological discoveries have restored two thirds of it10 by means of three groups of fragments: the manuscripts of the eleventh century recov7

8 9

10

On the primacy of the mediation of the historian in the work of historiographical reconstruction, see VEYNE, Come si scrive la storia; for more ample coverage, I refer also to BELLIA, La “nuova archeologia biblica”, in particular to pp. 231-252 and 369-385. Cf. BLENKINSOPP, Sage, Priest, Prophet, 9-65; always interesting is the collective work edited by GAMMIE – PERDUE, The Sage in Israel; and the study of LEMAIRE, Scribes. The historico-anthropological reading is an attempt to integrate the historical-critical method with the structural approach of the human sciences, enriched with the diachronical contribution of the material culture: cf. BELLIA, Proverbi: una lettura storico-antropologica, 55-90. It is a question of 1098 distichs compared with 1616 in the Greek text. From the Hebrew text we still lack 1:1–3:5 and 16:28–30:10 (of which we possess about thirty isolated verses). It should be noted that, as well as the first chapters, we are lacking Chapter 24, the eulogy to Wisdom, and the pericope 38:27–39:14, where the portrait of the sage is to be found. Cf. GILBERT, Introduction au livre de Ben Sira, 8-9, and, by the same author, L’Ecclésiastique.

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ered in the geniza of the Qaraite synagogue in Cairo,11 the texts of Qumran (before AD 69),12 and the fragments from Masada (before AD 73),13 together with some citations in the works of the Tannaim, Amoraim and other ancient Jewish authorities.14 Putting together the various pieces of information on the transmission of the text, it can be said that there is a huge consensus for holding that Ben Sira wrote in Hebrew in Jerusalem (cf. Sir 50:27) between 200 and 175 BC, probably in several stages (Hb I), but that text has not come down to us because the work which we possess betrays additions (Hb II) which the specialists date to around 80 or 60 BC (A. A. Di Lella) or, more generally, in the first century BC (G. L. Prato). Towards 132 BC in Egypt, the grandson undertook the translation into Greek for the Jews of the Alexandrine diaspora (Gr I) while between AD 150 and 200 must be dated the translation of Gr II, based on Hb II, which must have taken place before the time of Clement of Alexandria who cites the additions to be found in Sir 1:21a.22a; 19:5b and 26:22.15 The literary dimension of Sirach, closely related to Proverbs, emerges sufficiently clearly from the fact that it does not present the reader with isolated aphorisms of one stich but develops thematic compositions in the form of the short didactic poem, the instruction and the pedagogic exhortation.16 The repetitions of some themes in the different sections probably serve to develop some kind of function in the overall scheme, just as the gaps in the discourse where the worshipper turns to his God must enjoy a strategic position, something which does not seem to be matched in the previous wisdom literature.17 Similarly singular is the reference made in Sirach to the 11

12 13 14

15 16 17

There are six manuscripts classified by the letters of the alphabet: A B C D E F. The first two are the most extensive, while the third is an anthological work. The others contain chapters which help the comparison. 2Q18 with Sir 1:19-20; 6:14-15.19-31; 11QPsa with Sir 51:13.20b.30b. Sir 39:27-32; 40:10-19.26-30; 41:1–44:71. The geniza manuscripts confirm the order of chapters of the Syriac and Latin versions, while the more recent discoveries at Qumran (especially Sir 6:20 -31) and Masada, beyond confirming the authenticity of the Cairo manuscripts also support the antiquity of their presentation in verses of two stichs per line, according to the writing of the manuscripts B and E. One must refer the ancient Syriac translation of the Peshitta to the Hebrew text. As far as the effective utilisation of the work is concerned, however, the Greek translation holds first place and it comes to us in two different recensions: the short recension of the great uncial codices (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus = Gr I); and the long one of miniscule manuscript 248 (= Gr II). With this latter is connected the translation of the Vetus latina, probably carried out in North Africa by Christians in the second half of the second century and later received without change into the Vulgate. The Vetus latina refers to this second edition, even if it presents its own additions. Finally the Vulgate contains passages which could be of Christian redaction. For the didactic poem, cf. 10:6-18; 22:19-26; 27:22-29. For the instruction, cf. 10:26–11:9; 12: 1-7; 13:8-13; 31:12-24 Prayer is found in direct form (in 23:1-6; 36:1-17; 51:1-12), or indirect (39:12-35; 43:27-33; 50:22-24).

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religious history of Israel, especially in that dense treatise (44-50) which presents a fresco focused on the history of salvation. Ben Sira does not demonstrate any outstanding creative originality and does not come across as a sophisticated master of style, and yet he shows himself capable of employing different literary forms with ease, not to say mastery. A careful and enterprising assimilator of the Scriptures, but also a reader not prejudiced by the turmoil brought by Greek culture and by Hellenism itself, he draws on a variety of literary genres from his own religious and cultural heritage. In particular, from the sapiential literature, he is aware of and utilises: short poems and hymns of praise (1:1-10; 18:1-14; 39:12-35; 42:15–43:33), a psalm of thanksgiving (51:1-12), prayers of petition (22:17–23:6; 36:1.22), numerical proverbs (23:16-18; 25:7-11; 26:5-6; 50:25-26), macarisms (26:5-6), autobiographical narratives (24:30-34; 33:16-l8; 39:12; 51:13-15), lists of names and onomastic poems (43:27-28; 43:32-33), didactic narratives (44:11-15) and the extensive didactic poem in Praise of the Ancestors (44:1–50:24). The influence of Hellenistic literary usages can be seen in some formal features of the work such as the headlines of separate sections, the presence of connective transitional formulas from one argument to another.18 The number and variety of literary genres displayed contribute to give Ben Sira’s exposition a certain narratival vivacity and a compositional style that is not short of originality. The content of the book revolves around the central theme of wisdom seen, both in its practical-pedagogic function, which impels it to be concerned with the usual themes of ethical reflection in the sapiential literature, and also in its theoretical and intellectual nature, concerned with philosophical and theological speculation and, therefore, inclined to tackle the great issues of life and history. Not a few scholars have tried to grasp the true structure of the text and of its formation but there is still no agreement in defining the logic of the whole, and there are even some who claim that we are faced with an anthology of texts of different genres which do not follow a coherent pattern and so the work does not display an obviously unitary structure. One group of scholars, taking their cue from the convincing reconstruction by Roth,19 has identified eight sections (thus Skehan and Di Lella), placing the emphasis, above all, on the recurring of the poetic sections devoted to wisdom and on some literary characteristics.20 There are 18 19

20

HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 278. For ROTH, On the Gnomic-Discursive Wisdom, the original edition would have comprised 1:1–23:27 + 51:1-30, subdivided in its turn into four sections introduced by a Prologue on wisdom (1:1–2:18; 4:11-19; 6:18-37; 14:20–15:10), and concluded, like Proverbs, with an alphabetic poem (51:13-29). Later, there would have been three further contributions: 24:1–32:13; 32:14–38:23; 38:24–50: 24(29), a scheme shared by NICCACCI, Siracide o Ecclesiastico. Cf. MORLA ASENSIO, Libri sapienziali, 187.

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those who consider significant two large sections, each subdivided into four parts (Peters recognises two symmetrical sections [A, B], structured, in their turn, into five parts), others make out three (Minissale and Bonora), giving a special place to the last: the glory of the works of the Lord in creation and in the history of Israel (42:15–43:33; 44:1–50:29).21 Finally, for yet others, the structuring principle consists of the three basic hymnic sections of 1:1-10 on the divine origin of wisdom, of 24:1-29 on the historical revelation of wisdom in the Law, and of 42:15–43:33 on the praise of God in creation.22 Among more recent attempts at a solution, we should mark the synthetic study of Marböck which helps to organise the work better, pointing out thematic and stylistic unities that are larger and more measured.23 In order to identify the historical and social context closest to our book, I can summarise some commonly agreed observations on the author, date, place, aim and addressees of the work: 1. Ecclesiasticus is the only writing of the Old Testament which is not presented as anonymous or attributed pseudepigraphically to glorious characters from Israel’s past such as David or Solomon. The manuscripts we have, however, show a certain difference with regard to the name of the author. In particular, in 50:27 and in 51:30 (Ms B), we read: «Simon, son of Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sira». In addition, in 51:30, there appears a different ascription: «Simon, son of Jesus, called Ben Sira». In its turn the Syriac colophon indicates him to be «Jesus, son of Simon, called the son of Asira».24 There is now a broad agreement that the name «Simon» should be considered a late and corrupt form; for this reason, the original sequence of the correct name of the author of Ecclesiasticus must have been “Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sira”.25 2. For the date of composition, many hold that Ecclesiasticus must have been written shortly before the Maccabean Revolt and base this dating largely on the information provided by two precise passages of the book and by other clues which have undergone critical scrutiny by the historians. In the Prologue, the Greek translator is introduced as the grandson of the author and claims to have reached Egypt in the thirty eighth year of the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes,26 undertaking, after a certain time, the work of trans21 22 23 24 25

26

MINISSALE, Siracide (Ecclesiastico). Cf. MORLA ASENSIO, Libri sapienziali, 186 and note 30. MARBÖCK, Weisheit im Wandel. Asira, «prisoner», is undoubtedly an erroneous reading. As in contemporary cultures, when one “first name” – in our case the patronymic Ben Eleazar – is not sufficient to identify a person, recourse is had to a second, in this case, the patronymic with the name of the grandfather: Ben Sira. The importance of this dating is emphasised by VATTIONI, Ecclesiastico, XVII-XXVIII.

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lating the book from the Hebrew. Two kings are recorded with the appellation Euergetes (“Benefactor”): Ptolemy III Euergetes I (247-221 BC) and Ptolemy VII Physcon Euergetes II (170-164 and 145-117 BC). Because of the extraordinary length of his reign, it must be a question of Ptolemy VII and, consequently, the arrival of Ben Sira’s grandson in Egypt must be placed around 132 BC. The grandfather would have written in Hebrew in the first decades of the second century and, in any case, before the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes of which there is not a trace in the book. Another indication is the passionate and unrestrained eulogy which Ben Sira composes in honour of the High priest Simon, son of Onias in 50:1-24, as of a personage who, although already dead (50:1), must still enjoy a reputation that is still alive and widespread. Filtering out the information of Flavius Josephus on the two high priests with this name, the older and legendary Simon I, the Just (ca 300 BC), of whom, however, there is no trace in the traditions of the Mishnah and the Talmud, must give way to Simon II who was in office around 200 BC. From these converging pieces of information one can situate the composition of Ecclesiasticus between 195 (the approximate date of the death of Simon II) and 171 BC, the year in which Antiochus Epiphanes deposed Onias III (the last Zadokite high priest) and his brother, Jason, in favour of the Benjaminite, Menelaus. This was such a sacrilegious violation of the priestly law that had the enlightened conservative, Ben Sira, known of it, he could not have passed over it in silence.27 Indirect references and clues to concrete situations are scattered here and there in the book. Above all, they can be discerned in all those polemical passages where the cautious Ben Sira, for all his shrewd and careful language, seems to set himself against a part of the Jerusalem aristocracy, tepid in their observance of the Law and oppressive with regard to the poor (36:9; 41:8-9), or against the intrigues of the sons of Simon (45:26), or, finally, against the inept rule of Onias III (7:47).28 But this is a question of reconstructions which are purely hypothetical and which, therefore, await more detailed proof and confirmation. 3. As for the place of composition, there has never been any serious dispute regarding the traditional attribution of Jerusalem to the author and his book. The different clues that have been gathered about Ben Sira concern his deep roots in the theological traditions of Israel: in the prophetic ones of which he feels himself to be, variously, the sharer (24:33), careful collector (33:1617) and continuer (39:6 Gr; 48:12), but also in the Deuteronomistic heritage 27

28

On the historical context of the work of Ben Sira beside the works dated by SMEND, Die Weisheit, XIV-XXVIII, see HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 276-278; MARBÖCK, Weisheit im Wandel, 9-12; SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 8-16; STADELMANN, Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter, 4-26. HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 280-282 and 310-312.

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towards which he allows a profound bond to shine through his work. Naturally, he is, in his own way, an original spokesman for the older sapiential traditions, but his deeply felt reverence for the great traditions of the Temple together with the emerging Gentile culture and the pleasure in cosmopolitan sensibility, reveal an acceptable Hellenistic influence with a Ptolemaic imprint. All these details combine to confirm a judgement in favour of a cultivated, urban environment for both the work and the author who, it is speculated, is a personage who, if not necessarily a priest, shows himself quite close to the restricted priestly circle of the Temple of Jerusalem, the city to which he expressly declares himself to belong (50:27). 4. The addressees and the aim of the work, as well of the author as of the translator, are identified by the specialists from the indications explicitly formulated in the Prologue with its clear statement of reasons: the grandfather “was led to write something pertaining to instruction and wisdom in order that, by becoming conversant with this also, those who love learning should make even greater progress in living according to the law” (Sir prol. 12-14). The grandson too for his part puts down an analogous noble intention that is ethical and didactic: “When I found a copy affording no little instruction, it seemed highly necessary that I […] publish the book for those living abroad who wished to gain learning, being prepared in character to live according to the law” (Sir prol. 29-30; 34-36). Concerning the real addressees, however, it must be remembered that the grandfather must have had the aim of instructing the young of the well-to-do class (51:23), but must also have been inspired by a polemical purpose directed at the powerful groups influential in Jerusalem, attracted by deceptive speculations (3:21-24), tempted by superficiality, and with little zeal in the observance of the Law (42:1c-2); or even with renegades and apostates who had abandoned the faith of their fathers (41:8-9). The grandson must have had analogous motives, even if not quite so spectacular, with his translation, as he lets us glimpse from the linguistic adaptation which he makes to the passages just cited, even if concerning his real addressees some differences deserve to be taken into more close consideration.

2. The sociological examination of the text The quarrel of the wisdom texts with history is an old and fundamental question. In all of these books the memory of the past is missing or seems to be viewed from an a-temporal perspective where the theological density always end up by having the upper hand over the requirements of a realistic contextualisation and, therefore, of ancient historiography itself. The

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wise scribe of Israel seems to have a predilection for a dehistoricised form of Scripture and finds himself at home in employing a gnomic language, deliberately detached from particular events and almost alien to any factual connection with persons or events in time. He prefers, in short, a system of reference that is culturally layered and markedly a-temporal which allows values of a universal type to emerge. For this reason, it is not surprising if, in the face of a sociological examination, for our wisdom text too, the particular cultural background of the author is presented in general terms, short of useful details and difficult to identify in its spatio-temporal coordinates since it is not concerned to explain or make understood how much of real historical content is conveyed by its language. This is a state of affairs even more blatant for a work like ours because Sirach, as has been said, not only is the only Biblical author who breaks with the tradition of a whole chain of anonymous or pseudepigraphic Scripture by openly declaring his identity (50:27), or his sympathies for the ancient priestly class (Sir 50),29 but also is the only one who sketches a portrait of the characteristics of the principal characters who, in his opinion, are the heroes of the history of salvation of ancient Israel (44-50).30 Theses are undoubtedly bold and innovative features which represent the changed religious and cultural climate of Jerusalem but which, at the same time, signal a significant discontinuity with the previous theological traditions (3:18-24) though we should not see already in Ben Sira the pernicious influence of Hellenism – something which still awaits better investigation and clarification from within the sapiential tradition itself.31 The text transmits to us a striking picture of the author and of his spiritual progress but does not give us a reciprocally vivid description of the society in which he lived. The sociological reading has to strain to make out the presence and the role of the traditional religious specialists (king, priest, prophet and sage), the leading figures of the social life of the time in an ancient text of wisdom provenance. These socio-religious specialists are all present, in different measure, in our text, but they do not appear as figures equally representative of a real historical dialectic, showing themselves rather as functional elements of the narrative strategy of the author. In fact, in this book, there is no evident trace of that necessary dramatic relationship which is objectively established between public and institutional figures; an ambiguous and flexible relationship which can assume the traits of collaboration or subjection, working cooperation or polemical confronta29 30

31

See in particular OLYAN, Ben Sira’s Relationship to the Priesthood. In this encomium or epic poem, the deliberate omission of illustrious persons must also have significance; in this regard, see the explanation of LEE, Studies, 56, on the hymn interpreted as a constitutive document of Second Temple Judaism. So MURPHY, L’albero della vita, 106.

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tion, to the point where we reach those concurrent initiatives which can easily degenerate into forms of conflict.32 The book does not give useful indications concerning the role of king or prophet for us to uncover sure fragments of history or reconstruct the concrete functioning of these institutional figures. In particular, in the Praise of the Ancestors, which more than a record of illustrious men is a history of the covenant and of the mediators concerned,33 although there is a safeguarding the Davidic Covenant (47:11), there is a suggestive criticism of the downward, and now in political terms finished, spiral of the royal dynasty in Israel. From the loaded emphasis on the high position of David, the blessed of God, to the retreat of Solomon, wise to no purpose, into the shadows, from the cowardly and stupid Rehoboam to the treacherous and idolatrous Jeroboam, the royal mediation seems to be consigned to the realms of discreditable memory. It is not without importance, therefore, that Sirach ascribes the title of king to God (51:2), wishing in this way to demonstrate the supreme and absolute divine governance of the world (10:4.8). In fact, the power of the king, is willed by God (46:13) who dispenses it and transmits it to whom he wills (45:25) or sets it aside and divides it at his pleasure (47:21). It is always in God’s power, therefore, to bring down the king (48:6) or raise him up (48:8), to cause powerful tyrants to fall or to raise nobodies to the throne (11:5). Moreover, the Lord has the ability to make the king die (10:10) or to prolong his life (48:3), even giving to whoever is faithful to his covenant a stable and secure dynasty (47:11). However, our author also knows the violent and arbitrary aspect of royal power, often exercised in history by inept and wicked men (49:3), with venal rapacity (8:2) and does not have any doubts about the scant reliability of the monarchical institution when it is in the hands of a king who is dissolute, or, better, inept because «without discipline» (10:3). The author’s distancing himself from the abuse of power, according to his terse and cautious, though firm and resolute, style, is formulated in a cautious and respectful way: “do not oppose those who rule”, and “do not strive with a great man” is his motto – it would be as useless and as dangerous as to go against the current in a river that is full (4:26-27 and 8:1). The only positive note on royalty, so it is said, occurs in the reference to the royal covenant of the son of Jesse (45:25 and 47:11.22), a covenant which is reaffirmed but which seems to remain in the shadow compared with the priestly covenant of Aaron (45: 7.15.25b). Is the Praise of the Ancestors, with its messianic allusions with regard to both the priesthood and to royalty, already preparing the ground 32

33

By contrast, GRABBE, Sacerdoti, profeti, indovini, 212: claims that Sirach tells us “much […] about the society in which he lived”, even if he does not then go on to refer to any of these social and cultural characteristics! MARBÖCK, Die “Geschichte Israels” als “Bundesgeschichte”.

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perhaps for that double expectation of the royal and priestly Messiah peculiar to the theological vision of the Essenes? A similar situation of something faded by time is evident in the paucity of prophetic terminology used throughout the chapters cataloguing the famous ancestors (46-50), giving us to understand that prophetism, though valued by the author with a lively and sympathetic appreciation (24:33; 33: 16-17), is considered with regret as solely a religious phenomenon of the past, now replaced by the sapiential function (39:6 Gr; 48:12).34 Sirach’s admiration is directed rather towards figures venerated by the tradition for their strong personality, like Samuel (46:13.15), or like the prophetic figures of the fiery and terrible Elijah (48:1.8), the unyielding and proud Elisha (48: 12-16) or the great visionary Isaiah (48:22). Finally, only a sober direct mention is reserved for the attractive, if awkward, figure of Jeremiah and his role of judging the destinies of Israel (49:7), while there is not missing a reverent mention of the twelve minor prophets (49:10).35 Interesting from the sociological point of view is the Deuteronomistic concept which associates under the name of prophet all those who perform a work of mediation for the salvation of the people, even if they are public characters like the kings Hezekiah and Josiah. Again, the sociological reading of the book observes the thematic coincidence and the temporal correspondence between the threefold division of the sacred Hebrew books mentioned in the Prologue and the place assigned to prophetism in the celebratory and rationalising recapitulation of our author. In this he seems to reflect the rethinking of the role of prophecy which had taken place in the sapiential school and which had already prepared its own theory to explain the decrease in the ancient role of the prophets and the development of the prophetic function at the time of Ben Sira: the mediation of these respected religious functionaries could now be successfully realised by other and more adequate mediators such as the priests, the scribes, and, naturally, the wise (33:16-17). Sociological observation also helps us to set in its proper light the exceptional work of religious and political mediation performed by the sacerdotal function, based on the majestic liturgy of the Temple and centred on the socio-economic system of blood sacrifices. This delivers us moreover a more nuanced knowledge of the culture of the author which, focusing primarily on scribal wisdom, makes the claim that he belonged to the priestly families very problematic.36 The description – a little over the top – of the mag-

34 35 36

GILBERT, Spirito, Sapienza e Legge, identifies that which Ben Sira preaches about wisdom with what Joel says of the Spirit. Possible references to Jeremiah in Sir 33:16 (Jer 1:11-12) and in Sir 50:27-29 (Jer 51:64). We cannot share the thesis of STADELMANN, Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter, 40-176, who makes of Ben Sira a spokesman for the priestly class; he was probably not even a representative of the aristocratic class of Jerusalem, but a talented scribe who had succeeded in climb-

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nificent figure of Simon, the High Priest, sung in the splendour of the cultic framework of the great and moving celebrations of the Temple in Jerusalem (50:1-21), and the same emphasis on the covenants with Aaron and Phineas (45:7.11.25b) should not deceive us. To the theological valuation of the sacerdotal function, there is no corresponding language in the compositional fabric with regard to the common cultural tradition which would be useful in recognising something of the organisation of Jewish society in that period.37 A hint at a probable administrative function in the Temple is encountered in 45:24; while in 50:1-4, we find a reference to the political role exercised by the High Priest, Simon, under the Ptolemies.38 On the whole, Ben Sira addresses the descendants of Aaron with deference and respect (7:29-31), but uses the technical terms for the various offerings in a vague manner, thus showing his scant attendance, his lack of familiarity, certainly his minimal competence in a matter so characteristic of the specific mediation of the priests which he so exalts.39 Otherwise, apart from the passages just cited which witness to the Jerusalem environment of our author, there is no indication in the text of any other duty proper to the sacerdotal function which he celebrates, in its liturgical function, with an admiring, even ecstatic eye; the priestly role is exalted above all with reference to the august figure of Aaron (45:6-22), the zealous action of Phineas (45:2324) and the contemplation of the cultic ministry of Simon (50:1-21), but is this enough on which to detect a messianic vein in the theology of Sirach?40 The amount of literary space allocated to them should not make us forget that these priestly figures occupy the second and third places in the catalogue of glory and are placed after Moses, the “chosen out of all mankind” for teaching the Law (45:6). The conclusion of the pericope which warns all the descendants of Aaron from separating themselves from the example of the fathers (45:26), according to the opinion of many, seems to allude precisely to the coming dissolution of the family of the Oniads in the time immediately preceding the Maccabean Revolt. In short, even if the priests

37

38 39 40

ing the social ladder, as can be read in 33:16f, according to the interpretation also of ALBERTZ, Storia della religione nell’Israele antico, 644, note 3. There is no reference to the administrative institutions typical of the Ptolemaic period; no hint of the council of elders (gerousi,a) or to the priestly college (to. koino,n tw/n i`erw/n), formed from representatives of the priests, the levites, and the Temple personnel, organised for twba tyb (cf. Neh 2:16; 3:1; 12:1-7; 13:4.28; Ezra 2:36ff.61f.): cf. HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 70-74; ALBERTZ, Storia della religione nell’Israele antico, 513-514 and 639641. Whether or not the High Priest was the competent authority also in financial matters remains controversial: cf. Sir 5:1-4; JOSEPHUS, Ant. 12,158. Cf. DUESBERG – FRANSEN (eds.), Ecclesiastico, 71-81; DAVIDSON, Wisdom and Worship, 98117. The proof is to be had in Sir 50:23-24, where the grandson, no longer being able to recall with honour the descendants of the High Priest, Simon, changes his grandfather’s text.

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are respected and celebrated for their function, they are not proposed to the reader as the central mediators around which to construct the historico-religious development of the future of Israel before the other nations. In this case, they would not have performed a role that was solely cultic, but would have exercised an effective political role. This is a view of power totally absent in our scribe but practised with the result of which we are aware form the history of the priestly family of the Maccabees up to the High Priest Caiphas. The heart of Ben Sira was pulsing towards another, emerging form of mediation: the sapiential function, by now endowed with a theological and moral authority not inferior to that of the other mediators and consecrated by God with his blessing, full of every good, intellectual and moral (39:1-11). From the linguistic point of view and through the thematic and theological content of his mediation, the wise man, compared with Proverbs, is now characterised in a social sense because he is described as a leader (9: 17; 10:1; 37:23), respected by the people and honoured by God (37:24.26), who several times puts forward his personal way of life as instructive testimony of the gift which he has received (24:28-32; 33:16-18; 50:27-29), which even acts as an invitation to those who are without instruction to take up lodging in his house (51:23), with the result that we have the very rich and new figure of the religious specialist described by Sirach. From the initial poem (1:1-10) to the autobiographical confession which concludes his work (51:13-30), by way of the centrality of a wisdom which reveals itself (24:122) to the portrait of the wise scribe (38:24–39:11), everything in Ecclesiasticus is redolent of the absolute good of the fearful knowledge of God, of the knowledge of God which, in faithful prayer, the wise scribe simultaneously receives and gives.41 The task of this religious specialist is to educated and advise the young and doubtful so as to make them know, understand and practise choices of life that are coherent and firm in their witness to the faith in the invasive context of the Hellenistic cultural hegemony which has not yet done irreparable damage. Perhaps it is reasonable to think that among the aims pursued by Sirach, there is also a form of resistance to xenophilic fashions and a disguised condemnation of the arrogant counter-testimony of the Jerusalem aristocracy. The key word in this regard is the term rs'Wm, discipline, translated by the grandson into Greek with paidei,a.42 The very format of the book, composed principally of “instructions” imparted to the young or to the student by the scribe-master allows us to understand, along with the pedagogic intention of the book, the centrality of this 41 42

PRATO, Il problema della teodicea, 102. HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 131, claims that the author is “a master of wisdom with a stable scholastic organisation open to young men, particularly those exposed to the danger of the allurements of Hellenistic civilisation”.

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new kind of mediator. Ben Sira is presented as rpws, scribe (38:24), more exactly as a master who is aware of incarnating the sapiential ideal of the tradition (39:1-11), because he is a religious specialist who: will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, and will be concerned with prophecies; he will preserve the discourse of notable men and penetrate the subtleties of parables; he will seek out the hidden meanings of proverbs and be at home with the obscurities of parables. He will serve among great men and appear before rulers; he will travel through the lands of foreign nations, for he tests the good and the evil among men (39:1-4).

This last trait emphasises for us the versatility of a master who is of traditional stamp but alive to the great lesson of Greek universalism, who seems devoted to the education of the young which he intends to expand by means of a balanced pedagogic system, able to join the religious heritage of the faith of the Fathers with the more acceptable part of the cultural novelty introduced by the Hellenistic schools,43 accepting perhaps a more direct confrontation with the educational world of the Stoa.44 Because of this, he recognises and welcomes in equal measure the oral teaching of the popular traditions passed on by the masters and the written literature: in his view, the living wisdom generated by the people makes whole and completes the teaching of the sacred books (8:8-9). Scripture and Tradition are, therefore, the best fruits of this sapiential mediation of which Sirach remains the most successful witness and the most considerable.45 Notwithstanding the luminous portrait of the sage painted by the author in his presentation of scribal activity (38:24–39:11), still problematic and veiled in mystery is the place in history and the institutional form of these religious specialists, their concrete conditions of work, their entire development. In which schools did the scribes study and how did they complete their religious, theological and intellectual instruction, but, above all, where were they initiated into the problems of public affairs, of national and international policy? Who supervised their educational expeditions among the foreign nations to finish off their education and increase their 43 44

45

GILBERT, Siracide, 1407; cf. by the same author, Il concetto di tempo (‘t) in Qohelet e Ben Sira, in: BELLIA – PASSARO (eds.), Il libro del Qohelet, 69-89. According to MIDDENDORP, Die Stellung, 34, Ben Sira has written “a school book” on the Greek model; he has brought together the philosophical teaching of the Stoics and that of the OT. In this sense, as DUBARLE has written, we find in Sirach “the inventory of a heritage” (Les Sages d’Israël, 147).

