![]() In the end, as noted above, pages from six separate manuscripts were discovered. In the ensuing years, at the close of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, more and more folios of Ben Sira from the Cairo Genizah were identified by scholars. ![]() 1102 (=Manuscript B, IX recto and IX verso), is prominently displayed on the home page of this website, along with the handwritten note from Dr Schechter to Mrs Lewis informing her that the manuscript page ‘represents a piece of the original Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus’ (underscore in Schechter’s letter). This document, bearing the shelfmark CUL Or. According to the now well-known story, when the British scholar-travelers and twin sisters Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson brought back Hebrew documents obtained in Cairo, and then showed one of them to Solomon Schechter (then Reader in Rabbinics at the University of Cambridge), the great scholar identified the first leaf of the Hebrew original of Ben Sira to come to light in the modern era. To our great fortune, portions of six medieval manuscripts were discovered in the Cairo Genizah, commencing in 1896. Notwithstanding these testimonies to the use of Ben Sira by Jews during the late antique and medieval periods, because Ben Sira was not canonized in the Jewish tradition, the Hebrew original eventually was lost. ![]() In addition, there are resonances of Ben Sira in medieval Jewish poetry, most famously in the piyyuṭ מראה כהן ‘The Appearance of the Priest’, recited during the Musaf service on Yom Kippur, with clear echoes of the description of the high priest in Ben Sira, ch. The work was known to the rabbinic tradition, and indeed Ben Sira is cited in the Talmud and related literature on about a dozen occasions. In time, the book of Ben Sira, via its Greek and then later translations, became part of the Christian Bible, where it is known as either Sirach (in Greek) or Ecclesiasticus (in Latin). The grandson also presents the name of his grandfather as Iesous, the Greek version of Yeshuaʿ, in conformity with the name presented at 50:27 (see above). We know this specific information, for it is our good fortune that the grandson included an extended prologue to the book, in which he provides the specific date (to wit, year 38 of the reign of Euergetes). The book was translated into Greek by the author’s grandson in Egypt (almost undoubtedly in Alexandria) in 132 B.C.E., during the reign of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II. Its closest analogue within the biblical canon is the book of Proverbs, from which Ben Sira draws much of its inspiration. The composition is a collection of proverbs and teachings, written in poetry, within the well-known and widespread ancient Near Eastern tradition of wisdom literature. ![]() by a sage in Jerusalem bearing the name שמעון בן ישוע בן אלעזר בן סירא Shim‘on ben Yeshua‘ ben ’El‘azar ben Sira (to cite the name of the author as presented in Manuscript B at 50:27, 51:30), or Yeshua‘ ben ’El‘azar ben Sira (via the Greek version at 50:27) – but which has come down to us, regardless of the specific forenames, as simply Ben Sira (again, see Manuscript B at 51:30: שנקרא בן סירא ‘who is called Ben Sira’). The book of Ben Sira was composed in Hebrew c. Welcome to the website devoted to the ancient and medieval Hebrew manuscripts of the book of Ben Sira.
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