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knowledge?46 The Hebrew text of Sirach (51:23) knows of a “house of study” (bet midrash), which the grandson has translated in a figurative sense (house of paideia), while someone has had the good idea of locating it as “a scholastic, dialectic teaching where the master and pupil enjoy reciprocal conversation on the theoretical problems most relevant to existence”.47 In fact we are faced here with a hasty reading which superimposes and confuses understanding on the literary level, which undoubtedly betrays the undeniable formal influence of the Greek school, and the historical and institutional level of the concrete educational system practised in Israel which requires further proofs if one wishes to advance beyond the merely hypothetical. In sum, as far as the text is concerned, even if we are faced with an advanced passage composed from the system of general instruction, nothing much is to be learned about the existence of schools and of teachers, of places of study and of forms of cultural education;48 while we are informed about the fervent religious atmosphere which animated the Palestinian society of the time and about the pre-eminent place afforded in religious formation to meditation and prayer to acquire the supreme benefit of wisdom which would procure, together with divine favours, the possibility of performing a valued and well-paid job among the people and among the nations.49 All in all, with the exception of the emerging figure of the wise scribe, the sociological information does not prove to be of much use, yielding knowledge and information very close to that furnished by the book of Proverbs.

3. From text to society The anthropological examination is not concerned with the macro-social aspects but seeks to point out what there is of the cultural weave of the text, beyond the theological intention pursued by the author, which is really shared by the addressee-reader and, therefore can be read and communicated as the common cultural background in that precise social reality. If we proceed, therefore, from the text to society, we should be able to pick out in the final redaction those day to day characteristics which make up the existence of particular social groups and which, within the social con46

47 48 49

Cf. 39:4 and 34:9-12. It is useful to make a comparison with what PHILO says on the suefulness of journeys for instruction (De Ebrietate 158), cited in MINISSALE, Siracide. (Ecclesiastico), 163f. Cf. PAX, Dialog und Selbstgespräch, 256. For the device of the master-pupil dialogue or the interior dialogue, cf. 5:1-4; 23:18; 27:5.7; 30:23. MORLA ASENSIO, Eclesiástico, 191. On the ideal of the sage according to Sirach, cf. RICKENBACHER, Weisheitsperikopen, 176196.

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vention proper to the time, are not only comprehensible in terms of that particular group but also recognisable from other cultural traditions. In our case, the complex state of affairs with regard to the text confronts us with an added difficulty: it is a question of indicating, from time to time, beyond the narrative device adopted by Ben Sira, what kind of effective social organisation is conveyed by the redaction of the Greek text in its long form or by the Hebrew text when it is different. The phenomenon of different textual traditions, short and long, between the primitive Hebrew text and the ensuing Greek version, is known also in other books of the Bible as the inevitable hermeneutic expansion consequent on the transmission of a work through different theological traditions. The development of a system of glosses is still more understandable in a book like Sirach which has been transmitted in the course of many years and, therefore, destined to include redactional expansions which should really be considered as marginal glosses inserted into the text.50 Or else because it is written according to that typical “anthological style” which allows the author to take up and repeat expressions drawn from previous writings of the Bible and its conceptual and figurative vocabulary, adopting their terminology and even their very phraseology, weaving a narrative texture composed of citations, direct and indirect, of references and allusions, of images and symbols gathered from within the great Biblical tradition.51 The particular “anthological composition” of his writing helps us to understand that the originality of an author like Ben Sira, bound with a double thread to the difficult Deuteronomistic heritage and to part of the sapiential tradition, cannot be detected in the innovatory content of his reflection but in the able presentation of the preceding theological patrimony conveyed by means of a shrewd literary strategy which succeeds in uniting and making fluent a discontinuous body of maxims, proverbs and isolated sayings, making it evolve into ordered thematic compositions where the different literary genres adopted are composed into a discursive continuity which at times is even harmonious, a truly surprising outcome!52 This displays incomparable editorial dexterity on the part of an author brought up within a tradition which, for the theologian, clung obstinately to the doctrinal synthesis of the retributionist school,53 “as if Job and Qoheleth had never been written”,54 while without any fuss he adopts here and there responses, criticisms and solutions to them, things which had by now become inevitable or which had already been taken up in the popular her50 51 52 53 54

MURPHY, L’albero della vita, 95. SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 21-30. DUESBERG – FRANSEN (eds.), Ecclesiastico, 64-71; MURPHY, L’albero della vita, 99. SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 83-87. So again, MURPHY, L’albero della vita, 100.

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itage of the sapiential tradition. Always attentive, from this point of view, to the literary dimension, we must take into account the many repetitions of content which lead our author to re-present and repeat some themes in different sections of his work, without an apparent logical criterion and without any harmonising tendency. There are those who have seen in some of these repetitions a thematic progression and even a theological development bound up with the three hymnic sections.55 With great circumspection, the anthropological reading will be concerned with these reconstructions as evidence of the culture implicitly present in these repetitions in order to organise the data verified according to typologies which need to be compared with those of the previous sapiential texts. The universally recognised compositional and conceptual closeness between Proverbs and Sirach allows us to pick out some notable and obvious anthropological differences between the two books. Both of them breathe the same air of having found faith again in the capacity of man to discover Wisdom by means of a disciplined use of his faculty of reason, but, compared with the socially convulsed and agitated atmosphere of the former, which is marked with those forms of widespread immorality characteristic of metropolitan areas, Ben Sira describes a rarefied urban environment, one would say an almost tranquil provincial city of the great Hellenistic universe; in short, a secure place, liveable in because of the shelter it affords from the incursions of armies, a homogeneous and ideal society where social contrasts and unlawful conduct are all able to be put down to the ordinary weakness of the human being; he certainly does not allude to situations of moral degradation and social ruthlessness typical of the social organisation in areas of advanced urbanisation. A careful anthropological stemmatisation is able to indicate the realism of a written work, showing that there is no question of literary fiction: the pedagogic style of our author, eirenic and optimistic to the last, however much in places it appears taken for granted and mannered, does not distort the reality of the cultural links shared by the scribe with the addressees of his work of mediation. 1. If we pick out in detail the anthropological typologies conveyed by the text, there emerges an urban environment where prosperity and poverty and the inevitable social differences, such as the contrasts between rich and poor, are abundantly and realistically known (vide: 11:10-21; 14:11-19; 31:111; 33:20-24), still able to live together without degenerating, for in the healthy and lively society of Jerusalem there is room for a virtuous solidarity of ancient tradition, practised by one part of the upper classes.56 Upon this cir55 56

Cf. MORLA ASENSIO, Libri sapienziali, 181 and 195-196. The practice of forms of solidarity between the social classes in Jerusalem would go back to the time of the great social and religious crisis which broke out in the late Persian peri-

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cle of wealthy Judaeans, faithful to the social traditions of the fathers (29:9.11), is incumbent the duty of seeking a demanding social justice (4:1-10; 34:2127; 35:14-26), which recognises care of the poor and practises almsgiving (3:29–4:10; 7:32-36; 18:15-18; 22:23; 29:1-3.8-13.14; 35:11–36:17), going so far as to condemn abuse of power, even to threatening the rich with the eschatological judgement (35:13-19); with this attitude, the explosion of graver social conflicts is prevented 13:1–14:10). In the same way, more than bad government, there is an awareness and detestation of the malaise of social injustice caused by the petty pride of the rulers, or, better, of the governing classes (10:1-18) whose political careerism is condemned, with an ironical playing, which is courteous and discreet, on the succession of kings, governments and empires (10:19-25). This acceptance of social life, however, includes awareness of slavery the unhappy existence of which is recorded without particular moral apprehensions (23:10; 33:25-33; 41:25), thus approving the social behaviour widespread at the time and already sanctioned in the Deuteronomic Law (7:20-21; 41:24). In short, a social climate that is not turbulent but also, given the possibility of practising social solidarity, distinct from relative economic well-being allows to emerge the typical traits of an ordinary, comfortable existence. We should mark the human cloeseness of domestic life and family relationships, through their firmness and their infracultural strength (3:1-16; 7:8-28; 30:1-13; 42:9-14).57 Day to day life does not know pervasive forms of moral corruption, but singular and isolated infractions of the Law, such as adultery (23:16-27), greed rather than usury (14:3 -10) and the intemperance of the arrogant which dissipates inheritances and destroys the family name (21:4).58 Indicative in this regard is the condemnatory attitude towards traders whose activity exposes them easly to sin (26:29–27:3) and the negative description of the greedy rich always in search of filthy lucre like a ravenous dog (11:30, from the Hebrew text), while the humble toil of the farmer is declared pleasing to God (7:15; 20:28). There is still room for the beauty of relationships and for the value, and the risks, of friendship in particular.59 The brief list of known vices, all reducible to sensual passion, sloth and garrulousness,60 together with the simple joys of common life (14:11-19; 30:21-25) and of healthy nourishment, not to be separated from good manners at table,61 as well as living soberly and in

57 58 59 60 61

od, as would appear from Neh 5 and from the book of Job according to the reconstruction of ALBERTZ, Storia della religione nell’Israele antico, 580-594; for Jewish charitable organisation, cf. p. 600. For the relationships between husband and wife, between man and woman, and between father and son, cf. 9:1-9; 3:16-27; 23:22-26; 25:13–26:18; 36:21-27; 42:9-14. Cf. HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 309 note 4 and 310 note 1. Cf. 6:5-17; 9:10-18; 11:29–12:18; 19:13-16; 22:19-26; 27:16-21; 37:1-6. Cf. 6:2-4; 18:30–19:3; 21:1–22:15; 22:27–23:6. Cf. 29:21-28; 31:12–32:13; 37:27-31.

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conformity with virtue,62 seems to contribute to the picture of a social setup which is well suited to the Jerusalem of that period and an environment far distant from the social excesses and moral disorders known in other sapiential texts such as Proverbs and Qoheleth.63 2. Of notable anthropological interest in this connection is the comparison between the thematic repetitions and contrasts present in the text. Let us take, for example, the theme of shame which, anticipated in 4:20-31, is then projected on to the double list of true and false shame which goes under the title of “Instruction on Shame” in 41:14–42:8.64 Whereas the Hebrew text of 4:20-31 seems to take aim at the shy behaviour and awkwardness typical of the young who “in the time of plenty” are driven from egoism to insincerity and false restraint and are, therefore, invited not “contradict God”; in the Greek translation, however, for his addressees dispersed in Hellenistic society, the grandson does not scruple to lay down that there should be no human respect and no “opposing the truth”. Remaining with the same theme of shame, the thematic development of 41:14–42:8, summarising the previous teaching expounded by the author, allows him to indicate, along with his own sensitivity, how much of the moral sentiment proper to the Biblical tradition of the Second Temple in social relationships is common and shared with the morality of the other cultures, such as the Stoic, which were present within the Hellenistic civilisation of Alexandria. However, the instruction shows itself to be rather valuable for us because, together with the comparison of values and moral behaviours, it allows to emerge the culture implicit, more or less, and shared by grandfather and grandson. So, for example, we learn that, while in the Hebrew text it is shameful “to commit immorality in front of father and mother” (41:17), in the Greek text, which is aware of the loosening of bonds and parental controls, conditions typical of advanced urban societies, it becomes an object of shame to “prostitute oneself in front of father and mother” (porneías). To be ashamed “before master and mistress” (41:18) in a society that is no longer rural and patriarchal from the strong organisation of the state like Alexandria becomes “in front of judges and rulers”. The intuitive being ashamed of “breaking oaths and covenants” before parents and friends (41:19b) becomes in the land of the diaspora, where family ties are less intense, the «not being ashamed of his covenant”.65 And again: the generic “not to sin 62 63 64 65

Cf. 1:19–2:18; 3:17-28; 4:20-28; 10:26–11:6; 13:25–14:2; 18:19-29; 22:16-18; 30:14-25; 33:25-33; 36:18-20; 40:28–41:4. Cf. BELLIA, Proverbi: una lettura storico-antropologica, 78 and ID., Lettura storico-antropologica di Qohelet, 193f. The pericope has been studied by MINISSALE, La versione greca, 99-109. One can read the Greek text according to the more coherent correction proposed by Grotius, “be ashamed to forget God and the covenant”: ibid., 106. See also the pertinent

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out of human respect” (42:1c) becomes in the Greek text, addressed to those who live in the midst of a foreign people, the more explicit and realistic “do not let partiality lead you to sin”. The specific nature of the cultural environments of the different readers impinges, then, directly on the work of the author and translator, determining the linguistic procedure and the conceptual apparatus, in short, the communicative register to be adopted to succeed in communicating with the respective addressees. At the same time, they bear witness to the substantial reliability of the information given by the grandson on the time and place of writing, of the scribal labour of Ben Sira and of the succeeding translation into Greek. The passage of the Hebrew into the Greek translation involved an understandable transformation of the text, not only because of the progressive maturing which time can bring to bear in the understanding of the faith of each believer, but especially through those right and proper responses which the ideological provocations and the practical anxieties of the Hellenistic diaspora required from every practising Jew – without forgetting the descriptive and thematic variations imposed by that necessary linguistic adaptation, actualising in nature, required by the new social situation.66 The traditional faith, confronted with specific and disconcerting historical and cultural experiences of the world of pagan idolatry was called on to prepare theological and pastoral solutions which were also of a practical and down-to-earth character. The sages had tried to give a faithful explanation, whether by elaborating and re-elaborating rationally what they already knew of God’s revelation to Israel, whether by deepening and conceptualising their personal theological experience. The understanding of the faith must bring to conclusion a double commitment: on the one hand, the wise must face up to what they have received and learned of the historico-salvific traditions which were Israel’s heritage in the Book of the Covenant; on the other hand, they have to accept the encounter with the universal wisdom which comes from sincere human enquiry. The anthropological typologies and the linguistic modifications examined, as also the different indicators, stylistic, historical and theological, as has been seen, converge in crediting as probable the precise information contained in the Prologue. This is the direction in which for years the majority of the historical reconstructions of the exegetes has moved. The first draft of the work, in Hebrew, can be placed, therefore, in Jerusalem before 175 BC, while the Greek translation of the grandson can be dated fifty years afterwards, in Egypt, very probably in Alexandria. Concerning the addressees and the aims of the author and translator the specialists are work-

66

reflections which Minissale makes with regard to the use and the meaning of diatheke in the Greek Sirach, at pp. 109-115. For the techniques of translation in the Alexandrian context, cf. LE DEAUT, La Septante un Targum?, 147-195.

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ing to find agreement, but the approach by means of the human sciences, as we shall see, has something relevant to say, indicating solutions that are better constructed and complimentary.

4. Proposal for an historico-anthopological reading The circular movement which has led us from the Gestalt of the leading religious characters to their anthropological verification in the text of Sirach, and from the compositional stratum of the book to the implicit culture of the author, allows us now to attempt to go beyond the question of the text with an historico-anthropological reading. Our enquiry, however, more than fixing the where and the when of the book, must seek to grasp the intention and the whole sense of the scribal work. In particular, once we have identified the cultural behaviour that is most rooted and the mental forms most representative of the social life con-signed in the book, it must contribute to recovering the profound reasons which led Ben Sira to be the first and only Biblical author to declare his scribal identity in the face of the process of the sapientalisation of the Scripture of Israel and, above all in view of the ancient and majestic history of salvation of which he is aware of being a participant. On this quite banal and still little investigated situation – this self-advertisement of the author is not a futile search of vain originality – it is necessary to offer, without pretensions, some starting point for useful reflection after having given some indications as to the probable readers/addressees. The very complex vicissitudes of the transmission and diffusion of the Hebrew and Greek text and of the various versions do nothing to impugn the validity of the results reached but rather confirm the correctness of the spatio-temporal coordinates discovered and the probable specification of the first readers. For an historico-anthropological enquiry, the distance in time and environment between author and translator is a strong element for clarifying the identity of the real subjects who are the focus of interest and the aim of the work. The geographical and cultural distance between Jerusalem and Alexandria, the time lag and all the tragic and blissful events which took place in that tormented half century would have allowed the grandson to free up a certain stylistic reserve on the part of the grandfather or to elucidate, at least in part, the literary form employed in the Hebrew text. In all those passages where it is possible to identify the polemical targets, the translator, although he has the opportunity, is not preoccupied with defining history or with explaining its make-up.67 Now this is the case either 67

There are many interesting passages; cf. in particular 2:12-14; 3:17-24; 4:19; 10:12-18; 28:23; 41:8-9.

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because the translator is not in a position to recognise these features or because, in his own time and in his different religious and political context, he does not regard them as meaningful any more: undoubtedly he had to concern himself with negative figures of lesser importance but they were no longer topical and significant in the Alexandrian climate. This obvious reflection must lead us to exclude from the addressees the followers of the incipient apocalyptic circles or the putative Enochic groups. From a lexicographical analysis, with is quantitative parameters, it is clear that, beside the vocabulary of hm'kx. -' sofi,a, the semantic field most widespread is that which focuses on the lo,goj.68 They are the fundamental terms of the “book of the law of the covenant of the Most High”: the believer can prepare his heart to be open continually to listen, advancing in the steep and luminous paths of creative wisdom (1:4-5.9-10),69 or shutting himself up in the presumptuous refusal of non-belief, so losing himself in ways that are easy but slippery with violent and arrogant ungodliness or with visionary and vague nonsense. The “fool”, the “ungodly”, the “buffoon“ and the “violent”,70 with their supposed sufficiency, become, therefore, the antithesis of the modest and industrious believer who lives in the protection of the holy fear of God.71 These figures outline a new anthropology which models in an ethico-religious sense the society itself and which, in the particular historical situation, allows to peep through also some negative figures of a turbulent epoch of transition which has already been described as harrowing and distressing.72 As for Proverbs, what unites these two terms is precisely the scribal function.73 Sirach does not step away from that culture 68

69 70 71

72 73

On the thematic grouping of the word or, in figurative language , on the use of the tongue in Sirach, cf. 11:7-9; 19:4-17; 20:1-8.18-26; 23:7-15; 27:11-29; 28:8-26; 34:7-18. The figurative language which revolves around terms like “mouth”, “lips”, and “tongue”, develops the so-called “ethics of the word”: in Sirach, see in particular 4:20-29 e 5:9–6:4; for reference to the theme in Proverbs and in Egypt, see BARUCQ, Le livre des Proverbes, 35 and 137-141. To the vocabulary of the word and its ethics, can be linked connected and traditional themes, such as that of the family, of the woman and of friendship. For an overall view of the practical themes touched on by Ben Sira cf. MINISSALE,Siracide. Le radici nella tradizione, 18-19; on friendship, see CORLEY, Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship, 7-11. “Sapiential custody” is a theme which, from Ben Sira on, will permeate the spiritual life of the ‘anawim: cf. BELLIA, «Confrontando nel suo cuore», 215-228. To these categories of adversaries of “wisdom», HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 309 and the respective notes, has drawn attention. On “fear of the Lord” see the study of HASPECKER, Gottesfurcht, 328-332; also, SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 75-80. On the trajectory which, in Sirach, joins wisdom (1:1-10), fear of the Lord (1:11-30) and growth of the pupil (2:1-18), see CALDUCHBENAGES, Un gioiello di Sapienza. Probably those indicated here are the Oniads and the Tobiads rather then the Seleucid rulers of the time; cf. HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 309-311. For Sirach, as for the final editor of Proverbs, the young man is “innocent”, one “without instruction” (51:23), that is, as one who does not yet have knowledge of the word-

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of the word which is proper to Proverbs, but is conspicuous in that strong role which is assigned to the sage, in an Umwelt where, it is well to remember, the absence of the prophetic function, had now for some time conferred on the scribe the increasing awareness of having become the heir and depositary of it,74 as the grandson himself seems to have been concerned about since he did not hesitate to place his translation in the wake of the most authoritative tradition (24:32-34).75 W. Baumgartner has already seen in Ben Sira the awareness that he had a true prophetic role to perform and speaks of “a singular contamination of wisdom and prophecy”.76 In his writing, the author was moved to assume not only some traits of Biblical prophecy,77 but also the tones of polemical invective against the injustice of the rich (34[31]:24-27), against the moral and religious apostasy of the first Hellenisers (2:3; 3:17-24; 4:19; 10:12; 28:23) and against the haughty pride of the ungodly (41:8-9), all of them typical of the prophetic tradition. In fact, the historico-anthropological approach shows us that Sirach is the witness but also the protagonist of a most impressive, if underestimated, religious and cultural metamorphosis: the slow and definitive passage from the knowledge of the divine will through the mediatory work of judges, kings, prophets and priests to the direct and personal hearing of the Law, more exactly, of the Book of the Covenant. Thus, in the relationship between God and man, there is introduced an objective mediation, bound to the process of Scripture’s becoming literature and no longer dependent on the subjective authority of the mediator.78 The revelation of God is now handed over to the authority of a writing regarded as necessary to mediate the divine will through the subsidiary activity of competent interpreters. Knowledge of the Covenant, as wisdom proceeding from the mouth of the Most

74 75 76

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law and, therefore, does not yet have discipline, education (apaideutos). Received into the heart, the word produces in man the reverent knowing which receives from God the gift of knowledge. On the other hand, whoever does not know how to receive the word in humility, proves the vanity of a knowing which is in fact partial and fallacious. Cf. BELLIA, Proverbi: una lettura storico-antropologica, 85-87. For ALONSO SCHÖKEL – VILCHEZ LINDEZ, I Proverbi, 197: “The word is the principal instrument in the field of wisdom and its opposites”. See in this connection the critical opinion of GAMMIE, The Sage in Sirach, 370-371. Cf. RÜGER, Le Siracide: un livre à la frontière du canon, 67-69. In this connection, always relevant is the study of BAUMGARTNER, Die literarischen Gattungen, 186-189, where he explains that Ben Sira in his work uses a variety of typically prophetic genres. So HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 282. The process of becoming literature is to be distinguished from the passage form oral form into writing, governed by rhetoric; it indicates rather that complex phenomenon of literary organisation of a text in which the cognitive material is not aimed solely at communication but, according to the intention of the redactor, is constructed in view of th transformation of the reader. Cf. PESCE, I limiti delle teorie, 101.

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High, had inundated the earth and finally taken up its dwelling in Jacob, operating by means of all the ancestors as exemplars of the concrete manifestations of this process of historical embedding. Now, at the conclusion of this emptying out, this striking will to deprive itself of power, the wisdom of the Most High, handing itself over to the weakness of a work of men’s hands, becoming “book”, could reach the heart of every believer and every man.79 And the God-fearing scribe was now at the centre of this work of divine grace beacsue he had acquired the awareness of being not only the witness and the careful interpreter of this final kenosis of the divine love, but also of being called to collaborate in this work of illumination by allowing wisdom to complete its work in the depth of hearts, just as in the midst of history. From the days of Nehemiah, the people gathered together, not only for the solemn liturgical celebrations but also to hear and understand “the book of the law” by means of the work of mediators qualified and recognised as they were, to wit, the scribes. These new religious specialists had the task of making “the reading understood” for as many as were “capable of understanding” (Neh 8:3.8). Their job was to translate the text into Aramaic for the uneducated people and so render the sense of the text accessible and persuasive. This innovatory pastoral initiative was destined to modify the organisation of the religious life of Israel because, by involving the community in the hearing and understanding of revelation conceptualised and transmitted by the written text, it handed over a liturgical role to the communal reading of Scripture which was placed in parallel with the Temple cult, thus favouring religious pluralism.80 The promotion through personal hearing/study of a form of religiosity more interior and demanding, led to the desacralisation of an inaccessible language and at the same time to the consecration of the mediatorial function of the scribe/sage who was called to be not only the interpreter and the mediator of the book, but also the vigilant protagonist of this continual and widespread mediatorial process of divine revelation which joined the sapiential tradition with the Yahwistic religion. In this environment there emerges slowly the “community of the book” which will lead to embracing, as the third Canon, the complex of works which go under the name of Writings and constitute an obvious whole made up of books of varying scribal provenance, not having a precise organising centre but which are placed in dialogue with their own 79 80

Cf. GILBERT, L’éloge de la Sagesse, 326-348; ID., Spirito, Sapienza e Legge, 65-69; ID., Lecture mariale, 539-540. According to ALBERTZ, the cultic structure of the synagogue brought together elements of the microcult of private religiosity and elements of the macrocult of official religiosity, allowing the formation of a communitarian theology more rooted in the real, and, at the same time, favouring the process of the theologising of personal religion (Storia della religione nell’Israele antico, 601-602).

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tradition and with their own historico-social context.81 The book of Sirach, as the work of grandfather and his translator grandson, would then be the supreme witness to this wonderful theological fusion between official religion and personal experience which is not frightened of contaminating the culture of the Jerusalem community with that of the community of the diaspora.82 However, just as it was not enough to belong to the priestly class to have “wisdom of heart” (46:26), so it was not enough to be a scribe to have nuptial experience of wisdom; hence the call to quiet listening, to diligent labour in study, to perseverance in the crucible of trial, and, finally, to the humble and trustful prayer which joins the praise of God indissolubly to the sapiential didactic activity itself.83 This explosive transformation of the relationship between the believer and God into a more interior and personal relationship, no longer mediated entirely by the old institutional forms, was not understood in its irreversible religious and social effects by the priestly class and not even by the movement of the Maccabean Revolt which exploited to the full, however, its political possibilities. The transformation in progress was an inevitable tendency which was to have social repercussions of vast cultural importance, as would be shown by the flourishing of the different movements which grew up in the wake of that period and which would contribute to the development of Second Temple Judaism.84 The reason for the centrality of this radical change lies in the fact that it is located historically at “the point of intersection between the Biblical text and the concrete society in which it is ‘actualised’ at the very moment in which there is accomplished an impressive hermeneutical perichoresis in the Scriptural process of Israel”85 which, as P. Beauchamp has said, accepted that “the original interpretations of the Law and the prophets had begun to give place to the same interpreted: the original word of God had generated in the heart of the believer the word to God”,86 becoming also in its turn the word of God. The figure of the sage was at the centre of this process of the Scriptural conceptualisationof the faith of Israel and of the giving of

81

82 83 84

85 86

MORGAN, Between Text and Community, 71, claims that the impossibility of reducing the “Writings” to a systematic unity is the hermeneutical and theological gift which these books have passed on to the Biblical communities which follow (p. 40). ALBERTZ, Storia della religione nell’Israele antico, 607; MORGAN, Between Text and Community, 53. As REITEMEYER, Weisheitslehre als Gotteslob, has shown. For the debate on the movements of the Second Temple, cf. KAMPEN, The Hasideans, 143; also see the judgements of TCHERIKOVER, Hellenistic Civilisation, 196-198; the reconstruction of HENGEL, Giudaismo ed ellenismo, 361-372; ALBERTZ, Storia della religione nell’Israele antico, 345-349; SACCHI, Storia del Secondo Tempio, 142-178. Cf. BELLIA, Proverbi: una lettura storico-antropologica, 86-87. Cf. BEAUCHAMP, Teologia biblica, 235.

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new meaning to the Covenant in a troubled time of epochal change. Ben Sira, the scribe, shows an awareness of this transformation in progress and invites those who have not experienced it to do just that, taking their place in the “house of study” (51:23). The catalogue of the famous ancestors and the trace of his own identity left at the end of the historical fresco perform this function of conscious witness; yes indeed, wisdom, having operated by means of the great figures in the history of Israel, was continuing to act in the present by means of the work of the scribe Joshua ben Eleazar ben Sira.

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Bibliography ALBERTZ, R., Storia della religione nell’Israele antico. 2: Dall’esilio ai Maccabei, Brescia 2005. ALONSO SCHÖKEL, L. – VILCHEZ LINDEZ, J., I Proverbi, Roma 1988. BARUCQ, A., Le livre des Proverbes, Paris 1964. BAUMGARTNER, W., Die literarischen Gattungen in der Weisheit des Jesus Sirach: ZAW 34 (1914), 186-189. BEAUCHAMP, P., Teologia biblica, in: LAURET, B. – REFOULÉ, F., Iniziazione alla pratica della teologia. I: Introduzione, Brescia 1986, 197-254. BELLIA, G., Historical and Anthropological reading of the Book of Wisdom, in: PASSARO, A. – BELLIA G. (eds.), The Book of Wisdom in Modern Research. Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology (DCLY 2005), Berlin – New York 2005. BELLIA, G., La “nuova archeologia biblica”: dalla svolta epistemologica all’antropologia storica: Ho Theológos 15 (1996), 205-252 and 369-419. BELLIA, G., «Confrontando nel suo cuore». Custodia sapienziale di Maria in Lc 2,19b: BeO 25 (1983), 215-228. BELLIA, G., Proverbi: una lettura storico-antropologica, in BELLIA, G. – PASSARO, A. (eds.), Il libro dei Proverbi. Tradizione, redazione, teologia, Casale Monferrato (AL) 1999, 55-90. BELLIA, G., Lettura storico-antropologica di Qohelet, in: BELLIA, G. – PASSARO, A. (eds.), Il libro del Qohelet. Tradizione, redazione, teologia, Milano 2001, 171-216. BLENKINSOPP, J., Sage, Priest, Prophet: Religious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel, Louisville 1995. BRAUDEL, F., (ed.), Problemi di metodo storico. Antologia delle “Annales” (BUL 24), Bari 1982. BURKE, P., Una rivoluzione storiografica, Roma – Bari 19995. CALDUCH-BENAGES, N., Un gioiello di Sapienza. Leggendo Siracide 2, Milano 2001. CANCIK, H., Mythische und historische Wahrheit Interpretationen zu Texten der hethitischen, biblischen and griechischen Historiographie, Stuttgart 1970. CANFORA, L., La storiografia greca, Milano 1999. Civiltà e imperi del Mediterraneo nell’età di Filippo II, Torino 1953. CORLEY, J., Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship (BJSt 316), Providence RI 2002. DAVIDSON, R., Wisdom and Worship, London – Philadelphia 1990. DUBARLE, A. M., Les Sages d’Israël, Paris 1946. DUESBERG, H. – FRANSEN, I. (eds.), Ecclesiastico (LSB), Torino – Roma 1966. GAMMIE, J. G. – PERDUE, L. G., The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, Winona Lake 1990. GAMMIE, J. G. , The Sage in Sirach, in: GAMMIE, J. G. – PERDUE, L. G., The Sage in Israel, 355-372. GILBERT, M., Introduction au livre de Ben Sira, ou Siracide, ou Ecclésiastique, Roma 1985-86. GILBERT, M., L’Ecclésiastique: Quel texte? Quelle autorité?: RB 94 (1987), 233-250. GILBERT, M., Spirito, Sapienza e Legge secondo Ben Sira e il libro della Sapienza: PSV 4 (1981), 65-73. GILBERT, M., L’éloge de la Sagesse (Siracide 24): RTL 5 (1974), 326-348.

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GILBERT, M., Lecture mariale et ecclésiale de Siracide 24,10 (15): Marianum 47 (1985), 536-542. GILBERT, M., Siracide, in: DBS XII, 1389-1437. GILBERT, M., Il concetto di tempo (‘t) in Qohelet e Ben Sira, in: G. BELLIA – A. PASSARO (eds.), Il libro del Qohelet. Tradizione, redazione, teologia, Milano 2001, 69-89 GRABBE, L. L., Sacerdoti, profeti, indovini, sapienti nell’antico Israele, Cinisello Balsamo 1998. HASPECKER, J., Gottesfurcht bei Jesus Sirach (AnBib 30), Rom 1967. HEMPEL, C. G., The Function of General Laws in History, in: ID., Aspects of Scientific Explanation, New York – London 1964. HENGEL, M., Giudaismo ed ellenismo. Studi sul loro incontro, con particolare riguardo per la Palestina fino alla metà del II secolo a.C., Brescia 2001. KAMPEN, J., The Hasideans and the Origin of Pharisaism (SCSt 24), Cambridge, MA 1988. LE DEAUT, R., La Septante un Targum?, in: KUNTZMANN, R. – SCHLOSSER, J. (eds.), Études sur le Judaïsme hellénistique (LeDiv 119), Paris 1984, 147-195. LEE, T. R., Studies in the Form of Sirach 44-50 (SBL.DS 75), Atlanta 1986. LEMAIRE, A., Scribes: I. Proche-Orient; II. Ancien Testament – Ancien Israël, in: DBS XII, 244-266. MARBÖCK, J., Weisheit im Wandel (BBB 37), Bonn 1971. MARBÖCK, J., Die “Geschichte Israels” als “Bundesgeschichte” nach dem Sirachbuch, in: ZENGER, E. (ed.), Der neue Bund im alten. Studien zur Bundestheologie der beiden Testamente (QD 146), Freiburg i.B. – Basel – Wien 1993, 177-197. MIDDENDORP, TH., Die Stellung Jesu Ben Sirac zwischen Judentum und Hellenismus, Leiden 1973. MINISSALE, A., Siracide (Ecclesiastico) (Nuovissima Versione della Bibbia 23), Roma 1980. MINISSALE, A., Siracide. (Ecclesiastico), Cinisello Balsamo (Mi) 1989. MINISSALE, A., Siracide. Le radici nella tradizione (LoB 1.17), Brescia 1988. MINISSALE, A., La versione greca del Siracide. Confronto con il testo ebraico alla luce dell’attività midrascica e del metodo targumico (AnBib 133), Roma 1995. MORGAN, D. F., Between Text and Community: The «Writings» in Canonical Interpretation, Minneapolis 1990. MORLA ASENSIO, V., Libri sapienziali e altri scritti, Brescia 1997. MORLA ASENSIO, V., Eclesiástico, Texto y comentario (El mensaje del Antiguo Testamento 10), Salamanca – Madrid – Estella 1992. MURPHY, R. E., L’albero della vita. Una esplorazione della letteratura sapienziale biblica, Brescia 1993. NICCACCI, A., Siracide o Ecclesiastico. Scuola di vita per il popolo di Dio, Cinisello Balsamo (Mi) 2000. OLYAN, S.M., Ben Sira’s Relationship to the Priesthood: HTR 80 (1987), 271-286. PAX, E., Dialog und Selbstgespräch bei Sirach 27,3-10: SBFLA 20 (1970), 247-263. PESCE, M., I limiti delle teorie dell’unità letteraria del testo, in: FRANCO, E. (ed.), Mysterium Regni ministerium Verbi. Scritti in onore di mons. Vittorio Fusco, Bologna 2000. PRATO, G. L., Il problema della teodicea in Ben Sira. Composizione dei contrari e richiamo alle origini (AnBib 65), Roma 1975.

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REITEMEYER, M., Weisheitslehre als Gotteslob. Psalmentheologie im Buch Jesus Sirach, Bodenheim 2000. RICKENBACHER, O., Weisheitsperikopen bei Ben Sira (OBO 1), Göttingen 1973. RICOEUR, P., Il conflitto delle interpretazioni, Milano 1972. RICOEUR, P., Dell’interpretazione. Saggio su Freud, Milano 1967. RICOEUR, P., Tempo e racconto; La configurazione nel racconto di finzione; Il tempo raccontato, 1-3, Milano 1986-1988. RICOEUR, P., La memoria, la storia, l’oblio, Milano 2003. ROTH, W., On the Gnomic-Discursive Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach: Semeia 17 (1980), 59-79. RÜGER, H. P., Le Siracide: un livre à la frontière du canon, in: KAESTLI, J.-D. – WERMELINGER, O. (eds.), Le canon de l’Ancien Testament. Sa formation et son histoire (MoBi), Génève 1984, 47-69. SACCHI, P., Storia del Secondo Tempio. Israele tra VI secolo a.C. e I secolo d.C., Torino 2002. SKEHAN, P. W., – DI LELLA, A. A., The Wisdom of Ben Sira. A New Translation with Notes, Introduction, and Commentary (AncB 39), New York 1987. SMEND, R., Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach, Berlin 1906. STADELMANN, H., Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter (WUNT 6), Tübingen 1980. TCHERIKOVER, V., Hellenistic Civilisation and the Jews, Philadelphia – Jerusalem 1961. VATTIONI, F., Ecclesiastico. Testo ebraico con apparato critico e versioni greca, latina e siriaca, Napoli 1966. VEYNE, P., Come si scrive la storia, Roma – Bari 1973. VOVELLE, M., Storia e lunga durata, in: LE GOFF, J. (ed.), La nuova storia, Milano 1990, 49-80.

Ben Sira and Qumran ÉMILE PUECH As with the Book of Wisdom, the canonicity of Ecclesiasticus or Ben Sira among the Writings has a long history. Should it be counted into the Greek canon of Alexandria or be excluded according to the shorter list of the Hebrew Biblical books? Before its translation into Greek in Egypt around 130 BC, the book first appeared in Hebrew during the first decades of the second century. What was its original status as a wisdom book before being excluded from the normative books by the Rabbis?1 The Prologue by his grandson, who had taken so much care to translate it correctly, gives a quite precise idea of the utility of the book for a Jewish reader. Following others, M. Gilbert pronounced his belief in the inspiration of both textual forms: the short text or Greek I (= Gr I) from Hebrew I (= Hb I), and its revision, the long text or Greek II (= Gr II) translated from Hebrew II (= Hb II) but with some particular additions.2 The manuscript tradition is still somewhat more complicated, because there exists a Latin translation (VL) of Gk II in the 2nd century AD and a Syriac translation (the Peshitta) around the 3rd ca. of a Hebrew text near to Hb I,3 both of them being witnesses in various places of particular recensions. Therefore, to find the shape of the original text, where it is possible with the help of manuscripts, could be a profitable enterprise so as to examine the cultural milieu of the author and also the reinterpretations of the successive translators. In an excellent status quaestionis M. Gilbert wrote: “Une étude d’ensemble sur les rapprochements entre Ben Sira et Qumrân fait encore défaut. Sur le rôle des Qumrâniens dans l’élaboration d’Hb II, thèse prônée par C. Kearns (...), manque également une étude systématique”.4 The present work attemps to outline some elements of a response, firstly focusing on the generally accepted points as first stated by M. Gilbert.5 We will review the 1

2 3

4 5

See KOPERSKI, Sirach and Wisdom, 261f where the author reports that Talmud and other Jewish writings occasionally quote Ben Sira with the formula “it is written”, formula normally intended for canonical books. LEEMANS, Canon and Quotation, 265-277, shows that the subject is disputed, see further DORIVAL, L’apport des Pères de l’Église, 104-106. GILBERT, L’Ecclésiatique: quel texte?, after particularly GRELOT, La Bible Parole de Dieu, 177. While we are still waiting for a critical edition of the Peshitta, see CALDUCH-BENAGES – FERRER – LIESEN, La Sabiduría del escriba, who give an editio princeps of codex Ambrosianus (VIIth century?). GILBERT, Siracide, 1415. See further GILBERT, The Book of Ben Sira, 81-91, and a first approach of the subject by PUECH, Le livre de Ben Sira, 411-426.

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Hebrew manuscripts of Ben Sira which have been found, and the citations, allusions and some common points in the manuscripts of Qumran which permit one to suppose a dependence of the latter on the former, and then we will analyse their respective positions on some important points.

1. The Hebrew manuscripts of Ben Sira at Qumran, Masada and Cairo Whereas a copy of the Hebrew text had been translated into Greek by his grandson and later on another one into Syriac, the fact that the rabbis who have not greatly regarded the book, excluding it from the canon at Jamnia, have occasionally alluded to it6 and that Jerome had known a copy in the 4th century AD,7 before the book in its original language was forgotten for ever, the recent discoveries from Cairo to Masada, spread over a century, nevertheless give quite a good idea of the Hebrew text for about two thirds of the composition.

1.1 The Cairo manuscripts The six manuscripts recovered in the geniza of the Karaite al-Fustat synagogue in Old Cairo and published between 1896 and 1912 are of three forms: manuscripts B (with marginal glosses), E and F are copied in stichometry, A, C and D are in a continuous script, but C is only an anthology. These copies from the High Middle Age (Xth-XIIth centuries) are not a mere translation from Greek or Syriac, but they derive in their entirety from manuscripts found just before 800 in one of the caves of the Jericho area, very probably from Qumran.8 The continuous or stichometric script was already 6

7 8

See SCHECHTER, The Quotations: 24 citations; COWLEY – NEUBAUER, The Original Hebrew: 79 citations. But only 19 hemistichs in 106 correspond to the terminology of the Cairo Hebrew manuscripts, the 87 others are more or less free paraphrases without a precise conformity of vocabulary, probably because the authors were dependent on an oral tradition or on translations instead of a copy at hand. On the other hand, Saadiyah Gaon quotes 26 hemistichs essentially in the shape of Cairo Ms A and another rather ad sensum, see DI LELLA, The Hebrew Text, 95f, and LEHMANN, 11QPsa and Ben Sira, 242-246, but BEENTJES, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew, does not give any mark of that. See the preface of Jerome to the Salomo’s books, Biblia Sacra juxta Vulgatam versionem, 957. On that discovery, see the Letter of Patriarch Timotheus I to Sergius Metropolite of Elam, in BRAUN, Ein Brief des Katholikos Timotheos I, 299-313, and DUVAL, Une découverte, 174-79. The identification to a cave of Qumran also explains the discovery of two copies

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that of the scriptorium of Qumran for the literary genre of wisdom texts. Compare for instance on the one hand the latest manuscript of Proverbs, 4QProverbsa (4Q102) in stichometry and 4QProverbsb (4Q103), the earliest manuscript from the middle of the 2nd century BC in a continuous script and, on the other hand, the manuscripts of Ben Sira from Qumrân and Masada in stichometry in the 1st century BC. Finally the manuscripts B and E confirm the order of chapters known from the Syriac and Latin versions.

1.2 The Qumran manuscripts 1.2.1 2Q18 The first Hebrew fragments of Ben Sira at Qumran were identified among the fragments of Cave 2 discovered in 1952, thus reinforcing the hypothesis of the origins of the Karaite copies. The manuscript 2Q18, dated to the third quarter of the 1st century BC,9 has a text in a prosodic arrangement, securely identified on the basis of manuscript A from the Cairo geniza: fragment 2 = Sir 6:20-31. The fragment which belongs to the left side of a sheet (with stitching) shows ink dots for the lines, fixing the remains of 14 lines.10 In spite of the meager final remains of lines 9-10 and 13, the nature of the preserved text confirms the sequence of the verses retained in Greek contra the Cairo manuscript A which intercalates the two stichs of 27:5-6 in place of 6:23-25. Even without preserved written remains, lines 4-6 of fragment 2 must have contained the three verses 6:23-25.11 But compared to Ms A, this fragment attests an unnoticed variant reading in xk[n which is more than a defective orthography, being also a masculine form. Consequently, instead of restoring xk[nayh12 with the Ms A hxwkn ayh, we have to read xk[nawh, in

9 10

11

12

of the Damascus Covenant and of Testament of Levi in Aramaic among those manuscripts and the copy of 26 hemistichs from a Hebrew text of Ben Sira used by Saadiyah Gaon in the Xth ca., whereas that book, no longer handed down by the Rabbanites, was known to them only by paraphrases. On this origin, see also DI LELLA, Qumrân and the Genizah Fragments of Ben Sira, 245-267, who shows well the Qumranic origin of the manuscripts and the scribes at work. See BAILLET, Les ‘Petites Grottes’, 75-77. The place is not necessarily on the left lower corner of the sheet, contrary to BAILLET, Les ‘Petites Grottes’, 75, since, contrary to fragment 1, no trace of a lower margin is preserved, only the reconstruction of the scroll and the number of lines per column would enable one to assert that. With BAILLET, Les ‘Petites Grottes’, ad loc. The transcript of BEENTJES, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew, 123 and 133-134, does not give a precise idea of the text arrangement of 2Q18, frg. 2, still with a mistake in the transcript of 6,22: hk[ for xk[, and read hmXk, not hXmk in 22a. BAILLET, Les ‘Petites Grottes’, follows Cairo Ms A. Likewise, SKEHAN, The Acrostic Poem, 400, read two times ayh !k and xk[n ayh.

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agreement with the masculine substantive of 22a: awh !k hmXk rswmh yk. The Greek reads sofi,a – a feminine substantive.13 The identification of fragment 1 has been difficult due to the fragmentary state of the Hebrew text of Ben Sira. The editor hesitated between 6:1415 and 1:19-20. In favor of 6:14-15, which he preferred, he notes the material aspect of the fragment, and in favor of 1:19-20 he notes a long interval, at first sight difficult to explain, in the reconstruction of 15a. Some authors give their preference to 1:19-20,14 which is far from certain. The reading !ya is palaeographically secure, if the break and the distension of leather on which is found the stroke of the letter are taken into account and if the thickness of the upper stroke of the letter on the left of the arm along the break for y is noted, compare frag. 2 10. The downstroke is almost of the same length, but in that script the dimensions of letters are variable. Thus the placing of the fragment in 6:14-15 is much more preferable. The irregular disposition of the beginning of verse 15 may be due to the greater dimension of letters, to the variable distance between the words, to a defect of the surface, to an erasure or to a haplography of bhwa at v. 14 and to a supralinear correction. But whatever about the precise restoration of fragment 1 with 6:14-15, fragment 2 assures the identification of the manuscript. 1.2.2 11Q5 (= 11QPsa) XXI 11 – XXII 1 = Sir 51:13-30 Among the scrolls of Cave 11 discovered in 1956, there is a liturgical collection dated to the first half of the 1st century AD, which contains biblical Psalms, apocryphal compositions and the alphabetical poem of Sir 51:1319[...]30 in a continuous script. Only the first half of this poem is preserved, at column XXI 11-18, between Psalm 138 and the acrostic Hymn to Zion: the stichs a-k where many words are missing at line 18 but with remains of stichs, and the last two words of the last stich at column XXII 1. Even once one recognizes the superiority of the Greek over a perturbed transmission 13

14

Since the confusion of w/y is much more difficult in the manuscripts of the Middle-Ages while it is very easy and frequent in a copy of the 1st century BC, it is probable that the mistake of manuscript A originates from a wrong reading of its original (awh > ayh), then involving the correction of a masculine into a feminine form hx(w)kn. For other errors of this genre, see DI LELLA, The Hebrew Text, 97-101. Syriac translating hnplwy “his teaching” (masc.) can also have read a masculine form. See SEGAL, Ben Sira in Qumran, 243; the Traduction Œcuménique de la Bible, 2141; GILBERT, Siracide, 1394; MARTONE, Ben Sira Manuscripts, 82: “much more likely”. This author seems to understand by “in both manuscripts” (p. 83) that the Cairo Ms A is also copied in stichometry, what is not true. FLINT, «Apocrypha», 36, keeps 1,19? and estimates as three the number of chapters found at Qumran. But BEENTJES, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew, 123, identifies the fragment with 6:13-14.

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of the Hebrew of Ms B in its first half,15 the restoration of this latter from the Greek (where the order has been somewhat revised), is not without difficulty. The proposition of Skehan for instance does not take into account the l preserved below the n of !nwbta (l. 17), and it is much too long for the space.16 It would be palaeographically possible to read with the remains of the letters, l. 11 (= vv. 20def): h(n)bz[a ]a[l !k]l Xa[rm hm[ ytynq bl hytacm ]h[rh]j[bw] partially with B and Greek.17 The line 17 (= vv. 19cd-20c) has also given rise to different readings. The editor has proposed: ]Xrp and yt]xtp,18 but the reading ]xtp is certain, with B. Then the reading is: .hyla ytwrbh ypk !nwbta (with 42:18 and Greek) hymr[mbw 19ha[yb h]xtp ydy We would have another indication partially supporting the reading of the Syriac in agreement with B contra the Greek ta.j cei/ra,j mou evxepe,tasa pro.j u[yoj (already line 16). I understand thus this badly preserved passage of 11Q5 XXI:

15 16

17

18

19

Accordingly, many authors agree to see there a pure retroversion of the Syriac text following LÉVI, L’Ecclésiastique, XXI-XXVII, 225-233. SKEHAN, The Acrostic Poem, 388, proposes hbz[a al !k rwb[b. It is the same with hnbzga awl !k rwb[b hlxtm ytynq bl by SANDERS, The Sirach 51 Acrostic, 432. The remains of l belong almost certainly to the second hemistich, not to the first as reconstructed by MURAOKA, Sir. 51,13-30, 176, followed by MARTONE, The Ben Sira Manuscripts, 84, with debatable arguments for the inclusio in 11QPsa (pp. 87f). B: [h(n)bz[a al ]!k rwb[b htlxtm hl ytynq blw hytacm hrhjbw. The last proposition of GILBERT, «Venez à mon école», completes the Greek and Syriac according to B, and reads: ..!k rwb[b hlxtm hl ytynq bl. This solution is not possible, since there is no remain of l in hlxtm whereas there are remains of and of a previous letter, possibly a, then remains of l of !kl instead of !k rwb[b of B; beyond that, the space requests to read hm[ with Greek instead of hl: kardi,an evkthsa,mhn met v auvth/j avp v avrch/j dia. tou/to ouv mh. evgkataleifqw/. The proposition of MINISSALE, La versione greca, especially 137-149, hnbz[a al !k rwb[b htlxtm yl ytynq bl is not convincing; it is followed by DAHMEN, Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption, 91 and 242-244; this abridges the stich, and instead of the 27 lines supposed by this last author, I hold to 26 lines for this column XXI (= XXX of the scroll). SANDERS, The Psalms Scroll, 42: ]Xrp hymr[m[... and ?la, and 80-82: hymr[m[w ... yt]xtp and ...la. These readings left traces afterwards. RABINOWITZ, The Qumran Hebrew 175: ?? hyt]lbq ytwkzh ypk !nwbta hymr[m[bw...yt[rp , but ]la ytwrbh of Sanders is certain. MARTONE, Ben Sira Manuscripts, 84, reads: la... hymr[m [...] Xrp, and SKEHAN, The Acrostic Poem, 388: (sic) hymwr[mbw hr[X hxtp and hyla. DELCOR, Le texte hébreu, 31 and 36, reads: hymr[m[w ... yt]xtp, and MURAOKA, Sir. 51,13-30, 176: hymr[m.. ... ...xtp and ...l. MINISSALE, La versione greca, reads: !nwbta hymr[mw hyr[X hxtp ydy. The reading of BEENTJES, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew, 125, is incomprehensible: hymr[[ ]tp, as the break in 51:20 which does not take into account the acrostichs with y and k. DAHMEN, Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption, 91 reads: ...hymr[m[w yt]xtp, which is excluded. I amend my proposition of the note in the Le livre de Ben Sira, 415. A more contrasted photograph permits us to read a and the likely remains of h for ha[yb (with more difficulty ha[wbm a little too long) excluding hr[X according to B: hyr[X and Syriac h[rt. At l. 18, j seems secure, and excluding !wqn of Skehan which I accepted first. B read: [h]b jybaw rdxa hlw hyr[X hxtp ydy.

Émile Puech

84 j 20ab y 19cd k 20cd l 20ef

I was continually looking for her and I never ceased to exalt her.20 My hand opened her[ ent]rance, and to her secrets I paid attention. I purified my hands for her, [and] in pu[rity I found her. I clung to her from the beginnin]g, th[erefore ]I will ]n[ot abandon her.

Consequently, by means of some adjustments of B for the second half and of 11QPsa for the first, the Hebrew of the original acrostic poem is entirely recovered. But the Hebrew of 11QPsa, which may represent a form of the text quite near the original, does not especially support the exclusive sexual character of images which some authors will wish to find there.21 Whatever it could be, and this must be expected, the pre-Qumrân acrostic has nothing to do with the sublimation of celibacy of the members of the Community, and 11QPsa cannot be a Qumranic rewriting. Finally, compared to 11QPsa, it is clear that B lost a good part of the acrostic arrangement in the first part of the poem and that it could not be a witness of the original for this passage. 1.2.3 The Masada manuscript (Mas1h or Mas) On the 1st April 1964, fragments of a scroll of Ben Sira22 which cover chapters 39:27 to 44:17 were discovered in the ruins of Masada, but with no remains of 39:33 to 40:7;23 40:9-10.22-25, and 43:26-28 and 30-33.24 The manuscript, dated to the beginning of the 1st century BC,25 is stichometrically 20

21

22 23 24

25

The authors do not agree on the reading of hymwrbw of B and several prefer to read hmmwrbw, an infinitive polel instead of a plural substantive hymwr, “his heights”, but this last form could also be understood as an infinitive qal with the feminine singular suffix in an orthography already known at Qumran, for instance in 4Q525 2 ii 2, and the meaning “to exalt” is attested also for qal; there is no reason to correct B. SANDERS, The Psalms Scroll, 83-85; ID., The Sirach 51 Acrostic, 433f; DELCOR, Le texte hébreu, 36f; MURAOKA, Sir. 51,13-30; MARTONE, The Ben Sira Manuscripts, 86f. Thus in that stich, Greek did not need to avoid the much too explicit words in that direction, since Hebrew does not seem to have them! GILBERT, «Venez à mon école», concludes in that way also. Besides, Martone (87f) takes up without new arguments the conclusion of Sanders on the non authenticity of this Psalm in Ben Sira, but see also GILBERT, The Book of Ben Sira, 83, who thinks that this acrostich could be a conclusion of the book as well as the alphabetic composition of Prov 31:10-31 in Proverbs, likewise still GILBERT, «Venez à mon école». For FLINT, «Apocrypha», 36-37, who accepts the erotic interpretation, the copy of this acrostich in 11QPsa could prove its original independence before its insertion in the Ben Sira’s book. YADIN, The Ben Sira Scroll, 151-225 and 227-252. The Yadin edition includes a number of reading mistakes, and line I 23 accurately deciphered belongs to 40:8, not to 40:10, see the review by Skehan: JBL 85 (1966), 260. See MILIK, Un fragment mal placé; BAUMGARTEN, Some Notes; STRUGNELL, Notes and Queries, even if not all the remarks are acceptable, see further SKEHAN, Sirach 40,11-17, and ID., Sirach 30,12, 541f. See YADIN, The Ben Sira Scroll, 4 and note 11, quoting the opinions of F. M. Cross and of N. Avigad. It is difficult to understand the proposition of MARTONE, Ben Sira Manuscripts,

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arranged, like 4QProverbsa,26 a contemporary manuscript of a comparable genre. Accordingly it is somewhat earlier than 2Q18, a copy of a similar type. Since Ben Sira had not been included in the canon by the Rabbis in the 2nd century AD, it is more probable that the Masada scroll comes from Qumran, like the Shirot ‘Olat ha-Shabbat scroll brought to the resistance network by the last escapees among the refugees of the Judaean Desert.27 One of the indications is the replacement, in a former period, of the tetragrammaton of the original manuscript by ynda (in defective orthography) in 42:15 and 17c (Ms B ~yhla), 42:16 and 43:5 (Ms B yyy and !wyl[ in the marginal gloss in 43:5), 43:10 (Ms B la, Greek a`gi,ou) or by a suffix wytwalpn in 42:17b and already in the Greek Vorlage (Ms B yyy, suffix of a marginal gloss in a supplementary predicate). The scribes of Qumran used the same processes of substitution in their own compositions, compare 4Q521, etc. Accordingly the Masada copy already supposes some revision, at least at this level, but a revision which has apparently not yet occurred in the copy translated by the grandson of Ben Sira.28 The importance of this manuscript is first due to its age, since it dates a century after the original, i.e. a generation after the translation by the grandson. Because of the substantially preserved passages which overlap large portions of Ms B, it is now possible to appreciate to some extent the

26 27

28

88: “...with some early Herodian characteristics ... between 40 B.C.E. and 20 C.E.”! This writing is quite comparable to that of 4Q521, see PUECH, Qumrân Grotte 4. See SKEHAN, Qumrân. IV. Littérature de Qumrân, 818. See also SKEHAN – ULRICH, Qumran Cave 4 XI, 181f. GILBERT, The Book of Ben Sira, 84, sets aside this hypothesis assessing that this discovery would prove that Ben Sira was read also by other Jews. Furthermore this would explain the quotations in the ancient Rabbanite writings. But those quotations could very well come from other copies. The linking of the Masada scroll with Qumran seems very probable. Clearly, would the last non-Essenes opponents have thought to bring scrolls which they thought to be non normative or so unrepresentative in that hiding place? Certainly, the Rabbanite milieu could have held the book as authorized, Babli, Baba Qamma 92, Sanhedrin 100b (rabbi Yoseph), but most often as forbidden, Yerushalmi, Sanhedrin X 1 (rabbi Aqiba). Although little known, Ben Sira is sometimes quoted by the Rabbis, see LEHMANN, 11QPsa and Ben Sira, 243-245. These indications could show that the copies of Cairo Ms B and A were made after a manuscript dated prior to the middle of the 2nd century BC, and partially corrected with another copy somewhat later but in a defective orthography (for example ynda), see BAILLET, Les ‘Petites Grottes’, 75. Indeed, many times the tetragrammaton had not been corrected, see 10:22; 40:26 and 51:1 in the well known expression hwhy tary, except in 40:27, and in Ms A 9:16; 10:12 (~yhla tary), the same in ~yhla ynpl (14:16, Ms A) or yet Ms B in 45:2 ~yhla but yyy in the margin, etc. In 51:15, Ms B reads ynda which is not found again in 11QPsa XXI 13 in another phraseology (see Greek). This would then be a witness of the beginning of that process. For the cases of tetragrammaton retained in Hebrew, see BEN HAYYIM (ed.), The Book of Ben Sira, 157f. The stichometric order would reinforce that remark.

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value of the Medieval copies on one hand and, on the other, that of the different translations: Gr I and II, Syriac and Latin. This manuscript confirms quite well the Hebrew text of Ms B and especially the value of the marginal gloss, though one must judge each case individually.29 In a great number of cases, sometimes impossible to evaluate given the difficulty of recognizing the original word among the possible synonyms, the manuscript agrees with the Greek. This agreement is found in the cases where the vv. are missing in manuscript B: 40:12; 41:22; 42:5.18c-d.22; 44:12, or the manuscript agrees with B against the Greek in 42:11e, but the Greek and B are in agreement against the Masada manuscript in 44:16 about Enoch.30 In return, in a number of cases, Mas agrees with Ms B against the Greek in the sequence of the verses, or in other cases with the Syriac against the Greek, thus showing that the Syriac is not dependent on the Greek but on a Hebrew manuscript which has itself been somewhat revised. Thus Mas and indirectly the geniza manuscripts could accordingly claim a Qumranic origin which, with 2Q18 and 11Q5, are then the only remains of the Hebrew text handed down by the Essenes with the exception of the rare more or less literal citations of the Rabbanites who did not include this book in their canon. But the Qumranic origin of the copies explaining the old stichometric arrangement, does not as such point to an Essene book. With a little more than two thirds, circa 68%, of the Hebrew text recovered, the study of the book has been greatly renewed, more especially as the fragments from Qumran and Masada give the state of the text from around 100 BC., and as the copies of Cairo are not late retroversions but copies of a Hebrew text, sometimes certainly revised, originating from Qumran and found a little before 800 AD. Lastly, this Hebrew text, being quite close to that translated by the grandson, substantiates the short Greek text or Gr I before the different revisions31 of the book.

29

30 31

On this subject, see the lists noted by the editor, YADIN, The Ben Sira Scroll, Table 1 (pp. 7-8 of Hebrew part) collects the 51 examples (but 41:12) where the manuscript agrees with the corrections in the margin against Ms B, table 2 (p. 9) the 37 examples (but 42:4 and 22) where the manuscript follows the text of Ms B against the glosses in the margin, and table 3 (pp. 11-13) the 88 examples (but 43:23 and 25) where the manuscript diverges from the text of Ms B and the glosses. On this subject, see YADIN, The Ben Sira Scroll, 38. For an account story of the complexity of the text of Ben Sira and of its transmission and of its revisions, see GILBERT, Siracide, 1407-1412. The marginal Persan glosses of B prove nothing as to the origin of the manuscript at the basis of the copy. The Qaraïtes presence in Palestine and in Babylon is well known, see DI LELLA, The Hebrew Text, 96-97.

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2. Citations, points of contact and allusions By itself the discovery of Hebrew manuscripts at Qumran proves that the Hebrew text of Ben Sira, composed between 195 and 175 BC, was known among the Essenes there before the book went over to the Jewish community in Egypt in the Greek translation of the grandson, shortly after 132 BC. But other testimonies such as citations, points of contact and allusions strengthen this conclusion.

2.1 Citations The identification of a stich in a wisdom Hebrew manuscript, 4Q525 (4QBéatitudes), is in itself a first proof. On the very badly preserved fragment of 4Q525 25 4, I read and restored with certitude:32 sykb !ya hmw]amw ab[wsw llwz yht la Do not be a glutton nor a dr]unkard when there is [nothing in the purse!

This Hebrew maxim literally preserved by manuscript C of Sir 18:33 found in the Cairo geniza, must be a citation of that book rather than an isolated proverb belonging to the common background of the Wisdom literature. Indeed, there are too many points of contact, as will be shown later on, between Ben Sira and 4Q525, although the latter is badly preserved, for the Essene author33 not to have quoted his predecessor. Consequently, this Hebrew proverb copied in 4Q525 which is an approximately dated composition of around the middle of the 2nd century BC, confirms the antiquity or originality of the formulation of manuscript C contra that of Gr I:

32 33

PUECH, Qumrân Grotte 4, 164-165. With the edition of 4Q525, (cf. my Qumrân Grotte 4, 117-119), I gave arguments in favour of an Essene composition of this wisdom text, underlining particularly the exclusive use of la and ~yhwla, see above and the remarks (n. 28) on the tetragrammaton in manuscript B with its marginal glosses and Mas. But there are many more approaches of Wisdom which meet the Essene points of view known from elsewhere, as also the very probable quotation of 4Q525 11-12, 1-2 in 1QS IV 7-8 where the Spirit of light or of truth takes the place of the speeches of Wisdom (for another point of view, see TIGCHELAAR, «There are the Names of the Spirits of...», 545-546); and for lines 3-4, see PUECH, Qumrân Grotte 4, 141-142, and for further contacts between 1QS and 4Q420-421 [Ways of Righteousness] with 4Q525, see below. The manuscript seems to be the product of the first Esseno-Qumranic generation, maybe of the Teacher of Righteousness teaching his disciples, as a wise teacher, or of a pious man or wise man of the two previous decades before the exile into the wilderness in 152. BROOKE, Biblical Interpretation, 205 note 13, does not view 4Q525 as an Essene composition.

88

Émile Puech mh. gi,nou ptwco.j sumbolokopw/n evk daneismou/ kai. ouvde,n soi, evstin evn marsippi,w|

translated into Christian-Palestinian Aramaic:34 asykb $l [t]yl ~wlkw a[(?)[wlm] !m albws[d] $qlwx bhy !yksm aht al Do not impoverish yourself by borrowing to feast, when there is nothing in the purse!

The translation of Gr I has certainly given the meaning of the first hemistich, but without translating it precisely. It passed from concrete situations to a more moralising generalization. This tendency of Gr I is found again apropos of other more abstract themes.

2.2 Contacts and allusions Besides the citation, several other rapprochments or points of contact have already been underlined,35 but they mostly cover citations common to more than one specific biblical book rather than direct borrowings to Ben Sira. However, the influence of Ben Sira on Qumranic literature, wisdom or otherwise, seems clear, especially in 4Q525, but the question requires to be further explored for the Instruction. 2.2.1 4Q525 The wisdom text 4Q525 2 ii 2 lays a stress upon the search for wisdom like Sir 14:20ff or 51:13-30. In both compositions, Wisdom is identified with the Law or at least is in a very close relationship to the Law, Sir 1:26; 15:1; 19:20; 24:22ff and 4Q525 2 ii 4. Besides, the syntagma !wyl[ trwt is also found in Sir 41:4.8; 42:2 and 49:4 (Hebrew), see further o` no,moj tou/ u`yi,stou in 9:15; 19:17; 34

35

See MÜLLER-KESSLER – SOKOLOFF (eds.), The Christian Palestinian Aramaic, 204, where I propose a restoration. But the sequence ry]t[ [a]l ad[...]l[p which translates 19:1 strengthens the late addition of Gr II at verse 18:33c. See CARMIGNAC, Les rapports. On this subject, GILBERT, Siracide, 1414, writes: “Ben Sira faisait partie, selon Carmignac, de la littérature proprement Qumranienne”. This is not totally exact, since Carmignac sums up his tought (p. 218): “Cela (les différences) empêche au moins d’affirmer de façon définitive que l’Ecclésiastique fasse partie de la littérature proprement qumranienne”, and in note 29: “le dernier chapitre ... si indépendant du reste de l’ouvrage ... offre tant de rapprochements avec les textes de Qumrân, que l’on pourrait plus facilement envisager qu’il ait bel et bien été composé à Qumrân», and lastly «Si les recherches ultérieures confirmaient que l’Ecclésiastique n’a pas été composé au sein de la communauté de Qumrân, ...”. The comparisons at various levels underline first of all in Carmignac’s opinion the proximity of different milieux.

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23:23; (24:23); (29:11); 38:34; 44:20; add 11QPsa XVIII 14 (= Syriac Psalm II = Ps 154) and Testament of the Twelve Patriarches, Levi 13,1,36 but nowhere else in the Bible.37 The formula Wisdom/Law is to be understood as an innovation of Ben Sira or of the Sages of his generation, taken up in compositions found at Qumran. Among the points of contact, let us quote particularly: - the word of comfort in Sir 3:31b: ![Xm acmy wjwm t[bw (A), “and at the moment of falling he will find support”, taken up and adapted in 4Q525 14 ii 7: ![X]m acmt $jwm t[b, “and at the moment of your falling you will find su[pport”; - the saying about listening and the way of answering in Sir 11:8: rbdt la hxyX $wtbw [mXt ~rj(b) rbd byXt la (A and B), “Do not answer before having listened, and do not interrupt a speech before it is finished”, taken up and adapted in 4Q525 14 ii 22-24:

hkyrbd]b byXt rxaw ~rma [mX ~ynpl hdawm[...l hbyXq]h ~hylm ta [mXt ~rj xyX $wpXt [law, “Do [not ] pour out speech before having listened to their points of view. Pay [attention to...] specially. First listen to their words and then answer with [your words”. This recommendation is also taken up and adapted in the Rule of the Community, 1QS VI 10: rbdl whyxa hlky ~rj wh[r yrbd $wtb Xya rbdy la, “No man may speak during the speech of his fellow before his brother has finished speaking”. This same maxim is yet taken over and adapted in the Qumranic composition The Ways of Righteousness, 4Q420 1a-b ii 1-3 – 4Q421 1a-b ii 13-14:38 ]rbd aycwy [dw][w ~gtp byXy ~ypa $rab[ !yby ~tj]b r[bdy awl]w [[]mXy ~rjb byXy awl, “he will not answer before he hears, and will not speak before he understands. With great patience will he give answer and [furthermore] he will utter a word of[...”; - the word on the dangers of the tongue in Sir 22:27: “Who will set a guard on my mouth, and an efficient seal on my lips, to keep me from falling, and my tongue from causing my ruin?”, and in 28:18: “Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but many more have fallen by the tongue”, and 4Q525 14 ii 26-28: 36

37

38

The Testament of Levi in Aramaic has been found at Qumran in many copies and another one among the manuscripts of the Cairo geniza, see PUECH, Le Testament de Lévi en araméen; ID., Notes sur le Testament de Lévi de la grotte 1; and STONE – GREENFIELD , Aramaic Levi Document. Contra DE ROO, Is 4Q525 a Qumran Sectarian Document?, 340 and 345 (the author gives the numbers of fragments and lines after a pirate, faulty and incomplete edition, which are not those of the editio princeps). For a biblical background of the syntagma, see HAYWARD, El Elyon. See ELGVIN, 4QWays of Righteousness, 175f and 188f. The editor would understand it as a Qumranic composition with use of pre-Qumranic sources (p. 173). TIGCHELAAR, More on 4Q264A, understands it as a halakhic composition but not as a sapiential one.

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!w]Xlb dxy htXq[wnw] hkytwtpXb dklt !p[..].gb hdawm rmXh !wXl lqtmw hkytpXb, “...]by your lips and from an error of speech refrain mostly in..[..] lest you fall by your lips[ and that you not] be ensnared at the same time by the ton[gue”. The passage of Ps 15:3a wnXl l[ lgr awl is taken up in Sir 4:28d lgrt la $nwXl l[w, in Sir 5:14b [r lgrt la $nwXlbw, also in 4Q525 2 ii 1: wnwXl l[ lgr awlw,“and does not slander with his tongue”, and in 4Q185 1-2 ii 13: h]yl[ lgr alw. The content of stichs 6:36: dymt 39hghy wtwcmbw !wyl[ taryb tnnwbthw (A), 6:18: hmkx ygXt (C), 14:20a: hghy hmkxb Xwna yXra (A), 50:28a: hghy hlab Xya yXra(B) is clearly taken in 4Q525 2 ii 3-4: dymt hghy hb yk ...hmkwx gyXh ~da yXra, “Blessed is anyone who overtakes wisdom...when he thinks over her day and night”. These many points of contact of vocabulary and thought of 4Q525 2 ii with various passages of Ben Sira, in particular on the happiness of one who meditates on the Law and Wisdom and clings to them, are probably also at the origin of the strophic composition of the “eight beatitudes plus one” in this passage of the Qumranic manuscript, a literary genre which the author must have recognized already in Sir 14:20–15:1 and where he has found the inspiration for that particular structure. This last passage of Ben Sira is the first and the oldest known group of eight Hebrew beatitudes, even if there is only one yrXa at the beginning. I have shown elsewhere the text arrangement into two strophes of four stichs or four beatitudes organized in sub-groups, two by two.40 The author has meticulously composed his passage counting the words and ordering them according to a determined order. These two strophes of eight short beatitudes are followed by yk, whereas the other macarisms of Ben Sira are in a usual form: 26:1; 31(34):15 (LXX); 48:11 (LXX); 50:28; 25:(7b).9 (LXX), but only 34(31):8 with a positive hemistich followed by a negative one, 25:8 and 28:19 (LXX) with a positive hemistich followed by three negatives confirm for the first time this structure taken up also in 4Q185 1-2 ii 13-14. The manuscript 4Q525 2 ii 1-6 knows this same structural genre: the short macarisms are composed of a positive hemistich followed by a negative one, whereas the long macarism includes four positive hemistichs after a positive one as an introduction, followed by four other negative ones. As the preserved strophe of four short macarisms with feminine suffixes supposes other macarisms of the same type where Wisdom and the Law, to which theses suffixes refer to, must have been mentioned, a first strophe in the same form must be presupposed. It is remarkable that the strophe of 39 40

Manuscript A reads hghw, which is certainly a mistake in the transcription of y by a scribe of the Middle Ages; hghy is necessary for the parallel structure of the hemistichs. PUECH, 4Q525 et les péricopes des Béatitudes; ID., The Collection of Beatitudes, 357 and 361.

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four macarisms of short type as well as that with a long macarism, contain each 31 words, 15 in the positive hemistichs and 16 in the negative ones.41 Such a finely formed structure cannot be a product of chance. It is taken up in a passage in Greek in Mt 5:3-12 with its two strophes of four short macarisms and one with a long macarism, each strophe of 36 words. This Greek composition clearly applies the rules of that literary genre, of which the first known example is Sir 14:20-27 comprising two strophes of four macarisms of 23 words each.42 Because of the strong influence of Ben Sira already noted on 4Q525, it is highly probable that the structure of this peculiar passage also depends on it. 2.2.2 4QInstruction Remains of at least seven manuscripts of this wisdom text have been found: 1Q26, 4Q415, 416, 417, 418, 418*, 423.43 Such a number of copies shows a large diffusion among the Qumran Community, compared to the scanty remains recovered of the Book of Ben Sira. Most of those copies are dated to the late Hasmonaean or early Herodian periods, but the composition must precede the installation of the Community in the wilderness and goes back at the latest to the first part of the 2nd century, thus more or less contemporary to the book of Ben Sira.44 It cannot be excluded that this compo41 42

43 44

The same number of 31 words is also found in a strophe of macarisms in the Hymns scroll 1QHa, col. VI, see PUECH, ibid. The copy of Ms A contains faint alterations of the original: addition of lk at v. 22b (absent in Greek, Latin and Syriac) and the infinitive tacl in 22a for the participle (but already an imperative in Gr I which is also not original). Concerning this structure, it is difficult to understand the cautions of FABRY, Die Seligpreisungen, who reproaches us (p. 195) for restoring five (sic) beatitudes in this passage. It is evident that a strophe of 4 took place at the bottom of the previous column where the search of Wisdom and Law was surely present, in order to explain the feminine suffixes in the following lines. It is similarly not possible to accept the conclusions of BROOKE, The wisdom of Matthew’s Beatitudes, who thinks to find a better parallel in the Lukan composition in a more Semitic original (!), nor those of VAN CANGH, Béatitudes de Qumrân, who concludes to the “Lukan original”. Jesus spoke in Aramaic, not in Greek, and Matthew did not add anything to restrain Jesus’ message. The “poor in spirit” include also the other categories of poor, seven of which are clarified, whereas Luke has manifestly reworked a previously Semitic structure, a wholly clear Semitic (vocabulary and syntagmas) composition in Matthew. MILIK, Qumran Cave I, 100-102; STRUGNELL – HARRINGTON – ELGVIN, Qumran Cave 4 XXIV; PUECH – STEUDEL, Un nouveau fragment. See STRUGNELL – HARRINGTON – ELGVIN, Qumran Cave 4 XXIV, 21f, and HARRINGTON, Two Early Jewish Approaches, 263. The editors would favour likewise a somewhat earlier datation, while VERMES, The Complete, 402, concludes to a clearly Essene composition (“unquestionably sectarian”), while ELGVIN, 4QWays of Righteousness, 173, considers this sapiential composition in the period of the formation of the Essene movement or just in the previous phase, and that LANGE, Wisdom and Predestination, 341 note 2, places it

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sition, largely read and copied at Qumran, comes from Jewish forerunner groups of the Community. In this direction point the numerous points of contact of vocabulary and concepts, particularly the Rules (1QS, CD) and the Hymns, already quoted by the editors but without having retained this possibility.45 The editors did not note the relationship of dependence between the Instruction and Ben Sira, even though both works are similar in form (instruction of a wise man to a disciple called “[my] son” or “O wise child” or “O understanding one”), in the content and in the theological perspective. Both compositions display interest in financial transactions, loans (Sir 8:12; 29:12 and 4Q417 2 ii 21-23), and pledges (Sir 29:14-20 and 4Q416 2 ii 5-7.17-18), in the social and familial relations, the honor due to parents (Sir 3:1-16 and 4Q416 2 iii 15-19), the authority of the husband over his wife (Sir 3,1-16 and 4Q416 2 iii 19 – iv 11 but without the misogyny of Sir 25:14-24; 42:14 because the author links these relations to the mystery to come from which they must not divert 4Q416 2 iii 18-21), vows and votive offerings of the wife annulled by the husband (2 iv 6-13) as displaying patriarchal authority. Rather surprisingly, the Instruction addresses itself also directly to the woman, to honor her father-in-law like her father, to hold fast to her husband and to be the honor of all (4Q415 2 ii 1-9). In both compositions these recommandations are based upon the Law but without mentioning that explicitly: the honor of parents in Exod 20:12 or Deut 5:16,46 and also Gen 2:24 (to become one flesh) and 3:16 (your yearning will be for your husband and he will dominate you), Num 30:6-15 (annulling the vows and votive offerings). The same is true also with the interdiction of mixing species (Lv 19:19; Deut 22:9-11 and 4Q418 103). The sages make clear their counsels on the basis of Mosaic traditions to such a point that Wisdom and Law are not distinguished in Sir 24:23-34 and 4Q525. However, if Sir 24:1-22; 51:13-20 = 11QPsa XXI 11-18, the Hymn to the Creator (11QPsa XXVI 9-15) as well as Lady Madness in 4Q184, know the personification of Wisdom, the Instruction in the present state of the text does not.47

45

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47

more generally in the pre-Essene movement. Some have proposed to isolate the sapiential parts, which would be the oldest, from the more theological parts of the address where the more Essene wording is found, see ELGVIN, The Mystery to Come, 115. But FREY, Flesh and Spirit, 396f, concludes to a pre-Essene period. HARRINGTON, Wisdom and Apocalyptic, estimates the composition in the 1st century BC at the latest or even before, without any other explanation. STRUGNELL – HARRINGTON – ELGVIN, Qumran Cave 4 XXIV, 22-33, takes up a note of STRUGNELL, The Sapiential Work 4Q415ff; see also HARRINGTON, Wisdom and Apocalyptic, 263. And of the wife based on Deut 13:7 and 28:54.56 for the new custom 4Q416 2 ii 21 and iii 16-19, see STRUGNELL – HARRINGTON – ELGVIN, Qumran Cave 4 XXIV, 108f, but this is controversial. See ibid., 29 and 34.

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While Ben Sira often invokes the “Fear of God”, !wyl[ / ~yhla / hwhy tary,48 the Instruction, where the use of the divine name hwhy seems taboo, invokes as a Leitmotiv “the mystery to come” or “the mystery of existence”, hyhn zr linked to the knowledge of justice and of impiety, on which the future depends, in order to motivate in this way the present conduct of man. The expression hyhn zr is found again in other Essene compositions (1QS XI 3; 1Q27 [Book of mystery] 1 i 2 and 3)49 but the word zr appears already in Sir 8:18 and 12:11. The cosmology of Ben Sira is biblical and rather traditional, his theodicy articulated in a ”system of pairs” (Sir 33:15; 42:24): God the creator is sovereign but the creation, which is good, can also chastise the wicked by its cataclysms (39:27). If the timid dualism of Ben Sira does not yet invoke an obscure and demoniac power like the Instruction of the two Spirits (1QS III 13-IV or the [Essene?] addition in Sir 15:14b [A-B]: “and he delivered him to the power of his enemy”), the dualism is more marked in 4QInstruction which insists on the divine election with all its moral consequences. God separated the wise from the spirit of flesh: “For He has separated you from every fleshy spirit, then you shall separate yourself from every thing He abominates, and hold yourself aloof from all that a person hates. For He Himself has made everyone and He will make them to inherit each his inheritance and He Himself is your portion and your inheritance among the children of mankind, and that in His inheritance He has set you in authority, then you honour Him...” (4Q418 81-81a 2-3). God will judge the acts of each one and reward or punish consequently (4Q417 1 i 6-8 [see below], iii 9; 2 i 10-11). This is the meaning of the revelation of hyhn zr to the wise man: from creation to ethics and eschatology. The Instruction of wisdom is no longer based on human experience only, the history of Israel, the Law and the creation as in Ben Sira, but also on the dualist doctrine of election. The understanding one (!ybm) must therefore always remember his inheritance and the portion of glory which God ensures him, if he is faithful to the election, he who is able to distinguish between good and evil, as recalled in 4Q423 1-2 i 7, a fragment paraphrasing Gen 2–3. He belongs to the eternal plantation, that which has received election as its inheritance, the immediately preceding word [jm designating the eschatological community as in 1QH XVI 7,11,17,21 (= VIII)50 which takes up the same image; see also 1QH XIV 18 (= VI 15); 1QS VIII 5; XI 8; CD I 7; 1QAp Gn XIV 13-14. This image is found again in 4Q418 81 12-14: “For by you] He has opened the 48 49 50

Sir 6:36; 9:16; 10:22 A-B; 16:2; 32(35):12; 40:26b-c.27; 50:29. For a fresh status quaestionis on this point, see GOFF, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, where the author proposes as a preferable translation “the mystery that is to be”. For the new numbering of Hymns, see PUECH, La croyance des Esséniens, 339-346.

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fountain for all the Holy ones, and all who are called by His name are holy. [For] during all the periods [are] the brightnesses of His splendour for the eternal plantation, [then, you, search for the fountain of His Truth like a source overflowing and co]vering the world. In it shall walk all those who will inherit the earth. For in hea[ven...”. Clearly the image of the plantation is not unknown from the Bible (Is 5:7; 60:21; 61:3) or other texts like 1 Enoch 93:5.10, etc., where it designates Judah, but 4QInstruction reduces its signification only to the elected ones of the people who are the eternal plantation, as is the case with some Essene texts.51 Only the elect of the last days are really able to distinguish good and evil, whereas in Sir 17:1-14 man, a creature of God, has the ability to do so. Thus eschatology occupies a more important place in the Instruction than in Ben Sira.

2.3 Other Essene compositions Other more or less direct points of contact can be found, at various levels, in typically Essene compositions, as for example: - The reward of the wicked whom God hates in 1QS VIII 6-7: ~lwmg ~y[Xrl b(y)Xhlw, CD VII 9/ XIX 6 and 1QM XI 13f, and 1QS I 4,10, compared to the punishment that God will impose to the wicked in Sir 12:6: ~qn byXy ~y[Xrlw ~y[r anwX la ~g yk, “For God himself detests sinners, and will repay the wicked what they deserve”. - The noisy laugh of the fool in Sir 21:20: “The fool laughs at the top of his voice” seems to be the source of 1QS VII 14: wlwq [ymXhl twlksb qxXy Xraw, “Whoever guffaws improperly, and makes his voice heard, shall be punished for thirty days”. - God as the origin of all, good and evil, life and death in Sir 11:14; 33:1415 is similar to 1QS III 15f. But whereas dualism is very developed in the Essene milieu, evil does not yet depend on the maleficent forces in Ben Sira, cf. a possible Essene addition in Sir 15:14b: “and He had delivered him to the power of his enemy”. - Even if fixed liturgical formulae existed very early, it is remarkable to note parallel formulations between the beginning of the thankgiving Hymn in Sir 51:1-2 and that in 1QH XI 20f (= III 19f):52

51

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This image associated with that of the fountain demands a certain continuity between the community of the author of 4QInstruction and that of the Teacher of Righteousness (1QHa), probably nearer than that of the author of the Apocalypse of the Weeks (1 Enoch 93). On this, see STRUGNELL – HARRINGTON – ELGVIN, Qumran Cave 4 XXIV, 511f, and STUCKENBRUCK, 4QInstruction, 250-257. See also LEHMANN, Ben Sira, 107 and 109-110.

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ynwda hkdwa20 yXpn htydp yk txXm yntyl[h21 !wdba lwaXmw

Sir 51:1-2

yba yhla $dwa1 yXpn twmm tydp yk txXm yrXb tkXx2 yXpn tlch lwaX dymw

If the attribution of authorship of this Qumranic Hymn to the Teacher of Righteousness cannot be excluded,53 then about half a century would separate it from Sir 51. Consequently, the dependence of the phraseology should not be surprising. Finally, these comparisons of vocabulary54 and the indisputable affinities of thought underline at least a proximity in space and time, roughly Palestinian Judaism of the 2nd century BC, and a probable influence of Ecclesiasticus on Qumranic writings55 which then could have involved corrections of copies of Ben Sira, without however resulting in identical positions on a number of important points.

3. Survey of some important points 3.1 The priesthood The Sages, authors of these compositions, come from a literate class, and their belonging to a priestly class cannot be excluded, whether for Ben Sira who favourably views the temple, cult and especially the Aaronic priests,56 or the authors of the Qumranic compositions generally considered as Zadokite.57 Still, Ben Sira does not mention Esdras and Levites, ignoring 53 54

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See PUECH, La croyance des Esséniens, 366. For other possible points of contact, see LEHMANN, Ben Sira, who gives a list of words or idiomatic expressions characteristic of the language of Ben Sira and of Qumran: rgs at the nif‘al, #px ynba, bybX, hawXmw hawX, xyrbw ~ytld, ~atp [tp, rare and scattered in one or the other biblical book, and chiefly xwpn rwk, jwm (hitpa‘el), !qz-XyXy, ~yt[bX, bbl ~hy, zr, rwg, txX, hwqm, ~yyx rrc, sam, hgh, dm[m and tlXmm, #q, d[wm in relation with hpwqt. See also IWRY, A New Designation, lydg in 1QS X 4 and Sir 43:5 (Ms B, lwdg Mas); HARRINGTON, Wisdom at Qumran, 146ff; CALDUCH-BENAGES, Trial Motif, 140: the image of the crucible – @rcm for the purification in Ben Sira and at Qumran, etc. An influence of the Qumranic literature on Ben Sira is chronologically out of the question. I noted above that the Instruction could be situated between Ben Sira and the beginning of Qumrano-Essenism on the basis of a strong dualistic and eschatological perspective, see HARRINGTON, Two Early Jewish Approaches. See STADELMANN, Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter; OLYAN, Ben Sira’s Relationship; WRIGHT, Fear the Lord,189-222. Concerning 4QInstruction which is not an Esseno-Qumranic composition for the editors, STRUGNELL – HARRINGTON (cf. DJD XXXIV, 20f,) underlines the Aaronic affinities of the

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even the Zadokite origin of Simon but cleaving to the sons of Aaron and to the covenant with Phinehas and his posterity (50:24 Hb). In favour of the acting priesthood and its legitimacy, Jesus Ben Sira at least belongs to this socio-religious group, while the authors of Aramaic compositions found at Qumrân, like 1 Enoch and Testament of Levi, openly blame the acting priesthood, praised by Ben Sira, as being much too compromised with the surrounding cultural milieu, and they insist on the priestly legitimacy of the Levitical class.58

3.2 Calendars Our authors diverge completely on this very fundamental point of religious pratice. The Essene Community, as we know, is unique in using a solar calendar of 364 days inherited from the tradition and attested to in particular by the Astronomical Book and the Book of Watchers of 1 Enoch and the Testament of Levi as a revealed calendar, see 1 Enoch 75:1-3; 80:2-8; 82:4-7. On the other hand, in his preamble to the Praise of the Ancestors (42:15–43:33) and in 50:6, Ben Sira underlines the preeminent roll of the moon, which gives the name to the month and determines seasons and feasts, as he deliberately discards the roll assigned to both luminaries in the priestly narrative of creation (Gen 1:14f). This, therefore, is quite clearly a central object of controversy.59

3.3 The Law and the revealed mysteries We have noted above the specificity of the practice of the Law at the core of the search for wisdom in Ben Sira, a practice taken up by 4Q525 and comprising, besides, a quotation of Ben Sira.60 In fact, Ben Sira cautions his disciple against any form of search for what is hidden or would be beyond his own powers (3:21-24), but to observe the revealed Law, to fear God, is all

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sage’s authority: scribe, teacher, administrator, judge and priest. See also FLECHTER-LOUIS, All the Glory of Adam, 179. But this point is refuted by others, see for instance TIGCHELAAR, The Addressees of 4QInstruction, 75; GOFF, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 22f. Specially sections of the Book of the Watchers, and the Astronomical Book in 1 Enoch and the Testament of Levi (for a new edition of the Aramaic text of the geniza, see PUECH, [cf. note 36]). For a convenient glance of the subject, see WRIGHT, Fear the Lord, 197-201, and OLYAN, Ben Sira’s Relationship, 279f. See WRIGHT, Fear the Lord, 204-207, and for the complexity of the subject, GLESSMER, Calendars in the Qumran Scrolls. This point common to both compositions and the citation strengthen the conclusion of a dependence of 4Q525.

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that must be sufficient to attain wisdom, because “what you have been taught already exceeds the scope of the human mind” (3:23b). The true basis of wisdom remains the practice of Law (15:1; 24:23; 32:24; 33:3). There is possibly there another reaction of the author to the revelations of mysteries of cosmos and of the eschaton to which Enoch and Levi refer in their compositions so as to discredit the practices of the acting priesthood. And to complete the list, Ben Sira explicitly condemns dreams and visions as means to reach this knowledge: these are only mirages from which it is urgent to turn away, as the Law recommends (Deut 18:10f), unless the vision be sent by the Most High (34:1-8), as was the case with the seer Isaiah who saw the end of times and revealed the hidden things (48:22-25). In his somewhat sharp remark, “dreams give wings to the fool”, Ben Sira could very well be aiming at Enoch in his heavenly journey and Elijah who also had visions at Bethel (4Q213a 1 ii 14-18). However, the Patriarch Enoch is seen as an extraordinary figure in Sir 44:16 and 49:14, based on Gen 5:24.61 On this subject, the author of 4QInstruction writes the reverse, asking his disciple to meditate continuously and to understand the mysteries concerning him, because the eternal rewards or punishments will be dependent on his acts (4Q417 1 i 6-27):62 6[And by day and by night meditate upon the mystery] of existence, and study it continually. And then you shall know truth and iniquity, wisdom 7[and foolish]ness you shall discover in [their] acts. Understand all their ways together with their visitation in all everlasting ages, and the eternal 8Visitation. And then you shall discern between good and evil according to their deeds. For the God of knowledge is the foundation of truth, and in the mystery of existence 9He has laid out all its foundation, and indeed [He di]d [it with wis]dom, and to every one[ with cun]ning He fashioned it, and the domain of its deeds 10for each, it is his reward, and the whole knowledge, all...[ ] He expounded to all his creatures according to their understanding so that they could walk 11in the inclination of their understanding. And He expounded for[...]all[...] and in abundance of understandings were made known the secrets of 12His plan, together with perfect behaviour in all His deeds. These things seek early and continually and meditate all 13their outcomes. And then you shall know about the glory of His might together with His marvelous mysteries and the might of His deeds. But you, 14O understanding one, look for

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Even if the phraseology of 44:16 (Ms B) takes again words of 44:17 (~ymt acmn) and that the verse is missing in Mas, its presence in Greek is in favour of its authenticity, as an inclusion with 49:14. For the attacks of Ben Sira against the esoteric teaching of Jewish groups and against the Greek science, see CORLEY, Wisdom Versus Apocalyptic, especially 275ff. I take back the presentation of my note published in: Apports des textes apocalyptiques, but with some changes, in particular, line 7, read: ...lwkb [!bh ~hy(X[m)]b j[b]t t[lwa], ll. 910, read: Xr[p]...l[w]k t[[d] lwkw hmlX hz l[w]kl10 ...hmr[[b] lklw hm[kxb hX][ hX[w hXwa lwk Xrp and line 14, read: ab[ yk #]qh !wrkzb instead of ab[ yk ~wl]Xh following the editors with a little too long restoration; for the meaning of #q, see 1QS III 15; IV 25; 1QH XIV 32 (= VI 29); 4Q369 1 i 6. There is manifestly there an allusion to the book of memorial which will be opened at the last judgment.

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Émile Puech your reward in the book of memorial of the en[d, for] it comes engraved {your} the destiny and ordained is all the retribution, 15for engraved is that which is ordained by God about all the iniquities of the children of Seth, and written before Him is a book of memorial 16of those who keep His word. And that is the vision of the meditation on the book of memorial. And He gave it as an inheritance to man together with a spiritual people. For 17according to the pattern of the Holy ones He fashioned him but He had not given the vision to a fleshly spirit, for he knows not the difference between 18good and evil according to the judgment of his spirit. vacat And you, O understanding child, gaze on the mystery of the existence and know 19the [path]s of every living being and the manner of his walking appointed to [his] deeds[... 20Under]stand the difference between the great and the small, and in your counsel[... 21...]your[...]in the mystery of the existence[... 22...]s of each vision know, and in all[... 23and you shall stand always firmly. Do not be contaminated with wickedness[... For every one who is contaminated] 24with it shall not be treated as guiltless. According to his inheritance in it he [shall inheritate... But you,] 25O sage child, understand the mysteries concerning you, and in..[...] 26shall be founded upon you all their[ deeds] together with the reward of[ their...] 27You shall not go astray after your heart or after your eyes[...

While wisdom in Ben Sira is based upon the observation of the organization of the creation and the obedience to the revealed Law (Sir 1:25-27: “If you desire wisdom, keep the commandments”), 4QInstruction further calls upon another facet, the mystery of existence hyhn zr, the meaning of which is to be meditated upon. The mystery is not based on revelations through a medium or an angel like in Apocalyptic literature. This wisdom surpasses the mere search which man could reach by his own power, for his parents have first opened his ears to mysteries of existence, and also because the God of fidelity is He who “from of old disposed all things and instructed the ear of the wise] 15to explain to the just the distinction between good and evil, to make known each judgment[.., for] 16he is a fleshly creature” (4Q416 1 14-16 and 2 iii 14-16 // 418 9 15-17, see also 4Q418 123 ii 3-8). Creation is presented to the elect and the learned as a mystery normally inaccessible to man63 but revealed by the God of knowledge (see also 1QS III 13 – IV), and his meditation shall give him the meaning of existence and encourage him thus “to keep His Word” (see 4Q416 2 ii 8-9: “and the statutes laid down for you do not abandon, but with your secrets take good heed of yourself”). If the word “Law” does not appear in the present state of the Instruction in a comparable way to Ben Sira, the reality is not absent concerning moral conduct in daily practice. The sage insists a lot on the meditation of “the mystery of existence” or “the mystery to come” in order to give a direction to human activity and thus to establish the observance of the commandments which God prescribed for the salvation of the elect and his eternal glory: 63

This idea is found again in 1QH V 18ff (= XIII 6ff), see PUECH, Un Hymne essénien, 67f.

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[Gaze upon the mystery of] 11existence, and comprehend the birth-times of salvation, and know who is to inherit glory and raising up.64 Is there not[ rejoicing for the contrite of spirit] 12and for those among them who mourn eternal joy? (4Q417 2 i 10-12).

In that way, the meditation of the mystery to come which is revealed only to the elect as spiritual people, encourages them in steadfastness to fulfil the Law in the midst of so many difficulties in their path towards holiness, and prepares them for the future judgment, which the foolish one, the fleshly spirit, cannot understand, he who is not expecting an afterlife. Consequently, this passage is particularly near to the spirituality of “the poor” of the Gospels Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12 and Lk 6:20-26).65

3.4 Eschatology 3.4.1 Ben Sira The most common position consists in relegating the expectation of a future life solely to the additions to the text of Ben Sira.66 However, bearing in mind that “life and death are before man”, Ben Sira insists on underlining that “the Lord is almighty and all-seeing” (15:17-18). He rewards and punishes: “Do not take pleasure in what pleases the godless; remember they will not go unpunished at death (Hb)/ here to Sheol (Gr) (9:12), and also “Bear in

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In DJD XXXIV (173ff and 182f), the editors propose to read lm[w and to understand “and toil”; GOFF, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 60, reads l[w][w and translates “and ini[qui]ty”. But the most obvious reading is l[w “and the height/elevation/raising up” (a substantive of the root hl[), as a synonymic parallel to dwbk, as further “the rejoicing for the contrite of spirit” is parallel to “the eternal joy for those who mourn”. Would it be possible to understand [Xy ydlwm as “the genitures/horoscopes of salvation” rather than “the birth-times of salvation”? See above and note 42. See SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 83: “Rewards and punishments in the afterlife were not even considered”, and 86: “The possibility of rewards and punishments in some sort of afterlife receives no mention at all in the original Hebrew Text of Ben Sira”; GILBERT, L’Ecclésiatique: quel texte?, 245: “l’attente d’une vie future apparaît seulement dans les additions”. HARRINGTON, Two Early Jewish Approaches, 269-270: “Although there is no explicit denial of life after death, neither is there much affirmation of it (see 38,2123). The most important form of immortality is the good ‘name’ – the reputation that one leaves behind (41,1-4). The closest thing to an apocalyptic scenario comes in the prayer for God’s people in 36,1-22... But even here Ben Sira’s focus seems to be on some event in the near future (the overthrow of Antiochus III or Seleucus IV?)”. And lastly BURKES, God, Self, and Dead, 87-157 (on Ben Sira and Daniel) keeps the common position. In the citations below, I translate the Hebrew when it is known and differs from Gr I in order to show that the question very much interests the author and that he answers to it in his sentences like a sage.

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mind the retribution of the last days, the time of vengeance when God averts His face” (18:24), for “Yet it is a trifle for the Lord on the day someone dies to repay him as his conduct deserves” (11:26-28 Gr). Accordingly, “in everything you do, remember your end, and you will avoid eternal corruption” (7:36 Hb). For nothing is hidden from God and “One day He will rise to reward the just and repay their deserts on their own heads” (17:15-23), but “the meeting of the lawless is like a heap of tow: they will end in a blazing fire. The sinners’ road is smoothly paved, but it ends at the pit of Sheol” (21:9-10). These quotations underline how the end of human life is important for Ben Sira who is haunted by death, on which the fate of man seems to depend. That is to say that death does not introduce an absolute nothingness. Certainly, everyone must die (7:17 Hb; 14:17; 25:24) and he cannot hope to return to life (38:21-23; 41:3-4), children only can perpetuate the name or renown of a father on earth (30:4-6). Consequently, you should do good before dying, enjoy yourself in your lot of happiness, for there are no pleasures in Sheol (14:12-16), and there the dead cannot praise the Most High (17:27-28). These few verses allow us to suppose that ultimately Sheol is not a place which is eternally the same for all. At death it at first clearly defines the final end of every living person who gives back his vital breath, but it will also be the place of punishment at the eschatological Visitation, when the whole creation shall be shaken and God will remember everyone,67 as 16:14.17-23 notes precisely (see also 2:14 and 18:24). If Ben Sira should hope for nothing after death, not even for a divine judgment, then why all his repeated exhortations to observe the commandments until death, to live as a just man and to remember his end: “Remember the last things (ta. e;scata), and stop hating, remember corruption (katafqora,n) and death, and be faithful to the commandments. Remember the commandments... the covenant of the Most High and overlook ignorance” (28:6-7, see 7:36: “In everything you do, remember your end, and you will never sin”)? Since everyone is responsible for his own fate, the transitory character of life shall indeed encourage him to make use of his goods for himself and friends, taking care of his name which shall survive. Do not be too much afflicted by the death of those who belong to you, because it is as useless for the dead as for the living. But this does not mean that everything finishes there; what is after death is God’s matter, He who commands us to live according to His commandments in the present life.68 Such is the opinion of Ben Sira on rewards and chastisements in the afterlife in the book of maxims, where he proceeds by 67 68

An image which recalls the memorandum, the book of memorial on which the names of the wicked and of the justs are inscribed, as the Instruction affirms. See KAISER, Zwischen Athen und Jerusalem, 275-292: „Das Verständnis des Todes bei Ben Sira“.

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cunning touches or allusions, in agreement with the pious and the sages of his generation. In the Praise of the Ancestors, he is not ignorant that men have been saved from death, escaping the power of Sheol: “No one else has ever been created on earth like Enoch, for he was taken up (before) the Face” (49:14),69 taking over what is said about Elijah “taken up in the whirlwind” (48:9). Elijah who roused a corpse from death (48:5), as well as his disciple Elisha who, even dead, revived a corpse (48:12-14),70 shall come back “to allay God’s wrath before the Day of hwhy to turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and to restore the tribes of Israel (48:10 Hb, see Mal 3:23-24). Elijah will continue his mission in those days, which is why Ben Sira can write: “Blessed, he who will see you before dying, for you will restore him[ to life and he will ]live again” (48:11 Hb).71 The just who will die then, shall come back to live, at least for the messianic times, as a reward for their conversion.72 The Greek recension (Gr I) is yet more explicit about the hope of rewards and punishments in the afterlife in 7:16-17b: “Do not swell the ranks of sinners, remember that the retribution will not delay. Be very humble, since the recompense for the godless is fire and worms”, and in 7:36: “In all your 69

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The reading “Enoch” is primitive with the Greek, and for the construction and meaning of the passage, the copyist’s mistake in $ynhk can be easily explained by the scribe of Ms B, in spite of MULDER, Simon the Hight Priest, 90-102, the lectio difficilior is not necessarily to be retained. A translation of ~ynp into “in person” seems to be a tautology after awh ~gw, it is better to keep the meaning of “face” with perhaps a haplography of ynpl. The Hebrew passage seems to say that Elisha filled with the spirit of Elijah performed twice as many wonders, even in death, and that his body will be recreated (resurrected) from his tomb/underground wrXb arbn wytxtmw, see PUECH, La croyance des Esséniens, 7678, as if Elisha would participate in the eschatological times in the company of the just. The Greek reads: “and having fallen asleep, his body prophesied”. This reading is not necessarily the primitive one. In that case Elisha would only be compared to Samuel who, alive or dead, prophesied, but did not give back life to anybody (46:20). The wish that the bones of judges and of the twelve prophets flourish again (46:12 and 49:10) can very well be understood in this way, as a hope of the resurrection at the Visitation, compare 4QPseudo-Ezéchiel, see La croyance des Esséniens, 73f. For this opinion, see also SARACINO, Resurrezione. See PUECH, La croyance des Esséniens, 74-76 where I sum up a previous note explaining the priority of the Hebrew text which is at the origin of the Greek, Syriac and Latin recensions: h[yxyw ~yyx] !tt yk tmw $ar (y)rXa. This reading is also retained by MINISSALE, La versione greca, 225. The exegesis of KEARNS, The Expanded Text, 183f, which limits the eternal life to Elijah only in reading hyxt hwyx yk $(y)rXaw in order to stay to the habitual concept, is palaeographically not acceptable. It is difficult to follow Di Lella (SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 86), declaring that clear allusions to the retribution in the afterlife do appear only with the translation of Gr I in Alexandria after the publication of Dan 12:1-3. The text of Hb I, at the origin of Gr I, which I have presented, is earlier and probably primitive. But Ben Sira does not say clearly how God will reward the just in the eschaton.

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words, remember your end, and you will never sin”. Moreover, it extends the hope in the resurrection to all the just in 48:11: “Blessed those who have seen you and who have fallen asleep/have been honored in love, for we too shall certainly have life”.73 Consequently, Ben Sira waits for a judgment at the eschatological Visitation with rewards and chastisements (Sheol then changing meaning to fire and eternal corruption), which he does not explicitly state, and a resurrection for the just is not denied in Hb I, for then God will remember and reward a good way of life. 3.4.2 The Instruction The fear of the divine Visitation already present in Ben Sira is certainly found yet again in 4QInstruction with an eschatological perspective marked out from the first column by a judgment scene from which nothing can escape. The sage’s recommendations and the insistent reminder of study and meditation of the mystery to come in order to orient his life, still keeps the fate of the human condition in its view, the chastisements of the foolish and the rewards of the faifthful elect, who have been informed of the consequences of the universal judgment, the object of the divine plan, 4Q416 1 10-16 // 4Q418 2 2-9:74 Then] 10in Heaven He shall judge the work of wickedness, and all His faithful children will find favour be[fore Him, and wickedness will be coming to] 11its end. And they will be frightened and shaken all who defiled themselves in it, for the heavens shall fear, [earth shall shake from its place,] 12the seas and the depths shall fear. And every fleshly spirit will be destroyed, but the sons of heaven sha[ll rejoice and be glad in the day of] 13his judgment, and all iniquity shall come to an end, whereas the epoch of truth will be perfected forever, and [the spiritual people will sing] praising 14in all periods of eternity. For He is a God of fidelity. From of old, from years of [eternity He has ordered all things and He has opened the sage’s ear 15to explain to the just how to distinguish between good and evil, to make [known] each judg[ment..., for] 16he is a creature of flesh, and [his] understandings[...

(see also 4Q418 123 ii 3-8). The name of the just with all his deeds is written in a memorial book, as well as that of the wicked, but the latter is inscribed among the sons of the Pit (see above 4Q417 1 i 6-19 and //). Another passage of the Instruction sums up well the point of view of the sage on this subject, 4Q418 69 ii:75 73 74

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Explicited further in Gr II: 2:9c; 16:22c; 19:19, Syriac: 1:12b.20+; 3:1b; 48:11b and Vetus Latina: 18:22b; 21:10b; 24:22b+; 27:8+. I give my readings with some restorations of lacunae in italic: read l. 10: [d[ h[Xr artw ynp]l, line 11: [#ra hmwqmm X[r]t wary, lines 12-13: hjp[Xm13 ~wyb wxmXyw wl]g[y ~]ymXh (with 4Q418 212 1-2), line 13: [xwr ~[ ryXy h]lhtw ~lw[[l t]mah (with the support of 4Q418 2), line 14: l[ykXm !za hlgw lwkh !ykh ~lw[] ynX. DJD XXXIV, 281. For the restoration of the text with the adjoining fragment 60 at lines 4-

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And now, O you foolish-minded ones, what is good to one who has not been

5created? And what is tranquillity to one who is not come into existence? And what is a

decree to one who has not been established? And what lament shall the dead make over all their [days]? 6You, you were fashioned for Sheol, and to the everlasting Pit shall your return be, when it shall awaken and [expo]se your sin. [And the inhabitants of] 7its cavern shall cry out against your pleading, and all who shall endure forever, who search for the truth, shall rouse themselves to judge you. [And then] 8will all the foolish-minded ones be destroyed, and the children of iniquity shall not be found anymore, and all who hold fast to wickedness shall be shameful/ wither away. [And then] 9at the passing of judgment upon you, the foundations of the firmament will cry out, and all the celestial hosts will thunder forth to separate those who love [righteousness.] 10(vacat) But You, the truly chosen ones, who pursue [understanding and] who seek eagerly for [wisdom, and] who keep vigil 11over all knowledge, how can you say: We are tired of understanding, and we have been vigilant in pursuing knowledge a[lways] and everywhere? 12But nobody becomes weary for all the years of eternity! Does he not take delight in truth forever? And does not knowledge [forever] serve us? And the sons of 13heaven, whose lot is eternal life, will they truly say: “We are tired of doing the works of truth, and we have grown weary 14at all times? Will they not walk in the everlasting light [all in garments of] glory and abundance of splendour with those [who stand] 15in the firmament of [holiness and in] the council of the divine ones, all [the days of eternity? va]cat.”

This passage of the Instruction promises the faithful elect, as rewards, the rising of the dead or resurrection to everlasting life in glory in the company of the angels, but to the foolish ones or wicked, as chastisements, the annihilation in the Pit of everlasting destruction, at the judgment when their sins will be revealed. The eschatological concept is the same as that of Isa 26 and Dan 12 (Hebrew); the just alone will rise for the everlasting life understood as a return to the original condition of man created by God to His image and living before Him, whereas the wicked is fashioned for the everlasting chastisements in Sheol. In 4Q418 69 ii 7 like in 1QH XIV 32, the image is that of “awakening” wrw[y like in Dan 12:2 wcyqy parallel to that of “to rise 5, see PUECH, La croyance à la resurrection des justes, with some corrections in ID., Apports des textes apocalyptiques. I do another correction of line 6, reading hmkajx[b har]tw instead of [l[ twl]lgl, but the meaning is the similar. GOFF, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 173, understands “it will awaken [to condemn] you[r] sin”, this restoration is improbable for the remains of letters and for the meaning, because the Pit does not condemn but is to receive and give back what had been entrusted to it, and also the translation of line 7 [173 and 177]: “all who exist forever, those who seek truth, will rouse themselves for yo[ur] judgment” as refering to angels, the same in DJD XXXIV, 286f). At lines 8-9, would it be more difficult to understand w]Xby “shall be shameful” as a defective orthography in this manuscript (see al, l. 12) preferable to “shall wither away” parallel to “will be destroyed”, and then w[wry “shall be shaken” (see already 4Q416 1 11) preferable to w[yry “shall cry out” parallel to “will thunder forth”?, as proposed by CAQUOT, Les textes de sagesse, 21. TIGCHELAAR, Increase Learning, 210f, keeps the reading “be ashamed” because of a parallel with Isa 41:11-12. PUECH, Les fragments eschatologiques, 99 and 102, prefers now “se desséche[ront”, see also now, PUECH, Apports, 90.

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again” or “to stand up” ~wqy in Isa 26:19 or Wis 5:1,76 to evoke the fate of the just at the divine Visitation, a motif found many times in other Qumranic texts. The whole creation is included in this divine judgment: heaven, the abyss, and Sheol now described as a place of punishment of the foolish-minded, who will stay in the Sheol-Pit when it will awaken, while the faithful will revive to participate in their judgment. Then their pleading will be useless and their fate is fixed for ever. Accordingly Sheol changes meaning when it will awake for the judgment: from a place of a common abode for all after death, it is transformed into a place of everlasting chastisement for some, while the others receive their reward.77 The meditation of “the mystery to come” had already taught them: “Gaze upon the mystery] 11that is to come, and comprehend the birth-times of salvation, and know who is to inherit glory and raising up.78 Has not [rejoicing been appointed for the contrite of spirit] 12and eternal joy for those among them who mourn?” (4Q417 2 i 1012). It taught them how “to know truth and iniquity, wisdom 7[and foolish]ness, and to recognize every act in all their ways, together with their punishments in all ages everlasting and the eternal 8Visitation” (4Q417 1 i 6-8). To accede to glory and raising up, the just resurrect, awakening at the final judgment,79 and look on the judgment of the foolish who will be anni76

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I treated the eschatology of Wisdom in: The Book of Wisdom and the Dead Sea Scrolls, or an updated version in: La conception de la vie future dans le livre de la Sagesse. For the study of Daniel 12, see particularly ALFRINK, L’idée de résurrection , or PUECH, La croyance à la resurrection des justes, 79-85. COLLINS, The Mysteries of God, holds to the soul’s immortality in Wisdom; but an immortality without any kind of pre-existence as in Greek thought, but which is directly linked to the reward of a just way of life, is no longer Greek; furthermore, if immortality enters God’s eternal plan for all mankind, it is before the first fall when Adam was not a mere soul! The proximity of concept with the apocalypses of Daniel 12 and 1 Enoch supports the concept of a personal resurrection in glory in the angels’ company. And all those who will endure forever, those who investigate the truth cannot be the angels who are already living in eternal glory and do not have to search neither to keep vigil and become weary, pace Collins who does not understand there the scene of the last Judgment with the theophany and the shaking of the creation, preferring the entering of the soul into glory at death, as he understands it also in Wisdom. GOFF, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 197-204, assesses that this passage does not descibe Sheol as a place of punishment for the foolish-minded: but then why do these intercede at the judgment? Why would they seek to go out of it, since they are now prisoners in it, whereas the others rouse (and consequently escape) from there? If the PitSheol is to be avoided, it is because it will be a place of punishment. See note 64. In 4Q418 69 ii 7, tma yXrwd ~lw[ hyhn lwk opposed to foolish-minded can only describe the just, not the angels, contrary to the opinion of GOFF, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 177f (with bibliography), following Tigchelaar and Collins in particular. How could angels awake at the judgment, beings who do not tire themselves but are always servants in the divine council as these lines remind us. Their sleep would mean that they can become tired, but then how can they be said to be a model to imitate? They possess already eternal life as an inheritance and they already walk in the everlasting light. Like all the cre-

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hilated and will disappear in the Pit where their return is fixed forever, as the text specifies, the Pit which becomes a place of imprisonment from where they shall not escape; then iniquity will be no more (see also 4Q418 126 ii 6-9).80 The reward of the just is glory and raising up in the firmament of holiness in the angels’ company for ever in the everlasting light. That life in the company of the angels is initiated by the just at the resurrection at the last judgment, but not so early as the death of each one.81 This passage is very near to Dan 12:1-3 and 13, where the sages (~ylykXm) will awaken and shine. But if the just can awaken, it is because he benefits also from divine forgiveness at the judgment: “For before His [anger] 16none will stand, and who will be declared righteous when He gives judgment? And without forgiveness how can [any] poor man [stand before Him?]” (4Q417 2 i 15-16). This is an implicit statement that, while waiting for the judgment, Sheol is common to all as a place of the sojourn of (the spirits of) the dead as in 1 Enoch, and that there is no praise of God in Sheol before it awaken (#yqt yk, line 6). But it already has this meaning in Sir 17:27-28. Finally, no more than the other Essene manuscripts, 4QInstruction no longer knows a realized eschatology.82 Since the just aims at the future life and at eternal glory in the company of the angels as the promised inheritance,83 and since he faithfully observes the Word in this life, this proves

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ation, they assist the judgment giving voice to divide the just (l. 9). TIGCHELAAR, Increase Learning, 211-13, excludes categorically all idea of resurrection, and understands: “and all who exist for ever, who seek the truth, will arise to judge you”. “]6judgment to repay vengeance to the workers of iniquity, and a visitation of re[tribution...] 7and to imprison the wicked but to raise up the head of the poor, [...] 8in glory everlasting and peace eternal and the spirit of life to separate[...among] 9all the children of Eve”. As GOFF asserts, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 206-215 and passim. For the author, the just participates spiritually in the world of angels at death, death which concerns only his body of flesh, his spirit continuing to live in a form of astral immortality without having to wait for the theophany “at the time of wrath” to get his reward. Whereas for the foolish-minded whose body also disappears, his fleshly spirit goes down into Sheol at death. But then why would the sage recall the fear of the judgment? and what to do with the last and universal judgment to which all the creation must participate, even the awakening of the Pit with the rise of the just, but not of the angels? The text does not give material for these extrapolations. Thus ELGVIN, Early Essene Eschatology, 144, partially accepted by GOFF, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, and mostly COLLINS,Apocalypticism, 120 and 143-147, or HARRINGTON, Two Early Jewish Approaches, 272: “Indeed, the righteous already participate in the glorious existence of the angels”. See 4Q418 81 1-5: “...Because by the utterance of] 1your lips He has opened a fountain to bless the holy ones, you, as an everlasting fountain, praise [His] n[ame. Because ]He has separated you from every 2fleshly spirit, you, you have to separate yourself from everything that He hates, and hold yourself aloof from that which a soul abominates. Because, He, He has made everyone, 3and that He has made them to inherit each his own inheritance and that, He, He is your portion and your inheritance among the children of men,

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that he is not yet living among the divine council, while the sage admonishes him to persevere and not to tire himself for the reward “in all the years of eternity”. In fact, if the just shared in it already even somewhat, he would not have any reason to be discouraged, nor would he find an encouragement in the way he has to follow, since he would already possess partially what shall be eternal and he would be certain to enjoy its full possession without waiting for forgiveness at the judgment. But this is manifestly not the case: the just feels his way in faith hoping that the meditation of the mystery will be fulfilled for him if he succeeds in complying with the sage’s exhortation. This conception of eschatology coincides again perfectly with what is found in 4Q521, Hymns, the Rule (Instruction on Two Spirits), and other Essene texts which I have presented at length elsewhere,84 a concept known already by Ben Sira’s contemporary, 1 Enoch 92:3-5: “3The just will rise from his sleep [...] 4God will forgive the just, He will give him eternal justice [...] and they will walk in the eternal light. 5But sin will disappear forever in the

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and that in His inheritance He has set you, then you, 4because of that, honour Him by consecrating yourself to Him, because He has appointed you as a holy of holies over all the earth, and that among the [a]n[gels] 5He has cast your lot, He has greatly magnified your glory and He has appointed you for Himself, a first-born among[ the children of Israe]l. [ Because He has said: “I will bless you] 6and my bounty I will give you”, then you, do His good things not belong to you? Likewise in His faithfulness walk continually.[ Because He, He knows all] 7your works, then you, look for His judgments from everyone who blames you in each re[buke. Because He acts with bounty over all ] 8who love Him and with {eternal} loving-kindness and with mercy for all those who keep His Word but (that) His zeal[ is for all who hate Him,] 9but as for you, the insight He has opened and He has established you over His treasure, and a true measure has been entrusted upon you,[ because judgment and righteousness] 10are with you and at your disposal to turn away anger from the men of (His) good pleasure and to punish[ the wicked. Because His favour is always] 11with you, before receiving your inheritance from His hand, glorify His Holy ones, and be[fore finishing it, (you,) bless Him/His name(?). Because] 12He has opened the fountain for all the Holy ones and (that) every one who is called by His name [is] holy[, you, make yourself holy(?). Because] 13the ornaments of His beauty are for all periods for an ever[lasting] plantation, [you then look for the fountain of His learning, such as a spring overflowing] 14and co]vering the world; in it shall walk all those who are to inherit the earth, for in hea[ven a book of memorial is inscribed before Him(?)...”. For the readings, see also now PUECH, Les fragments eschatologiques. The passage indicates what is the glorious inheritance which God has prepared for the elect and the just, in the company of the angels, if he is faithful and accomplishes his duty, but it does not say that the just possesses it already now, since, even being set aside, he shall ratify this choice and live accordingly, separating himself from every evil. This is a strong reasoning in order to admonish to faithfulness, as in 4Q418 69 ii 10-15. See PUECH, La croyance des Esséniens, volume II, or Apports. There is no difference between these concepts of punishments and rewards in the afterlife, merely expositions more or less developed and precise, even if most of the texts are fragmentary, contrary to GOFF, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 213 for example.

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darkness, and it will not be seen anymore, from that day and forever”. All these expression are found in 4QInstruction (particularly 418 69 ii and 417 2 i 15-16), or 1 Enoch 102-104, where all souls go down to Sheol, but the last Judgment will select everlasting chastisements for some and rewards for others according to what will be found written in the memorial books.85

3.5 Messianism In the eschatological perspective, the Jewish hope waits for the coming of messianic times around the central figures of a king and a priest, as some texts say more precisely. 3.5.1 The priestly covenant and the Davidic covenant In the eulogy of the glory of God in the world (Sir 42:15–43:33) and in history (Sir 44-49), the chronological order is generally followed from Enoch to Nehemiah (Sir 44:16 to 49:13) but it comes back to Enoch, Joseph, Sem, Seth and Adam in 49:14-16 as an inclusion of this vast fresco, finishing with the High Priest Simon, son of Onias, his contemporary (Sir 50:1ff). Yet, the chronology is somewhat disturbed in 45:23-26: running from the priest Aaron to Phinehas, then to David and again to Phinehas and coming back then to the historical ordering with Joshua in 46:1. Ben Sira wants in this way to link the covenant with David dywd ~[ wtyrb and his sons through direct succession to the priestly covenant ~wlX tyrb with Aaron-Phinehas and their lineage,86 while these notions are specified, but specified separately and in their expected place in 45:7 ~lw[ qx for Aaron and in 47:11 wnrq, tklmm qx for David. Several biblical passages have already brought together the covenant of kingship and the covenant of priesthood: Jer 33:17-22 and Zech 6:9-14; compare also 1 Chr 17:14 and 2 Sam 7:16; 1 Chr 29:22 and 1 Kgs 1:39 where the perpetuity of both covenants or institutions is secured in the future. This 85

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The “Enoch Epistle” of 1 Enoch is identified among the Aramaic and Greek fragments, see MILIK, The Books of Enoch, and PUECH, Sept fragments grecs. TIGCHELAAR, Increase Learning, 208-224 and 247f, estimates that the Instruction is older than the “Enoch Epistle” and that the dependence of the last one is not proven: are they two independent works? According to ELGVIN, The Mystery to Come, 116f, 138, 146, the Instruction should be dependent from the Enoch Epistle. COLLINS, Jewish Wisdom, 115-131, sees there an influence of the Apocalyptic on the writings of wisdom, whereas KNIBB, The Book of Enoch, thinks that the authors of 1 Enoch, 4QMysteries and 4QInstruction are very close to each other. The Hebrew text of 45:26c is corrupt but it is possible to recognize in it the original at the basis of the Greek: wdbl wnbl $lmh tlxn changed into wdwbk ynpl Xa tlxn, see klhronomi,a basile,wj ui`ou/ evx ui`ou/ monou/.

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Pre-Maccabean hope87 prepared the double-headed messianic hope of Jubilees 31 and of the subsequent Qumranic texts.88 If the Greek never makes messianic thoughts explicit, kingship having disappeared, on the other hand the Hebrew Psalm inserted after 51:12 testifies to it,89 vv. 12h-j: Praised be he who rebuilds his city and his sanctuary, for His love endures forever. Praised be he who grows a horn to David’s house, for His love endures forever. j Praised be he who chose the sons of Zadok as priests, for His love endures forever. h i

Even if the Psalm which insists on the Zadokite election seems to be an Essenian addition,90 it is inserted itself logically in the sequence of the Ancestors’ eulogy. In the praise of Aaron, with Phinehas and Simon being considered as Aaronic, Ben Sira holds priesthood in high esteem, without however leaving totally aside the covenant with David and his lineage (Sir 45:25; 47:11.12). Thus he writes in 50:24 (Hb): May His mercy be faithfully with Simon and may it keep for him the covenant with Phinehas, so that it will not be broken for him nor for his lineage as long as last the days of heaven.91

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Contrary to COLLINS, The Scepter and the Star, 31-41. For a status quaestionis, see PUECH, Messianisme, eschatologie et résurrection, 265-286, but without the analysis of these passages of Ben Sira, and KNIBB, Eschatology and Messianism. The authenticity and the origin of this psalm modeled on Ps 136 are debated. The Psalm is known only in Hebrew (Ms B). It could be an Essene addition in a copy of the scroll, see DI LELLA, The Hebrew Text, 101-105; ID., Qumrân and the Genizah Fragments of Ben Sira, 263-265, who shows that the Davidic messianism prevailed in the time of Ben Sira, Sir 49:11 taking up Ha 2:23; 45:25 and 47:11.22. See DI LELLA, Qumrân and the Genizah Fragments of Ben Sira; TRINQUET, Les liens ‘sadocites’, 290: “Authentique ou inauthentique, ce psaume par sa présence dans les fragments hébreux de l’Ecclésiastique paraît indiquer qu’au moins ceux-ci furent entre les mains des ‘fils de Sadoq’”. This does not demand a composition prior to 171/0 BC (murder of Onias III), but at the earliest of the last third of that century, see the following note. Is this passage written during the life of Simon (in the past in 50:1-5) or of his offspring (Onias III?) or of his son, Simon III who became High Priest from 159 to 152, probably to be identified with the Teacher of Righteousness (see PUECH, Le grand prêtre), or later? Since this passage would not have a basis after the expulsion of the Zadokites, it is easier to explain that the translator into Greek has reworked it, see SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 569. DI LELLA, Qumrân and the Genizah Fragments of Ben Sira, 265266, did a similar analysis and supposed that, if Ben Sira has not composed this Psalm (adopted position), on the other hand the stich j (and even the whole Psalm) could have been composed by a Qumranite who could have inserted it in the Psalm. This should confirm the Qumranic origin of scrolls copied by Qaraites.

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The Hebrew Psalm has a directly messianic colouration, whereas the others passages of the book hold to the two covenants. But are they so distant from each other? The accent on priesthood is the predominant accent, as was the case during the author’s life, without forgetting the covenant of kingship.92 Was there not a pierre d’attente of first order for the reception of the book among the Essenes who, once in the opposition camp after the loss of the High Priesthood, could only wait for the coming of the two messiahs? 3.5.2 Elijah In fact, the Essene Community waited for the coming of two messiahs, the messiah of Aaron who had precedence and the Messiah of Israel whom the prophet might accompany (1QS IX 10-11 and 4Q175).93 Qumranic texts, 4Q521 2 iii and 4Q558 51 4 in particular, both referring to Mal 3:23-24, explicitly report Elijah’s return. But the figure of Elijah redivivus, the eschatological prophet, is similarly present in Sir 48:11 (Hb I – Gr I) prior to the additions of Gr II.94 After the praise of the historical prophet comes the mention of the figure of the eschatological prophet who, after his ascent into heaven, must return before the day of Judgment to allay God’s wrath, to exhort to conversion and to restore the tribes of Israel (48:9-10). This passage states that those who will be present at the return of Elijah and should die after having obeyed the preaching of the prophet, will rise for their reward at the day of judgment and of restoration (see above). Thus in the Praise of the Ancestors where his personal sensibility expresses itself more than in the maxims of traditional wisdom, Ben Sira recalls the perpetuity of both priestly and kingly covenants and the preparation of the day of hwhy with the coming of the prophet, as a way towards a twofold messianism, and the belief in the resurrection of the just which both will be taken up by both Essenes and Pharisees.95 92

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PRIEST, Ben Sira 45,25 in the Light, 118: Ben Sira is nether a Qumranite nor a proto-Qumranite, but a predecessor or pioneer who knew the Hasîdîm milieu. The reminder of two covenants would certainly prepare the way to messianism in the following generations, therefore the negative answer of CAQUOT, Ben Sira et le messianisme, seems too clear cut. See PUECH, Messianisme, eschatologie et résurrection, 282-286, without adopting the argument of POIRIER, The Endtime Return: the attribution of the eschatological priesterhood to Elijah by association with Phinehas is certainly late. Until there is more information, there is no indisputable remnant in the Qumranic writings. The Aramaic composition 4Q558 is certainly pre-Qumranic; it can be more or less contemporary to the book of Ben Sira, whereas 4Q521 might be dated in the second half of the 2nd century. These conceptions are not especially opposed to Pharisaic thought on eschatology and messianism, as GILBERT seems to say, Siracide, 1415. But they prepare the developments in the Pharisaic milieu which is a little later.

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4. Additions of essene origin? As a book read and copied at Qumran, as different discoveries of Hebrew manuscripts show (2Q18, 11QPsa, Mas and the copies of the geniza), it should not be surprising that here and there additions have been inserted. If here is not the place to study all the additions,96 it is at least useful to note the remarks already made on this subject. Some hold the Greek additions as a Pharisaic recension,97 others ascribe them to the school of Aristobulos.98 It has even been proposed that the additions of both stichs of 16:15-16, known in the Greek manuscripts 248 and 106, in the Peshitta and Ms A of Cairo but missing in Latin, comes from the Essene milieu.99 15

God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he did not know Him while His deeds reveal Himself under Heaven. 16 His love shall been made manifest to all creation (Gr)/ His creatures (Syr-Hb) His light and His darkness He shared between the children of Adam/men.

As an explanation of 16:4: “To every man who does righteousness there is reward, and everyone is treated as he deserves”, the addition quotes the example of Pharaoh who did not know the God whose deeds are manifest (Exod 5:2; 7:3), changing the relative proposition into a final one (Greek and Syr, Ms A not precise): “so that he did not know Him”. If 16:15 extends the demonstrative historical part of 16:6-11b, verse 16 takes up again the idea of retribution of 16:11c-14: the pair light-darkness corresponds to the pair mercy-forgiveness and wrath-reproof. The obduracy of Pharaoh’s heart introduces a deterministic note (the copyist of Ms A has changed wkXxw into wxbXw by metathesis), to be compared to the teaching of the Instruction on the Two Spirits in 1QS III 13 – IV 26: He (God) created man for the dominion of 18the world, and He designed for him two spirits in which to walk until the appointed time for His Visitation, namely the spirit of 19truth and of deceit. In a spring of light (walk) the generations of faithful but in a well of darkness the generations of deceit (III 17-19). And He alloted them to the sons of man for the knowledge of good and evil, thus God assigned the lots for every living being according to his spirit for the time of the Visitation (IV 26).

The addition of Sir 16:16 inscribes itself fully in this line of thought, as did 15:14b (Hb) and 4Q418 81 already (see note 83). In the same vein are the antitheses which lengthen 11:4: “Good and 96 97 98 99

See KEARNS, The Expanded Text, note 71. See HART, Ecclesiasticus, 272-320. SCHLATTER, Das neu gefundene, and PRATO, La lumière interprète, 341ff. PHILONENKO, Sur une proposition essénisante.

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bad, life and death, poverty and wealth come from hwhy” in the addition 11:15-16:100 (Ms A) 15 Wisdom, learning and knowledge of the word come from Yhwh, (sin corruption for) love and path of uprightness come from Yhwh, (Gr/Syr/Lat) 15 Wisdom, learning and knowledge of the word come from Yhwh, love and paths of good deeds come from Yhwh. 16 Madness (Ms A)/ error and darkness are created for the sinners, those who delight in evil grow old in evil.

These dualistic developments, present together in Ms A of Cairo and in the additions of the versions, could apparently come only from an Essene milieu which hold this book in great esteem. But the question is more disputable for the additions of the 12 stichs (a to l) after 1:20 in Syriac instead of verses 1:21-27. If the passage is missing in Gr I, it could have been inserted in another copy by a sage101 familiar with 4Q521, for instance, or with similar compositions at an early date prior to the translation into Syriac, without the Syrian translator having himself enriched the text or introduced new expectations.102 Indeed,”the wreath and everlasting rewards among the angels (c), the rejoicing of angels of God in him (e), the inheritance of life, eternal inheritance and great joy (h), be inscribed in the book of life (i)” are eschatological themes already well known in the 2nd century with Daniel, the Instruction, 4QPseudo-Ezechiel and other Qumranic texts. However, it is difficult to prove an Essene origin of this addition which is known only in the Syriac tradition without any Hebrew witness.103 In conclusion, the book of Jesus Ben Sira, of which several Hebrew copies were found to come more or less directly from Qumran, strongly influenced 100 See PRATO, La lumière interprète, 353f. 101 Following KEARNS, The Expanded Text, 190-201; LEGRAND, Siracide(syriaque), 123-134, collected a number of parallels taken from Jewish apocryphal texts and Qumranic manuscripts which are not all Essene compositions. Some are pre-Qumranic, and the Apocrypha prove nothing. 102 See CALDUCH-BENAGES, Traducir – Interpretar. The author translates atwkz (c) by “une victoire”, but it is better to translate it as in Aramaic “le mérite, la récompense”, see for example 4Q542 1 ii 13. In (e), the translation is “les anges de Dieu se réjouiront/ssent en lui” not “en elle” as the author translates (p. 337 and note 63), see 1 Enoch 104:1-5 for example: the rejoicing of angels envisages man who performs Wisdom and Law of God and who will be judged as deserving eternal life in their company, not Wisdom. This concept is already in 4QInstruction and is well attested elsewhere at Qumran. 103 Contrary to LEGRAND, Siracide(syriaque), 123f and 133. To do that, it must be proven that the translator had access to an Essene copy of the book or that these themes and images are exclusively Essene, which is clearly not the case. KEARNS, The Expanded Text, attributed the additions to the influences of Wisdom and to the Essene milieu but the argumentation could be much disputed.

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the Essenes and left traces in their own compositions, specially in the wisdom writings, as well as on other writings found in that same library. Many points of contact, parallels or oppositions have been pointed out, in particular concerning the Aaronic or Zadokite priesthood, the lunar or solar calendars, the central importance of Law or the meditations on mysteries in compositions of the 2nd century, and their respective points of view upon two very fundamental topics in the Judaism of that period – the messianic and eschatological hopes – have been presented. In spite of rather varied literary genres, the points of view are less distant than is often believed, as they both differently reflect the evolution of ideas and beliefs in different milieux of sages in the 2nd century, be it before Qumran or a Qumranic one. Copied and recopied, revisions of Ben Sira became unavoidable in the Essene milieu and later on in the versions of Christian communities who received this book without difficulty.

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PUECH, É., 4Q525 et les péricopes des Béatitudes en Ben Sira et Matthieu: RB 98 (1991), 80-106. PUECH, É.,La croyance à la resurrection des justes dans un texte qumranien de Sagesse: 4Q418 69 ii, in: COHEN, CH. – HURVITZ, A. – PAUL, SH. M. (eds.), Sefer Moshe. The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume. Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism, Winona Lake 2004, 427-444. PUECH, É., Les fragments eschatologiques de 4QInstruction (4Q416 i et 4Q418 69 ii, 81-81a, 127): RdQ 85 (2005), 89-119. PUECH, É., Apports des manuscrits de Qumrân à la croyance à la résurection dans le Judaïsme ancien, in: LEMAIRE, A.– MIMOUNI, S. (eds.), Qoumrân et le judaïsme du tournant de notre ère. Actes de la Table Ronde, Collège de France, 16 novembre 2004, Paris – Louvain 2006, 81-110. PUECH, É.,The Book of Wisdom and the Dead Sea Scrolls: an overview, in: PASSARO, A. – BELLIA, G. (eds.), The Book of Wisdom in Modern Research. Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology (DCLY 2005), Berlin – New York 2005, 117-141 (it. Il Libro della Sapienza e i manoscritti del Mar Morto, in: BELLIA, G. – PASSARO, A. [eds.], Il Libro della Sapienza. Tradizione, redazione, teologia [Studia Biblica 1], Roma 2004, 131-155). PUECH, É., La conception de la vie future dans le livre de la Sagesse et les manuscrits de la mer Morte: un aperçu: RdQ 82 (2003), 209-232. PUECH, É., Messianisme, eschatologie et résurrection dans les manuscrits de la mer Morte: RdQ XVIII (1997), 255-298. PUECH, É., Sept fragments grecs de la Lettre d’Hénoch (1 Hén 100, 103 et 105) dans la grotte 7 de Qumrân (= 7QHéngr): RdQ XVIII (1997), 313-323. PUECH, É., Le grand prêtre Simon (III), fils d’Onias (III), le Maître de Justice?, in: KOLLMANN, B. – REINBOLD, W. – STEUDEL, A. (eds.), Antikes Judentum und frühes Christentum. Festschrift für H. Stegemann zum 65. Geburtsag (BZNW 97) Berlin 1998, 137-158. PUECH, É. – STEUDEL, A., Un nouveau fragment du manuscrit 4QInst (XQ7 = 4Q417 ou 4Q418): RdQ XIX (2000), 623-627. RABINOWITZ, I., The Qumran Hebrew Original of Ben Sira’s Concluding Acrostic on Wisdom: HUCA 42 (1971), 173-184. SANDERS, J. A., The Sirach 51 Acrostic, in: CAQUOT, A. – PHILONENKO, M. (eds.), Hommages à André Dupont-Sommer, Paris 1971, 429-438. SANDERS, J. A., The Psalms Scroll of Qumrân Cave 11 (11QPsa) (DJD IV), Oxford 1965. SARACINO, F. , Resurrezione in Ben Sira?: Henoch 4 (1982), 185-203. SCHECHTER, S., The Quotations from Ecclesiasticus in Rabbinic Literature: JQR 3 (1891), 682-706. SCHLATTER, A., Das neu gefundene hebräische Stück des Sirach. Der Glossar des grieschischen Sirach und seine Stellung in der Geschichte der Jüdischen Theologie (BFChTh 1, 5-6), Gütersloh 1897. SEGAL, M. H., Ben Sira in Qumran: Tarbiz 33 (1963-64), 243-246. SKEHAN, P. W., The Acrostic Poem in Sirach 51:13-30: HTR 64 (1971), 387-400. SKEHAN, P. W., Sirach 40,11-17: CBQ 30 (1968), 570-572. SKEHAN, P. W., Sirach 30,12 and Related Texts: CBQ 36 (1974), 535-542. SKEHAN, P. W., Qumrân. IV. Littérature de Qumrân – A. Textes bibliques, in: DBS IX, 805-903.

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SKEHAN, P. W. – DI LELLA, A. A., The Wisdom of Ben Sira. A New Translation with Notes, Introduction, and Commentary (AncB 39), New York 1987. SKEHAN, P. W. – ULRICH, E., Qumran Cave 4 XI. Psalms to Chronicles (DJD XVI), Oxford 2000. STADELMANN, H., Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter: Eine Untersuchung zum Berufsbild des vor-makkabäischen Sofer unter Berücksichtigung seines Verhältnisses zu Priester-, Propheten- und Weisheitslehrertum (WUNT 2/6), Tübingen 1981. STONE, M. – GREENFIELD, J. C. , Aramaic Levi Document (DJD XXII), Oxford 1998, 172. STRUGNELL, J., Notes and Queries on the Ben Sira Scroll from Masada: ErIs 9 (1969), 109-119. STRUGNELL, J. – HARRINGTON, D. J. – ELGVIN, T., Qumran Cave 4 XXIV, Sapiential Texts, Part 2 (DJD XXXIV), Oxford 1999. STRUGNELL, J., The Sapiential Work 4Q415ff and Pre-Qumranic Works from Qumran: Lexical Considerations, in: PARRY, D. W. – ULRICH, E. (eds.), The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues (STDJ XXX), Leiden 1999, 595-608. STUCKENBRUCK, L., 4QInstruction and the Possible Influence of Early Enochic Traditions: An Evaluation, in: HEMPEL, C. – LANGE, A. – LICHTENBERGER, H. (eds.), The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought, 245261. TIGCHELAAR, E. J.-C., Increase Learning for the Understanding Ones. Reading and Reconstructing the Fragmentary Early Jewish Sapiential Text 4QInstruction (STDJ XLIV), Leiden – Boston – Köln 2001. TIGCHELAAR, E. J.-C., «There are the Names of the Spirits of...»: a Preliminary Edition of 4QCatalogue of Spirits (4Q230) and New Manuscript Evidence For the Two Spirits Treatise (4Q257 and 1Q29a): RdQ 84 (2004), 529-547. TIGCHELAAR, E. J.-C., More on 4Q264A (4QHalakha or 4QWays of Righteousnessc)?: RdQ 75 (2000), 453-456. TIGCHELAAR, E. J.-C., The Addressees of 4QInstruction, in: FALK, D. – GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ, F. – SCHULLER, E. (eds.), Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumram: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Oslo 1998 (STDJ 35), Leiden 2000, 62-75. Traduction Œcuménique de la Bible, Paris 19893. TRINQUET, J., Les liens ‘sadocites’ de l’écrit de Damas, des manuscrits de la mer Morte et de l’Ecclésiastique: VT 1 (1951), 287-292. VAN CANGH, J.-M., Béatitudes de Qumrân et Béatitudes évangéliques, antériorité de Matthieu sur Luc?, in: GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ, F. (ed.), Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical Tradition, 413-425. VERMES, G., The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, London 1997. WRIGHT, B. G., “Fear the Lord and Honor the Priest”. Ben Sira as Defender of the Jerusalem Priesthood, in: BEENTJES, P. C. (ed.), The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research. Proceedings of the First International Ben Sira Conference 28-31 July 1996, Soesterberg, Netherlands, 189-222. YADIN, Y., The Ben Sira Scroll from Masada, Jerusalem 1965 (reprinted from ErIs 8 (1965), 1-45 ‘ivrît); reprinted in: Masada VI. The Yigael Yadin Excavations 19631965, Final Report, with Notes on the Reading by E. Qimron, and Bibliography by F. García Martínez, Jerusalem 1999.

The hymn to the creation (Sir 42:15–43:33): a polemic text? NURIA CALDUCH-BENAGES 1. Introduction Ben Sira begins the last part of his book with a hymn of praise to the wisdom of God, manifested in nature (42:15 – 43:33: hymn to the creation) and in the history of Israel (44:1 – 49:16: the Praise of the Ancestors) which concludes with the glorification of the High Priest Simon (50:1-24). With these two compositions in hymnic style, the sage succeeds in harmonising the universal dimension of the creation with the national character of salvation, rooted in Israel (24:1-22). Both the creation which embraces all men and the important characters of the history of Israel – whether they are heroes or anti-heroes – are different manifestations of the same divine wisdom which stimulates its disciples towards the search for God.1 The hymn to the creation, or, if you wish, the hymn to the Creator, can be described as “a composition that is successful on the literary level and poetically inspired”2 in which the sage praises the sovereignty and the supreme wisdom of God diffused in the universe, and invites his hearers/readers to unite themselves to him in this attitude of praise. The majority of commentators on the Book of Sirach as well as those authors who have made a more detailed study of the passage follow this line of interpretation. We now cite them in chronological order. Johannes Marböck, in his by now classical monograph (1971),3 studies Sir 42:15–43:33 as an essential contribution to the theology of creation expressed in the book. Gian Luigi Prato, in his volume on the problem of theodicy in Ben Sira (1975),4 highlights the function of the elements in the contemplation of the creation. Twelve years later, Keith W. Burton, in his Glasgow doctoral thesis of 1987, still unpublished,5 proposes the theme of creation (divided into eight sections) as the structuring element of the book. Sir 42:15–43:33 is the last of the series. In a study on the connection between wisdom and creation, Leo G. Perdue (1994)6 1 2 3 4 5 6

Cf. CALDUCH-BENAGES, L’inno al creato, 54. ZAPPELLA, La contemplazione sapienziale, 41. MARBÖCK, Weisheit im Wandel. PRATO, Il problema della teodicea. BURTON, Ben Sira and the Judaic Doctrine of Creation. PERDUE, Wisdom and Creation, 243-290 (“I Covered the Earth like a Mist”: Cosmos and History in Ben Sira).

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concentrates on the metaphor of the divine wisdom as guarantee of the order present in the world (“a world of elegance and wonderment”), a metaphor which, according to him, constitutes the centre of the hymn. Finally, and more recently, George Sauer (2000) has published an article on the Old Testament background of Sir 42:15–43:33.7 In it he points out all the texts of the tradition from which the sage has derived inspiration in composing his poem. As far as the composition of the hymn is concerned, despite the multiplicity of proposals that have been advanced, all agree in identifying an introduction which exalts the power of God in creation (42:15-25)8 and a conclusion which is actually a summons to praise the Creator (43:27-33).9 The central part of the hymn dedicated to the individual works of creation (43:1-26) is more debated: some consider it to be unitary; others divide it into two or even three strophes. In his commentary, Alexander Di Lella suggests instead a division of the entire poem into four strophes, of 15, 14, 16 and 8 stichs respectively: 42:15-25; 43:1-12; 43:13-26; 43:27-33.10 This study does not intend to follow the studies mentioned above. It aims rather to confine itself to the polemical dimension of the hymn and that, obviously, supposes the presence of a group of adversaries who are opposed to the school (51:23: Xrdm tyb) of the sage. It is probable that Ben Sira would have thought of such a group when he taught the hymn to his disciples. To establish the identity of these people (perhaps belonging to one or maybe to different schools of thought) is a difficult undertaking, impossible in practice in so far as, not only in our text, but also in the rest of the book, these people (groups, communities, schools) are never mentioned explicitly. To this we must add the total absence of information or clues of an historical character which could offer precise tracks for research. Perhaps we can catch a glimpse of the adversaries behind the old debate formula (rmat la: “do not say” which Ben Sira employs on nine occasions (5:1-6 [4x]; 11:23.24; 15:11.12; 16:17) and above all in the didactic/hymnic compositions on theodicy (16:24–17:14; 36[33]:7-15; 39:12-35; 42:15–43:33). With the old debate formula is linked the expression “no on can say” repeated three times in 39:12-35 (39:21a: what use is this?; 39:21b: this is worse than that; 39:34: this is bad, what is this?) with which Ben Sira rejects his adversaries’ opinions on the thorny problem of theodicy.According to James Crenshaw – the first to have an inkling of any religious controversy in the work of the sage – behind the formulae just mentioned one can perceive the urgent threat of the anonymous, implicit opponents of Ben Sira and, 7 8 9 10

SAUER, Der traditionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund. MINISSALE, La versione greca, 116-125. CALDUCH-BENAGES, God Creator of All. SKEHAN – DI LELLA, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 491.

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even if we cannot identify these people or groups for certain, we can at least discern “the basic thrust of their attack”.11 As far as the theme of Sir 42:15–43:33, the creation and the Creator, is concerned, there are three areas which could have inspired polemic in the teaching of Ben Sira. The first is the Jewish sapiential tradition, the second are the Enochic apocalyptic circles, and the third is Greek-Hellenistic culture. In any case, the possible polemic dimension is not the predominant element of the hymn, certainly less evident than in the other three poems on theodicy.12

2. The jewish sapiential tradition As Prato, Di Lella and Sauer, among others, have well noted, Sir 42:15–43: 33 is full of references to other Biblical texts, among which are the priestly account of the creation in Gen 1 (Ben Sira seems, however, not to have known chapters 2-8 and 10-11 of Genesis), Job 28 and 38–41 and a few Psalms (96; 136; 104; 147; 148 to cite only some).13 What is most striking is the original and free use that Ben Sira made of these and other texts. He then avoided them when he considered it convenient.14 Let us record some examples, always with reference to Gen 1. In the introduction to the hymn in 42:15c, we read: “by the word of God his works [were made]”, a clear reference to the creative activity of God as it is presented in the first chapter of Genesis. However, we should observe that at no stage does he allude to the creation in six days, to the first human couple (cf. Sir 17:1-12) or to the Sabbath on which God ceased from his labour. In 42:16, it is suggestive that the sun precedes the moon as if Ben Sira had wished to correct the naïve picture of the Genesis account which presents the creation of the light (1:3) before that of the sun (1:16) which is its principal source.15 In 43:1-10 the creation of the firmament, of the sun, the moon and the stars refers to Gen 1:14-18. Ben Sira follows the same order in the creation of the stars which is found in Genesis. However, he not only devotes much more attention to the moon than to the son; he modifies the meaning of the Genesis text: “And God

11 12 13 14 15

CRENSHAW, The Problem of Theodicy, 47; COLLINS, Jewish Wisdom, 81. CRENSHAW, The Problem of Theodicy, 53: “The final didactic hymn [...] (42,15–43,33) shows a decided advance in the direction of praise over polemic”. Cf. also the Song of the Three Children in the Greek additions to the Book of Daniel and the hymns of Qumran, especially 1QH IX, 10-14. For the midrashic use of Gen 1, cf. ALONSO SCHÖKEL, The Vision of Man, with reference to DE FRAINE, Het Loflied. Cf. MORLA ASENSIO, Eclesiástico, 208.

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said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth’”. While here the son and the moon serve to distinguish and fix the times and seasons, in the text of Ben Sira this function is reserved only to the moon. Moreover, it is to be noted that in 43:11, Ben Sira describes the rainbow which embraces the arch of the sky with its splendour, without, however, mentioning either the flood, or Noah, or his covenant with God (Gen 9:12-17). These are not the only differences which surprise us. Besides these, there are other “polemical notes”, to use the words of Crenshaw,16 which seem to be directed against the same sapiential tradition to which Ben Sira is heir. In fact, in 42:21, the sage says to God: “He has established the power of his wisdom, he is the only one from all eternity. There is nothing to be added or taken away, and he has no need of any teacher”. This verse seems to reject the idea of a pre-existent Wisdom which in the role of “counsellor”17 assisted God in the creation of the world (cf. Prov 8:22-31, especially 8:30). According to Crenshaw, this idea would be the fruit of speculation on personified Wisdom from which Ben Sira would be completely distanced in view of the correspondence between Wisdom and Law.18 In the doctrine of the sage, wisdom is present as eternal (1:4.9; 24:9) and pre-existent (1:1b; 24: 9b), but, above all, it is described as created by God (1:4.9; 24:9). In the three verses which precede 42:21, Ben Sira praises the unlimited knowledge of God with regard to space and time and the totality of his wisdom: “He searches out the abyss and the heart; he understands all their secrets. For the Most High knows all that may be known, and foresees the things which happen in the world. He reveals what has been and what is to be, and he reveals the most hidden mysteries. No thought is absent from him; no word escapes him” (42:18-20). These statements seem designed to refute Eliphaz the Temanite, witness of the traditional wisdom, when, in interpreting tendentiously the previous declarations of Job he replies: “And you say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the deep darkness? Thick clouds enwrap him, so that he does not see, when he walks on the vault of heaven’” (Job 22:13-14). In my opinion, however, in the hymn to creation, Ben Sira is not openly opposing the sapiential tradition of Israel but rather he is reformulating 16 17

18

CRENSHAW, Old Testament Wisdom, 158: “Surprisingly polemical notes can be heard now and again within this hymn”. This would be one of the possible interpretations !wOma; intended as a derivation from the Akkadian ummãnu, “scribe, sage; heavenly scribe” (in Hebrew !M'a)' which the Massoretes vocalised incorrectly. Cf. CLIFFORD, Proverbs, 100-101. CRENSHAW, Old Testament Wisdom, 158.

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it in his own way, emphasising some aspects which he, as teacher, considers useful for the instruction of his disciples in praise.

3. The enochic apocalyptic circles “The classical image which thought him [Ben Sira} to be the representative of Israel against advancing Hellenism, appears, in fact, inadequate to express the complexity of his thought”.19 Thus Gabriele Boccaccini expresses himself at the conclusion of a famous study on the Book of Sirach and its connections with Qoheleth and apocalyptic (1993) in which he takes up again and develops the same ideas which he had already published elsewhere in 1986.20 According to him, Ben Sira, would not have feared to confront directly the instances of the apocalyptic tradition. Such a polemical connection between Ben Sira and 1 Enoch had already been suggested by George W. E. Nickelsburg (1983) – who even sees the poor of the time of Ben Sira as possible authors of the Epistle of Enoch – Saul Olyan (1987) and Lewis J. Prockter (1990).21 The recent studies on the Book of Enoch and, above all, the latest research on the intellectual and sociological characteristics of the group which hides under this literature (cf. Henoch 24[2002]) have demonstrated that Enochic Judaism was, at least in a certain measure, “one of the targets of Sirach’s polemic arrows”.22 Many authors today consider Ben Sira and 1 Enoch not only as two different reactions to the threat of Hellenism, but as the expression of two schools of wisdom that were not only in disagreement but were also rivals (“konkurrierende Schule”). On the other hand, to speak of schools of wisdom in this context opens the way to a further problem, that is, how far do these literary texts allow us to reconstruct those groups of Jews which were hostile to one another?23 Was Ben Sira – per impossibile – the only representative of the wisdom which he promoted in his book, or was he part of a sacerdotal community? Are the authors of the different parts of 1 Enoch able to consider themselves as belonging to a precise social group or community? What was their degree of representativeness in the society of the 19 20 21 22 23

BOCCACCINI, Il Medio Giudaismo, 85. To the authors cited in the note, we add HENGEL, Judaism and Hellenism, 131-175. BOCCACCINI, L’origine del male, 34. NICKELSBURG, Social Aspects, 651; OLYAN, Ben Sira’s Relationship, 279-280; PROCKTER, Torah as a Fence. Cf. also MARBÖCK, Das Buch Jesus Sirach, 367. BOCCACCINI, Introduction, 11; NICKELSBURG, 1 Enoch, 63: “It is possible that Ben Sira is polemicizing against those in the Enochic camp”. WRIGHT, Sirach and 1 Enoch, 182.

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period? All these questions would merit further detailed study. One thing is certain, however: Both in the book of Ben Sira and in 1 Enoch, the identity of the opponents always remains hidden. Despite this, there are some texts in which the antagonism between the two groups is more obvious. For example, in 1 Enoch 98:15, we read: “Woe to you who write lying words of impiety; for they write their lies that men may hear and not forget their folly; and they will not have peace, but will die a sudden death”.24 The text is aimed at those who are opposed to the doctrine of the sages. But who are these people? Could they be the followers of Ben Sira, promoters of another type of wisdom? In 1 Enoch 104:10, the author has in his sights the “many sinners who will alter and distort the words of truth and speak evil words among themselves and lie and concoct great fabrications and write books in their own words“. According to Sir 50:27, Ben Sira has written a book of wisdom. Would he, therefore, be one of these sinners? In 1995, Randal A. Argall published his doctoral thesis which he had defended in 1992 at the University of Iowa under the supervision of George E. W. Nickelsburg on the connection between Ben Sira and 1 Enoch, a study which inaugurated a new seam of research.25 After having examined the literary forms and the theological themes of revelation, creation and judgement in both books, Argall arrives at the conclusion that Ben Sira (representative of traditional wisdom) and 1 Enoch (representative of the apocalyptic tradition) were very close both at the level of form and of content. Both the books share themes, literary forms, oral traditions and large perspectives which are explained as deriving from a common background. In fact, the book of Ben Sira and some parts of 1 Enoch are contemporary. While the majority of scholars are in agreement over the dating of Ben Sira (between 200 and 175 BC), that of 1 Enoch is more disputed. In spite of the difference of opinions on the dating of the different sections of the book, today it is held that the Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36) and the Book of Heavenly Luminaries (1 Enoch 71-82) – if not the whole, then a good part of it – already existed in the second century BC. The Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 92-105), on the other hand, presents a later dating. If account is taken of the fact that the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BC is not mentioned in the Apocalypse of Weeks, which is inserted into the Epistle (93:1-10; 91:11-17), one can suppose that Chapters 92-105 are prior 24

25

Basically I cite the Book of Enoch in the edition of SPARKS (ed.), The Apocryphal Old Testament. For suggestions with regard the english translation of italian edition of SACCHI, Apocrifi dell’Antico Testamento, I am grateful to dr. Michael Tait . English editions/translations may be found in CHARLESWORTH (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha; NICKELSBURG, 1 Enoch. ARGALL, 1 Enoch and Sirach.

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to this date.26 We have spoken first of similarities, but clearly there are substantial differences with regard to the content of the wisdom revealed (the doctrine of opposites v. speculative cosmology; temporal judgement for each person v. catastrophic and universal judgement at the end of time) and, as Argall puts it, “such differences are the stuff of the conflict”.27 According to him, each of the traditions – represented by Ben Sira and 1 Enoch respectively – sees the other as a rival to be challenged. In 1997, Benjamin G. Wright published an article28 in which he holds that Ben Sira is responding polemically to the criticisms of certain groups who questioned the legitimacy of the Jerusalem priesthood in their writings and were opposed to the cult in Jerusalem. These writings are the Book of Watchers, the Book of Heavenly Luminaries and the Aramaic Document of Levi which goes back to the third century BC.29 Beyond the priesthood and the cult, there are other points at issue between Ben Sira and the apocalyptic circles: dreams and visions, the use of the calendar (solar, lunar or both) and esoteric knowledge (cosmological speculations, eschatological realities). Both Argall and Wright deepened the argument in the first seminar on Enoch held at Sesto Fiorentino in June 2001.30 To these contributions I would like to add only the study of Gabriele Boccaccini on Zadokite Judaism and sapiential Judaism,31 and that of Martin Ebner which appeared in 2003. The subtitle reveals the viewpoint of the author: Weisheitskonzepte in Konkurrenz.32 Argall’s comparative study has made clear the similarities and differences between the texts of creation in 1 Enoch and in Ben Sira. He distinguishes between the observable aspects of creation (1 Enoch 2:1–5:4; 101: 1-9; Sir 16:24–17:14; 33(36):7-15; 39:12-35; 42:15–43:33) and the hidden ones (1 Enoch 12–36; 93:11-14; 72–80; 82:4-20; Sir 1:1-10; 24:3-7).33 My contribution is of a different nature and clearly more modest. I shall take into consideration only those elements of Sir 42:15–43:33 which, in my opinion, allow us to glimpse a polemical dimension against the apocalyptic tradition. Our presentation follows the order of the text. 1. The presence and the role of the angels. In 42:17, Ben Sira states: “Not even the holy ones of God are sufficient to declare all his marvels. God has made 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Cf. ibid., 5-7. Ibid., 250. WRIGHT, Fear the Lord, which is really an expanded revision of Putting the Puzzle Together. STONE, Enoch, 159, note 2, and KUGLER, From Patriarch to Priest, 222-224. ARGALL, Competing Wisdoms, and WRIGHT, Sirach and 1 Enoch, 179-187. BOCCACCINI, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 113-150, especially 136-137. EBNER, “Wo findet die Weisheit ihren Ort?„. ARGALL, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 99-164 (Part II: “The Creation Theme in 1 Enoch and Sirach”).

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his hosts strong so that they may stand firm before his glory”. Here “the holy ones of God”, unable to tell of the works of the Creator, are the angels who form the heavenly hosts and have the office of standing before God (cf. Deut 33:3; Zech 14:5: Job 15:15: Pss 89:6.8; 103:21; 148:2). This description of the angels, in part negative and, what is more, unique in the book, contrasts strongly with the significant role they perform in 1 Enoch. From the introduction to the Book of Watchers, we learn that God “has come with 10,000 holy ones (angels)” to do justice for the elect and to destroy the wicked (1 Enoch 1:9). Particular emphasis is given to the figure of Uriel “one of the holy angels” (20:1; 72:1), the angel responsible for all the movements of the stars (75:3). In 1 Enoch 81:5, it is “three holy ones (angels)” who lead Enoch back to earth. Surprisingly, in Sir 42:17, Argall does not discover any trace of polemic (and even believes it appropriate to note this fact) against the role of the angels in the other traditions.34 We, however, taking account of the context, claim that Ben Sira’s observations on the angels are not without motive. 2. The knowledge of God. According to Sir 42:18-20, God is the only being to possess total knowledge (18c: “all that may be known”, pa/san ei[desin)35 of the secrets of the universe, of history and of the hearts of men. This statement of the divine omniscience anticipates the conclusion of the hymn where Ben Sira confesses to having seen only a small part (j[m) of the works of God because many still remain hidden (cf. 43:32). This limited knowledge of his is opposed to the unlimited knowledge of Enoch to whom the angel Uriel showed everything and made everything manifest (80:1). He, in his turn, manifested everything to his son Methuselah so that it was all transmitted from generation to generation (82:1). It is appropriate, moreover, to mark out Enoch’s declaration concerning his own knowledge: “And I, Enoch, I alone saw the sight, the ends of everything, and no man has seen what I have seen” (19:4).36 34 35 36

Cf. ARGALL, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 144, note 357; differently ALBANI, Astronomie und Schöpfungsglaube, 151. For the Hebrew, cf. QUIMRON, Notes on the Reading, [230]: Yadin reconstructs [ ][d and Strugnell, following the versions, proposes to read [t][d lk. Cf. also [205] and [220]. In Sir 44:16 Ms B, Enoch is remembered as a “sign of knowledge“ (t[d twa), while in the Greek tradition he becomes “an example of conversion for the Gentiles” (u`po,deigma metanoi,aj tai/j geneai/j), something that cannot possibly be considered a translation error. Cf. MINISSALE, La versione greca, 221: “G transforms the text to attribute to Enoch, assimilated to Elijah on the basis of their common assumption into heaven, a prophetic preaching before the flood, which might have provoked the repentance of the angel-sinners (1 Enoch 12-13)”. According to ALBANI, the Hebrew text has been modfied for doctrinal reasons: “Mit der Theologie des Sirachbuches ist es unvereinbar, dass ein Irdischer auch nur annähernd in die Nähe der göttlichen Weisheit gelangt” (Astronomie und Schöpfungsglaube, 149).

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3. The immutability and obedience of the creation. It is mentioned first of all at a general level in Sir 42:23 (“All these things live and endure for ever; all are necessary and all obey”)37 and then underlined with particular emphasis with regard to the stars in 43:10. (“At a command from God, they occupy their posts and they are untiring in their watches”). In fact, Ben Sira, good master as he is, often makes reference to the obedience of creation to spur his disciples to a similar attitude in their relations with God: 16:24-30; 39:28-31. The idea of the incorrupt nature of the universe contrasts strongly with the apocalyptic tradition according to which, at the moment of creation, some stars refused the post assigned to them, upsetting the order of the universe before the fall of the angels. And so it was their disobedience which allowed the entrance of evil into the world. On his otherworldly journey, Enoch reached a deserted place, without water or birds where he saw “stars like great burning mountains”. The angel Uriel who accompanied him on his journey explained to him that that place was “the prison of the stars of heaven and the heavenly army”. The stars who were turning back and forward over the fire were those who had “transgressed the order of the Lord from the beginning of their rising” because they had not arrived [at their assigned post] at the time [appointed for them] (1 Enoch 18:14-15). In 20:3-6, the seven rebel stars are bound together above the deserted and fearful place to expiate their sin with a punishment that would last ten thousand years. The same idea is found again in the Book of Heavenly Luminaries. After having described with much care “the law of the stars of heaven”, that is to say, all the laws which govern heaven and secure the order and harmony of the universe (79:1-6; 80:1), Enoch notes that this ideal order no longer holds. The whole universe has been upset by the sin of the angels, and so, “in the time of the sinners”, order and harmony will vanish and all the things on earth will be changed and will not appear at their appointed time: “The rain will be withheld and heaven will retain it... And the moon will change its customary practice and will not appear at its proper time... And in those days... [the sun] will shine rather more than the laws of light (permit). And many heads of the stars in command (that is, the angels) will go astray and change their course and their activity and not appear at the times established for them” (80:2-6). “It is the currency of such concepts – Boccaccini claims – that makes Ben Sira so careful to underline the uncorrupted nature of the universe”.38

37 38

With the Hebrew text of Ms B and Gr. According to Mas: “they are kept for every necessity”. Cf. BOCCACCINI, Il Medio Giudaismo, 62. The author notes that death as a consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve (cf. Gen 3) is the only variation which Ben Sira admits to have happened in the movement of creation: “From the woman comes the beginning of sin; because of her, all die” (Sir 25:24).

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4. The sun. After having presented in 42:16 the sun as first witness of the glory of God (Ms B and Mas: “the sun which rises manifests himself to all the creation39 and the glory of the Lord is over all his works”), in the central part of the hymn, Ben Sira devotes four other verses to it (43:2-5): 2

The sun at its rising spreads warmth, How marvellous the works of the Lord! 3 At midday it parches the land, who can resist its heat? 4 A blazing furnace smelts metal, as a ray of the sun burns the mountain. The tongue of the sun consumes the inhabited land and its light dazzles the eyes. 5 Since great is the Lord who has made it, And whose word makes his warrior shine.40

The description of the sun is dominated almost throughout (with the exception of vv. 2b and 5ab) by the image of fire and heat (to parch, to blaze, to burn, to consume, to dazzle... warmth, heat, furnace). In fact, this seems to the only characteristic of the sun which is able to arouse the sage’s interest. It is astonishing that Ben Sira does not attribute to the sun any function with regard to the calendar (cf. by contrast Jub. 2:9 where the sun uniquely fulfils this function). In the Enochic tradition, on the other hand, the laws which regulate the course of the sun are of great importance. At the end of 1 Enoch 82, a chapter devoted entirely to the greater star reads: “And thus [the sun] rises and sets; it neither decreases nor rests but runs day and night I its chariot. And its light is seven times brighter than that of the moon, but in size the two are equal” (82:37). In Sir 43:2-5, Ben Sira not only opposes 1 Enoch but also, as we hinted before, the priestly account of Gen 1:14-15. The fact that the cooperation between the sun and the moon as regards the determination of the dates and the flow of the seasons is completely ignored by Ben Sira can be read in a polemic key. Benjamin G. Wright, taking his cue from an article by Alexander Rofé almost ten years before his own,41 thinks that this silence of Ben Sira is deliberate. He is not prepared to make even 39 40

41

In the Gr “The sun which shines sees all from on high”, refers to 42:18ab: “He scrutinises the abyss and the heart; he understands all their secrets” referred to the Creator. Sir 43:5b Ms B (wyryba xcny wyrbdw) is difficult to translate and the scholarly suggestions diverge: “und sein Wort lässt dahineilen seinen gewaltigen Diener” (Smend), “sus órdenes espolean a sus campeones” (Alonso Schökel), “at whose orders it urges on its steeds” (Skehan – Di Lella), “and his words make brilliant his mighty ones” (Perdue). The Greek version reads: kai. evn lo,goij auvtou/ kate,speusen porei,an, “and with his words he speeds it on its way“. ROFÉ, The Onset of Sects, especially 43-44. I quote his conclusion on p. 44: “In my opinion, it becomes clear that Ben Sira is here polemicizing against an adverse tendency we may define as proto-Essenian”.

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an apparent concession to those Jews who, like the author of the Book of Watchers, the Book of Heavenly Luminaries, and the Aramaic Document of Levi, defend the priority of the solar calendar.42 5. The moon. Ben Sira dedicates three verses to the moon. Different form the sun, the function of the moon consists in fixing the seasons, dates and feasts. It is a question of a more complex function because linked to the problem of the calendar: 6

And also the moon watches over the times, regulator of seasons and eternal sign. 7 To it [belong] the solemnities and feasts, and when it wanes it resumes its cycle. 8 The new moon as its name (indicates) is renewed, it is splendid in its phases! Military signal for the heavenly army of the clouds, which covers the firmament with its splendour.

The Jewish calendar to which Ben Sira makes reference in this passage is a lunar calendar which establishes the sacred times of the days and months of the year according to the phases of the moon. The function of the moon, therefore, becomes central because it is it that determines the Sabbath, the feasts of pilgrimage, the times of fasting... that is, the liturgical feasts. It is a very important question because it is linked to the different religious groups that were in conflict with one another. To control the calendar means, in a certain way, to control the feasts and religious observances. The Book of Heavenly Luminaries contains the astronomic and cosmological material which stands behind the solar year of 364 days (1 Enoch 72-82).43 For the author, the solar year is superior to the lunar because only with the solar year can the feasts fall on the days truly fixed with regard to the position of the stars in the sky. “Only a liturgy which had feasts on fixed dates – Paolo Sacchi comments – could be in harmony with the cosmos”.44 More than the intricate explanations of the movement of the stars in heaven, what interest us is those passages which can hide a polemical intention. For example, in 75:2, Enoch mentions “the men who go wrong” in their calculation of the solar year, and in 82:4-7 (cf. 80:2) those who do not accept this calendar are considered sinners: 4 Blessed are all the righteous, blessed are all those who walk in the way of righteous-

ness, and do not sin like the sinners in the numbering of all their days in which the 42

43 44

WRIGHT, Fear the Lord, 207-208 (= Putting the Puzzle Together, 137-138). Also the Book of Jubilees and the group of Qumran followed a solar calendar of 364 days. Cf. ALBANI, Zur Rekonstruktion, and LIORA, The Book of Jubilees. Cf., in connection with this, the study of ALBANI, Astronomie und und Schöpfungsglaube. SACCHI (ed.), Apocrifi dell’Antico Testamento, 597.

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We do not know whether, for the author of these texts, the sinners were Ben Sira and those who followed his teaching. On the other hand, we can observe that Ben Sira attributed the function of fixing and controlling the times solely to the moon while it is probable that he was aware of the solar calendar. In spite of the absence of precise indications, we hold it quite probable that Sir 43:6-8 is a response to the defenders of the solar calendar. 6. The stars. Ben Sira says not very much about the stars. He underlines only their beauty and their unconditional obedience to the Creator: 9

The glory of the stars is the beauty of heaven and their light shines in the heights of the Lord. 10 At a command from God, they take their positions and they never relax in their watch.

This brief allusion to the stars (cf. 44:21d and 50:6) could reflect an attitude of indifference and perhaps also of rejection on the part of Ben Sira towards astrology, a science very widespread in Israel (and also in the pagan world),45 as demonstrated by the Enochic tradition, especially the Book of Heavenly Luminaries. Thanks to the witness of Pseudo-Eupolomes,46 we are aware that the Book of Heavenly Luminaries was also known outside of the group of the elect, that is of the narrowly Enochic circles. In his brief History of the Jews (158 BC), the anonymous author gives an eulogy of Enoch, presenting him as the inventor of astrology: “The Greeks, however, say that Atlantes invented astrology and that Atlantes is to be identified with Enoch. Enoch’s son was Methuselah, he who is supposed to have received all (wisdom) through

45

46

Cf. SAUER, Der traditionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund, 317: “Bezüglich der babylonischen Astrologie ist bekannt, dass Isarel die Macht der Sterne und damit die der durch sie repräsentierten Götter depotenzierte, indem alle diese himmlischen Kräfte unter die Verfügungsgewalt Jahwes gebracht wurden. Der griechisch-hellenistischen Astrologie steht Ben Sira vollkommen ablehnend gegenüber”. Cited in ALBANI, Astronomie und und Schöpfungsglaube, 151.

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the angels of God, and in this way we have learned (everything)”. If we can trust this information, then it appears very probable – in agreement with Matthias Albani – that Sir 42:15–43:33 is Ben Sira’s riposte to the astronomic wisdom which Enoch had received through angelic revelation (1 Enoch 72-82) and to the idea of a universal knowledge bound to it.47

4. The graeco-hellenistic culture 4.1 Astronomy The connection of Ben Sira with Greek literature has been amply studied by Theodor Middendorp48 who has discovered more than a hundred parallels between the word of the sage and Greek literature, the most quoted author being the sixth century (BC) poet Theognis. Middendorp’s thesis according to which Ben Sira would be a mediator between Judaism and Hellenism has, however, been contested by Hans Volker Kieweler.49 As far as the connection with Greek philosophy is concerned, the classical work of Martin Hengel50 and the recent study of Uta Wicke-Reuter51 on Ben Sira and Stoicism offer exhaustive coverage. In this study, we intend to refer to the world of science, and particularly astronomy, a science which was developed in Greece in the second half of the third century BC when the Ptolemies were governing Palestine. The famous names are Aristarchus of Samos (who lived to at least after 264), Archimedes (287-212), Eratosthenes (c. 275-193), the third director of the library of Alexandria and, most famous of all, Apollonius of Perga (262-190) and Conon of Samos, who lived in Alexandria at the court of Ptolemy Euergetes and his wife Berenice. Among these names, there is a figure who moves between didactic poetry and astronomy: Aratus of Soli (Cilicia),52 a poet contemporary with Callimachus (born in 315 or 310 and dead before 240 BC) who wrote hymns, epigrams, elegiac poems, funeral laments, but, above all, works of a scientific character, such as Iatrica, a poem on medicine, the Canon, which deals with the harmony of the spheres, or the Astrica (On the stars) composed in at least five books. All these works have been lost. Luckily we have his main work, the only one remaining. It is a poem of 1154 hexameters, composed 47 48 49 50 51 52

Ibid., 152. MIDDENDORP, Die Stellung. KIEWELER, Die Stellung Jesu Ben Siras. HENGEL, Judaism and Hellenism. WICKE-REUTER, Göttliche Providenz. EASTERLING – KENNEY (eds.), The Cambridge History.

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at the request of the ruler of Macedonia, Antigone Gonata. The poem is called Phaenomena and is concerned with astronomy and meteorology. Others before him had already written poems on astronomy: Cleostratus of Tenedo, author of an Astrology and Alexander Aetolus, himself too author of a Phaenomena. The poem of Aratus had such a success that many after him composed other Phaenomena without ever reaching his fame. Even many poets wrote commentaries on his poem, which had a great influence on the literature which followed. Aratus was inspired by a treatise in prose by a celebrated mathematician and astronomer of the first half of the fourth century BC, Eudoxus of Cnidus. This work, also called Phaenomena was a precise description of the sky and of the fixed stars with an almanac of their risings and settings, together with temporal prognostications linked to them. Although not a Stoic work, Phaenomena begins with a hymn to Zeus (ll. 1-18) which recalls the famous hymn to Zeus by the philosopher Cleanthes. At the conclusion of the hymn, the poet speaks of having ask the god for “telling about the stars” in an appropriate way and finally he asks him to guide his song to its end. And in fact, the first part of the poem (ll. 19-732) is completely dedicated to the stars which, throughout the year, mark the seasons and scan the work of men. Here are the first verses: “All together, though so numerous and so dispersed, the stars are dragged by the movement of heaven, day after day, without interruption, eternally” (ll. 19-21).53 The second part (ll. 773-1154) treats of the phases of the moon, of the prognostications which start from an examination of the moon and the sun, the atmospheric phenomena and their connection with nature, with the animals and with men. In short, the poem of Aratus is, in substance, not a technical work, a manual of astronomy, but a very fine poetic composition of scientific content. To use the words of Jean Martin, the poem of Aratus is an invitation to discover gradually the presence and the messages of Zeus in the regular movement of the stars just as in the smaller and uncertain events of life on earth.54 Did Ben Sira know the Phaenomena of Aratus or other similar poems? Had he ever read the Astrica, his vast treatise on the stars or other works of astronomy? Were these works to be found in the library of Alexandria? Had Ben Sira ever been to the capital of Hellenism: Had he visited the famous library founded by Ptolemy I? In the face of these questions we find ourselves in great difficulty because we do not know the answer to them. We can move only in the field of hypotheses. We have already seen that in his hymn to the creation Ben Sira dedicates only two verses to the stars (Sir 43:9-10) – that which is already high53 54

ARATOS, Phénomènes, 2. Ibid., LXXXV.

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ly significant by itself55 – without ever making any allusion to notions relating to astronomy or meteorology. On the contrary, the sage’s interest is quite otherwise. He concentrates on two rather different but complementary aspects: the aesthetic (the beauty of the stars) and the spiritual (their obedience to the Creator). As far as appears, the way in which Ben Sira speaks of the heavenly bodies, especially the stars, and of the atmospheric phenomena in 42:15–43:33 does not seem to conceal any criticism of the works of astronomy as such. If, however, we try to read between the lines, perhaps we shall discover a message, or even a warning touch, directed at all those who feel themselves attracted by books which are concerned to explain all the mysteries of the heavens simply by human science. Ben Sira knows that men have always desired to know the secrets of the world and the dangers which this involves when it is does not take account of the Creator and his law (cf. 3:21-24).

4.2 The astral cult In the Biblical tradition, the Law, the prophets and the sages all condemn the astral cult. In Deut 4:19, we read: “And beware lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and worship them and serve them, things which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven” (cf. Jer 8:2; Ezek 8:16; Job 31:26ff). The astral cult, common in the ancient world, was a widespread practice in the Hellenistic environment of the second century BC, especially at Alexandria in Egypt, cultural capital of Hellenism and seat of a numerous Jewish community. In the Prologue to Sirach, the translator places his literary activity in Egypt, probably in Alexandria, in the thirty eighth year of King Euergetes, almost certainly Ptolemy VII Euergetes Physcon, who reigned in Alexandria in two periods interrupted by a break: from 170 to 164 BC and from 145 to 117 BC. With these dates, we can assume that Ben Sira’s grandson began his translation around 132 BC, finishing it about 117 BC, the year of the king’s death. Between the Hebrew text (Ms B and Mas) and the Greek version of Sir 42:15 – 43:33 there are a few differences which have been studied in a very careful way by Antonino Minissale.56 We would like to confine our attention to some verses of the hymn where the Greek translation avoids the 55

56

In this connection SAUER comments: “Dieses Schweigen [riferito alle stelle] ist bemerkenswert. Spricht sich doch darin eine Nichtachtung der Sterndeutekunst aus, wie sie rings um Israel seit eh und je geübt worden war [...]. Er [Ben Sira] verliert über die Sterne kein Wort” (Der traditionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund, 317). MINISSALE, La versione greca, 116-125 (on 42:15-25).

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mythological allusions to the heavens, the sun and the moon: 42:17cd; 43: 6ab; 43:7ab; 43:8ab.57 In 42:17ab, both the Hebrew and the Greek texts speak of the holy ones of God (la yX[w]dq; toi/j agi,oij kuri,ou), that is of his angels who are not able to recount his wonders. In 42:17cd, the two texts differ. While the Hebrew text continues to speak of the angels, using a military metaphor (“God gives strength to his armies/soldiers so that they may stand before him”), the Greek refers to the wonders of God: “the things which the Lord almighty has established so that the universe may be firm through his glory”, thus eliminating the military image of the heavenly army. In 43:5a, the Hebrew and Greek texts coincide: “[For] great is the Lord who has made it” (referred to the sun). Not so in the following stich, 43:5b: “and his word makes his warrior (= the sun) shine” (Hebrew); while the Greek text eliminates the metaphor of the warrior applied to the sun and speaks simply of its course: “with his words he speeds it on its way”. In 43:6ab Hebrew and Greek differ. While the first underlines the dominion of the moon over time and its divisions: “And also the moon watches over the times, regulator of seasons and eternal sign”, the latter eliminates this idea completely: “and the moon has also its importance which is the indication of the dates and an eternal sign”. The same phenomenon is prominent in 43:7ab. The Hebrew text goes: “To it [belong] the solemnities and feasts, and when it wanes it resumes its cycle”, while the Greek has: “from the moon (comes) the sign of the feast; heavenly body which vanishes after its fulness”. The translator restricts himself to laying down that the moon does not control, only indicates, the term of the feast. In 43:8ab, Hebrew and Greek differ once more. The first has: “The new moon (Xdx) as its name (indicates) is renewed (Xdxtm), it is splendid (arwn) in its phases”; the Greek reads: “the month takes its name from it, increasingly marvellously in its phases”. While in the Hebrew the term arwn is attributed to the moon,58 the corresponding Greek qaumastw/j describes the growth of the month. Thus any possible personification of the moon disappears. How are we to understand these modifications? We can speculate, with Minissale,59 that the Greek translator, aware of an anti-idolatrous concern that was more acute in Alexandria than in Jerusalem, wanted to remove 57

58

59

Cf. also Sir 43:25b (Mas): “the might of Rahab” (bhr trwbg) becomes in Gr “the creation of sea monsters” (kti,sij khtw/n). The grandson’s translation avoids the mention of Rahab, one of the names which the OT attributes to the monster of the ocean (cf. Isa 51:9; Ps 89: 11; Job 9:13; 26:12). Cf. SPRONK, Rahab, 1292-1295. On the other hand, it refers 43:8ab to the month (in fact, vd hI w; > taZOh; hr"ATh; yrEbD. -I lK'-ta, tAf[}l; ta. krupta. kuri,w| tw/| qew/| h`mw/n ta. de. fanera. h`mi/n kai. toi/j te,knoij h`mw/n eivj to.n aivwn/ a poiei/n pa,nta ta. r`hm, ata tou/ no,mou tou,tou Secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things which have been revealed are for us and for our sons, for ever, because we practise all the words of this Law

a text which is to be understood in the light of the so-called “canonic formula“ (“The word which I command you”) in which the command is given not to add or take away any of the word commanded, of the Law. In this way, the Law and the complex theological structure of the text which confers on it its sacral character is protected. Now, whether this complex theological structure of the text is constituted by a numerical system which represents symbolically the presence of God,16 such as is established by the logotechnical analysis refined by Claus Schedl and used for the interpretation of some Biblical books by various scholars, is a conclusion which escapes my limited competence. However we can accept in part – because otherwise it would be necessary to enter into the paths of Gematria, something to which I would not wish to condemn Ben Sira –, some conclusions with regard to the text of Deuteronomy: the “secret things” refer to the written text of the Law, they are the hidden and complex innervature of the text, they are “for God”, hw"hyl: , they belong to God, while the “things revealed“, the text of the Law with its commandments are for the people, for the benefit of the people (Wnl') in the measure in which they are carried out.17 Ben Sira takes up, that is, the viewpoint of Deuteronomy, not to deny value to searching but in order to confirm that, through divine decree, there is a limit beyond which one runs the risk of perverse deception because there is a limit to what God himself has revealed,18 in the sense that there 16 17 18

Thus LABUSCHAGNE, Divine Speech, 388-389 (paper presented at Leuven and previously published in LOHFINK, Das Deuteronomium, 111-126). Ibid., 359. Cf. ARGALL, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 76.

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remains a mysterious dimension in the very acting of God which is not reducible to what human knowledge can reach. Ben Sira recognises that the effort of willing to know is destined to failure. Even the rational enquiry which wishes to penetrate what is unknown can have perverse consequences, but that depends once again and ultimately on the object of knowledge. For this, the conclusion of Crenshaw on the text which we are analysing: “this attack on the very essence of rational enquiry… does not depend automatically on the humble recognition that the intellect cannot explain the mystery of life. The necessity of the polemic has driven Ben Sira towards an unsustainable position: some realities are not subject to rational enquiry”,19 seems to me not to pay attention to the “quality” of the reality or realities of which one desires to have knowledge. In my opinion, which is confirmed by the evidence of the vocabulary employed, Ben Sira reuses some of the intuitions of the sage Qoheleth which combine with perspectives which had already been transmitted by the tradition to the hymnology of the Psalms. The reference to Qoh 1:13 ~yImV' h' ; tx;T; hf,[n] : rv,a-] lK' l[; hm'kx. B' ; rWtl'w> vArd>li yBil-i ta, yTitn; w" > AB tAn[]l; ~d"ah' ' ynEbl. i ~yhila{ / !t;n" [r" !y"n[> i aWh kai. e;dwka th.n kardi,an mou tou/ evkzhth/sai kai. tou/ kataske,yasqai evn th/ sofi,a| peri. pa,ntwn tw/n ginome,nwn u`po. to.n ouvrano,n\ o[ti perispasmo.n ponhro.n e;dwken o` qeo.j toi/j ui`oi/j tou/ avnqrw,pou tou/ perispa/sqai evn auvtw/| And I have applied my heart to search and to investigate with wisdom all that is done under heaven: a painful business, which God has given to the sons of men that they may be weary with it.

of which I wish to underline the repeat of the verb Xrd and zhte,w placed in parallel in Sirach in v. 21a Gr and Ms A – refers logically and structurally20 to the conclusions on the inscrutability of the work of God of Qoh 8:16-17 where there occur the verbs acm and Xqb, verbs which, together with those of 1:13, indicate intellectual research aimed at knowledge (cf. the use of [dy) and which Ben Sira in his turn utilises in 51:13ff – a text that also should be read in relation to our pericope for the repeat of the verb !yb (51:19 cf. 3:22a; Gr evpi,noew/dianoe,w which, together with ginw,skw, translates !yb hithp.)21 –, 19 20 21

CRENSHAW, Qohelet’s Understanding, 223. Cf. PASSARO, Le possibili letture, 31-35. Cf. ARGALL, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 71 and note 180.

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in which is described the journey which has led the sage Ben Sira to the acquisition of the secret things of wisdom.22 Qoheleth, then, in the retrospective conclusion of 8:16-17, as is indicated by the use of the perfect yttn introduced by rXak, summarises the nature and the result of his searching which, although revealing characteristics of intentionality (bl ta !tn) and intensity (effort by day and night), has to register failure: man like the sage must conclude (this is the sense of the verb har which introduces the apodosis of v. 17) the absolute impossibility of “finding” (repeated three times) the work of God. A conclusion which certainly underlines the gnoseological limit of every man is predicated also of the sapiential search (cf. v. 17), but motivated by the object of the search. In other words, the legitimate aim to know, although arriving at some kind of threshold of understanding of the real, does not come to full knowledge of the object that is being enquired into, but the exercise of rational thought, with all its severe limitations, is always under the control of man. Ben Sira, placing himself on this line which runs transversally and carstically throughout the Old Testament, re-presents in terms of invitation-command what Qoheleth in a disillusioned manner presented as the wise conquest of a sapiential search which would not wish to take refuge or lock itself within itself, deprived of common sense and, basically, of the fear of the Lord, because it recognises that everything is in the hands of the Lord (cf. Qoh 9:2). In this context of meaning, we can place the clear references to Ps 131:1: yn:y[e Wmr"-alw> yBili Hb;g-' al{ hw"hy> yNIMm, i tAal'pn. bI W. tAldogB. i yTikL. h' -i alw> Lord, my heart is not proud, my eyes are not haughty, I do not occupy myself in great matters, which are too hard for me (tAal'pn. bI ). .

and 139:6: Hl' lk;Wa-al hb'Gv> n. I yNIMm, i t[;d: [ha'yliP]. hY"ali P. i Your knowledge is wonderful for me, so high that I cannot attain it.

With the take up of Ps 131:1, Ben Sira recalls and appropriates a law of the religious experience of Israel, a constant law as is indicated by the verbs in the perfect: the recognition that the transcendent greatness of God, the gadôl par excellence, the great and miraculous signs of the Exodic liberation (tAal'pn. ,I 22

For a precise analysis of this text, cf. the essay of S. Manfredi in this volume. Cf. also GILBERT, Venez à mon école.

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cf. Exod 3:20; 34:10; Judg 6:13; Jer 21:2; Ps 9:2; etc.) and the secrets of the order of creation, of the universe, cannot be attained by man (cf. the use of the verb $lh).23 In fact, God remains “the wonderful” (Ps 139:6: again the root alp), his thought unattainable by the human mind.24 Certainly repetition and re-presentation signify reformulation and new understanding. There are two points on which Ben Sira develops the preceding positions: the advantage of recognising the gnoseological limit and the necessity of an intervention of revelation. If Qoheleth had concluded that knowledge of the limit is the unique advantage of the sage’s searching, for Ben Sira, by contrast, passionate searching of the book of the Law, conducted with discipline, humility and meekness, leads to the acquisition of wisdom, as is clearly affirmed in Chapter 51 and in particular in v. 20. In the Hebrew text (which combines Ms B and 11QPsa) we read in fact: hyr[X hxtp ydy !bwbta hymr[[m] My hands opened her gates and I understood her bareness25

which the Greek translates ta.j cei/ra.j mou evxepe,tasa pro.j u[yoj kai. ta. avgnoh,mata auvth/j evpe,nohsa I raised my hands towards heaven and I understood its hidden things.

The symbolic language of the Hebrew (formulated, according to Argall, on the register on sexual symbolism) is rendered and interpreted, perhaps also to avoid some form of pruderie, in a manner more consistent with the religious sphere; thus “my hands opened her gates“ becomes “I raised my hands to heaven”, attaining the aim of emphasising the need for a praying disposition for the understanding of that which, in spatial terms, is precisely on high. In any case, it is particularly interesting that “bareness” is rendered by the Greek with ta. avgnoh,mata. The reference is, again, to the hidden things which Ben Sira, the sage, understands by means of prayer (cf. also v. 13). 23 24 25

On the interpretation of tAal'p. in Sir 3:21 as the equivalent of hwhy yX[m, work of God, I refer to the analysis of WRIGHT, Fear the Lord, 209-211. Cf. RAVASI, Il libro dei Salmi, III, 808. Cf. ARGALL, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 70. One could also look at SANDERS, The Psalms Scrolls, 80-81 and to his later The Sirach 51 Acrostic, 429-438.

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The new element is the double mediation of the Law and the sage (cf. the verbs in the first person as in Qoheleth), the places where God and wisdom reveal their secrets (cf. 4:18). Without wishing here to enter into questions concerning the “very creative reciprocity” of the language of this chapter,26 its use and its structure reveal, nonetheless, the intention to show that the search conducted into the Torah has led the sage, Ben Sira, to know hidden things and to teach them, has led him to receive wisdom. The equivalence of “hidden things” and “wisdom” is indicated by Ben Sira himself in the splendid text of Chapters 42-43, in 42:19 and 43:33 Gr, verses in which the subject is God, we read: twyhn tpylx hwxm twrtsn rqx hlgmw He […] unveils things past and future and reveals the traces of hidden things

pa,nta ga.r evpoi,hsen ov ku,rioj kai. toi/j euvsebe,sin e;dwken sofi,an The Lord has made all things and has given wisdom to the godly.

As Argall has shown, guided by parallel texts in 1 Enoch, e;dwken sofi,an is a technical expression equivalent to“revealing hidden things”.27 The identification of Wisdom with the book of the Torah (24:23) has allowed Ben Sira to go beyond and develop the teaching of Qoheleth and the standpoint of the Psalms. The sage who has understanding of the Torah (cf. 6:37: “Meditate on the commandments of the Lord, busy yourself always with his precepts. He will make your heart strong, the wisdom that you desire shall be given you”), who possesses it, will obtain wisdom (cf. 15:1: “and he who possesses the Law has wisdom”), and will be able to teach it, and, therefore, to all those who hear him and retain his teachings there will also be given wisdom; they will be shown the hidden things in the Torah. In other words, Ben Sira starts from the reflection of Qoheleth in order to recover the value of the Torah in the search for wisdom, presenting the book of the Torah as the meeting point for two ways: that of wisdom-word which is revealed and dwells in the book and that of the sage who encounters it in the book in order to hand it on. Thus it is in the openness to accept the teaching of the sage who has acquired wisdom and its secrets by means of the humble searching of the book of the Torah that there is the unique and concrete possibility of receiving wisdom.

26 27

ARGALL, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 69-70. Ibid., 71-72.

The secrets of God. Investigation into Sir 3:21-24

167

This simple but decisive truth, which recognises and accepts that the elusiveness/ineffability of the object sought constitutes the necessary condition of the search because it trusts in the faith of the objectivisation of the revelation handed down in the book of the Law, overcomes the vain argumentation of the sons of men who trust in themselves or in their own rational capacity and so lose themselves in the nonsense of tempting and perverse speculations which distance them from God (cf. v. 24). In the face of this truth, the reality of the humble and modest attitude of the searcher becomes obligatory, not so much as a virtuous act but as the condition of the blessed encounter with revelation: that is wisdom. Vv. 17-20, therefore, perform an important function in the organisation of the discourse because they describe, along the lines of a confidential request (“my son”), the necessary attitude for being introduced into the salvific plan of God (musth,ria sou / wdws). The Greek amplifies the perspective, underlining the link which is established in the humble person between musth,ria and dunastei,a tou/ kuri,ou: it is the humble man, in fact, who allows the full revelation of the greatness of God (v. 20b) in his complete openness to be dependent on Him. An openness which is revealed also in the sincere and full relationship between people: “and you will be loved more than a man who is ready to give” (v. 17b). In the background, there is the text of Prov 19:6 (“Many are the flatterers of a generous man and all are the friends of the man who makes gifts”), recalled by the syntagm !tm Xya to which the Greek (a;nqrwpon do,thn) also seems to be aligned. In Proverbs, it is the deceitfulness of a relationship of interested friendship that is set in relief. Against this background, the comparative introduced by Ben Sira assumes greater emphasis: the accent has shifted from those who seek out of self-interest to the one who is searched for; a modest life and a measured way of acting make up the person more than his readiness to give with great liberality. Thus Ben Sira sketches the anthropological contours of those who seek for wisdom, helping to understand, beyond the particulars of the time, those structural elements which in all ages define the figure of the wise scribe. The pronounced counterposing of the humble of vv. 17-20 and the many who remain anchored to earthly things of v. 24 relates probably to the polemic between the attempt to rationalise the world of the sacred and with that God himself, the risk of that “intellectual pride” (as the happy expression of Di Lella defines it), the “detached critical attitude of Greek ‘wisdom’ which, unleashed from all convention, must have been particularly attractive”.28 The use of the term dia,noia in v. 24 seems to anticipate, in fact, the polemic which later on the book of Wisdom (cf. Wis 4:15: “The peoples see without understanding, they do not reflect on this thing / oiv de. laoi. ivdo,ntej kai. mh. noh,santej mhde. qe,ntej evpi. dianoi,a| to. toiou/to” [i.e. 28

HENGEL, Judaism and Hellenism, 291.

168

Angelo Passaro

the premature death of the just man], and 14:15) will raise against the process of divinising the young who have died prematurely – a diatribe that refers to educated and unprejudiced circles and refers to a custom well attested in the Greek world from the 4th century BC.29 Reading the Hebrew text of v. 24, however, one grasps the environmental contrast which marks the polemical targets of the charges of Ben Sira differently from the Greek text. One cannot disregard that the grandfather was aiming at part of the Jewish world exposed too much to particular ideological influences or to the sectarian practices of those who thought that they could foresee future events or know the secret forces of the cosmos. Can we be more detailed with regard to these addressees? The attempts made so far, which identify them with apocalyptic circles or with minority groups of priests who were opposed to the official priesthood or with elusive Enochic confraternities, require still further investigation, making use of the contributions of a multidisciplinary research which will furnish elements of knowledge as yet unknown. Beyond the polemical urgency, however, the reading of the sage, Ben Sira, has become the patrimony of Israel since centuries after, commenting on the Book of Job, similar words can be heard: “Do not seek things that are too much for you. Do not try to probe what is far from you; what is more marvellous than you, you can never know; what is hidden from you, do not try to discover. Seek to understand only what God has given you for your inheritance but do not be occupied with mystery” (Midrash on Job).

29

Cf. BASLEZ, The Author of Wisdom.

Son,

21a

21a

What is wonderful for you do not seek (Xrd). bWhat is hidden from you do not investigate (rqx)

abundant is the mercy of God, band to the humble (~ywn[) he reveals his secret (dws)

Things difficult for you do not seek, bthings too great for you do not investigate

20a Because

Humble yourself (X[m) before (lkm) the great things of the age band before God you will find mercy (~xr)

son, in your wealth live (= walk: $lh: hithp.) with MODESTY (hwn[b) band you will be loved more than he who gives presents

17a My

Ms A

Because great is the power of the Lord, band by the humble (tapeino,w) he is glorified

20a

Many are the lofty and famous, bbut his mysteries (musth,ria) he reveals to the humble.

19a

The greater you are, humble yourself the more (tapeino,w), band before God you will find grace (ca,rij)

18a

direct your actions (= act) with meekness (evn prau tr'AT is here not seen primarily as a body of juridical texts, but rather as the perfect expression of God’s will and providence, and Ps 1 wants to induce the reader of the Psalter to obedience and confidence. In the Psalter however, the meaning of torah cannot be established so unequivocally; its semantic spectrum oscillates between two poles. On the one hand, torah can mean “law”, understood not necessarily as the Mosaic Law but rather as the divine guide for life,7 and on the other hand it can mean “instruction”, understood as divine revelation including its historical manifestation.8 In Ps 1 torah appears as something desirable which a person should constantly appropriate in his or her way of life because God-given happiness depends just on this. This outlook on torah not only implies its normative character, but it also seems to imply that torah exists in some written form (Deut 17:19), even when its precise contents remain vague.9 Ps 19 dedicates a well-constructed strophe10 to the torah, Ps 19:8-11, in which it is understood not as a series of commandments ordering or forbidding something, but rather as a life-enhancing revelation of the divine will. Torah is not about obedience but it intends to bring about a personal relationship between God and a human being. In fulfilling the torah a person achieves 6

7

8

9

10

CERESKO, Psalmists and Sages, 209: “a spirituality of the Torah has been inserted into the framework of the Psalter as a whole, and is one of the foremost guidelines of interpretation of the book, a real key to its understanding. One example of the redactional activity that has given this slant to the Psalter is the placing of Psalms 1 and 119, called ‘torah psalms’ because of their emphasis on ‘torah’ or ‘law, instruction’, at pivotal points in the collection” (with reference to: DE PINTO, The Torah and the Psalms, 174). Cf. MAYS, The Place of the Torah-psalms, 11: “Those who were at work in the final shaping and arrangement of the Psalter were completely committed to the torah as the divinely willed way of life”. Cf. e.g. KRAUS, Theologie der Psalmen, 202: “hrwth ist nicht das ‘das Gesetz’, sondern ‘die Weisung’, die gnädige Willensäußerung Jahwes, die dem Menschen begegnet und ihm einen Weg absteckt, der weder zur Rechten noch zur Linken verlassen werden soll”. GARCÍA LÓPEZ, hrwt, 619: “Über deren Inhalt [sc. d. Torah] sind aber nur vage Aussagen zu machen. Man könnte vermuten, daß es sich hier um den Pent. handelt oder um einen größeren Teil at.lichen Schriften. ‘In seiner Eigenschaft als Proömium zum Psalter allerdings schließt der Begriff hrwt auf jeden Fall, und zwar sogar in erster Linie, die Schriftrolle der Psalmen in sich’ (H.-J. Kraus, BK XV/15, 136)”. ALONSO SCHÖKEL, Treinta salmos, 98: “una regularidad casi exasperante”.

A common background of Ben Sira and the Psalter

199

his or her true destiny.11 Ps 119 is an complex literary composition in which torah is used along with a series of synonyms (tWd[e, ~ydiWQPi, hw'cm. ,i hr'ma. ,i jp'vm. ,i qAx, rb'd,' xr;a,{ $r,d), . Apart from a short introduction, Ps 119 is a prayer of the most personal kind: “I” and “me” occur in it more than 240 times. With regard to the meaning of torah (always employed in singular!) it is remarkable that not a single pentateuchal law is referred to. Whybray has given a useful description of the characteristics of torah in Ps 119.12 First, it can be deduced from a number of verbs of which torah is the direct object, that it is understood as a written document, for it is e.g. “recounted” (Ps 119:13, rPes)i , guidance is “sought from” it (Ps 119:45.94, vr'D)' , and it is “meditated upon” (Ps 119:15.23.48.78.99, x:yfi). Secondly, another set of expressions portray torah as something which the psalmist is not, or not yet enough, familiar with but which is of great importance to him; e.g. he “waits for” it (Ps 119:43.81.114, lx;y)I and “longs for” it (Ps 119:40.131.174, baey' ba;T)' . A third aspect of torah is encountered in the frequent request of the psalmist that God should ‘teach’ him (Ps 119:12.26.64.66.68.108.124.135.171, dM;l;i 119:27.34. 73.125.130.144.169, !ybih)] : it appears, however, that he is not after superficial or material knowledge but looking for a deeper understanding of something with which he is already familiar. The vocabulary used in these requests speaks of a wisdom piety; the psalmist wants to understand the “way” (Ps 119:27, $r dzE

32:18

rb'D" l[;pT. i la; hc'[e aOlB. @C'qt; T. i la; ^yf,[m} ; rx;aw; >

32:19

%leTe la; tvoqA. m %r

32:20

@t,xm' i %r bo W. ^v,pn. : rAmv. ^yf,[m} -; lk'B. hw"cm. i rmeAv hz< hf,A[ yKi Avp.n: rmeAv hr"AT rceAn

32:22 32:23

vAbyE aOl yyyB. x;jAe bW [r" [G:py. I aOl yyy arEy> jl;mn. wI > bv'w: yWSynIb. ~ai yKi hr"At anEAf ~K;xy. < aOl ynIAa hr'[S' m. ki . jjeAmt.mwi > rb'D" !ybiy" !Abn: vyai hn"ma' n/ < ~yrIWak. Atr"two >

32:24

33:1 33:2 33:3

A wise person does not conceal insight an arrogant person and scorner does not accept TORAH. Without counsel do not do (any)thing and (thus) after your deeds you will not enrage20 yourself. On a road (full) of snares do not walk and you will not stumble over (a stumbling-) block21 twice. Do not be confident on a road on account of robbery22 but on your paths be warned. In all your doings watch yourself (: be careful) for (the one) who does this observes the commandment. (One) who keeps (the) TORAH watches himself (: is careful) and (one) who trusts in the LORD will not be ashamed. (One) who fears the LORD will not encounter evil except in trial, but he will turn around23 and be saved. (One) who hates (the) TORAH will not become wise but he will be shaken as a fleet by storm-wind. An intelligent person will discern (any)thing24 and his TORAH is secure (believeable) as the Urim.

On the basis of the presence of imperatives in Sir 32:19-23 and participles and/or indicatives in Sir 32:14-18 and 32:24–33:3 we divide this pericope in three strophes of 5 – 4 – 4 verses. In both the first and the third strophe hr"AT

20

21

22 23

24

For the meaning of “to enrage oneself” see Isa 8:21 (the only occurrence of the hithpael of %f[ in Biblical Hebrew); BEENTJES, The Hebrew Texts, 58, suggests “to grieve, to have regrets” following the Greek metame,lomai. Lit. “blow”, but see Prov 3:23 and esp. Isa 8:14 where @g