Ben Sira

It spoke about the cultural and political changes in the Jewish, that affected the Jewish culture in the diaspora.

About 100 years later, his grandson, also called Sir Ben, who translated this into Greek for the sake of the people of Israel who were in the diaspora.

And it spoke about forgiveness.

Ben Sirach said, look, emotions come up among us.

Emotions are neither good nor bad, but the actions that we do affect not only ourselves, but affect the whole tribe.

We see somebody that is hurt, or somebody close to us that is hurt, and emotions of anger, of revenge, of justice, of harming the other person, rise to the front.

Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

chapters 1 through 5 of The Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, Dewey Reams Version.

the prologue the knowledge of many and great things hath been shown us by the law and the prophets and others that have followed them for which things israel is to be commended for doctrine and wisdom because not only they that speak must needs be skilful but strangers also both speaking and writing may by their means become most learned my grandfather jesus after he had much given himself to a diligent reading of the law and the prophets and other books that were delivered to us from our fathers had a mind also to write something himself pertaining to doctrine and wisdom that such as are desirous to learn and are made knowing in these things may be more and more attentive in mind and be strengthened to live according to the law i entreat you therefore to come with benevolence and to read with attention and to pardon us for those things wherein we may seem while we follow the image of wisdom to come short in the composition of words for the hebrew words have not the same force in them when translated into another tongue and not only these but the law also itself and the prophets and the rest of the books have no small difference when they are spoken in their own language for in the eighth and thirteenth year coming into egypt when ptolemy evergetz was king and continuing there a long time i found there books left of no small or contemptible learning therefore i thought it good and necessary for me to bestow some diligence and labor to interpret this book and with much watching and study in some space of time i brought the book to an end and set it forth for the service of them that are willing to apply their mind and to learn how they ought to conduct themselves who purpose to lead their life according to the law of the lord chapter 1 all wisdom is from the lord god and hath been always with him and is before all time who hath numbered the sand of the sea and the drops of rain and the days of the world who hath measured the height of heaven and the breadth of the earth and the depth of the abyss who has searched out the wisdom of god that goeth before all things wisdom hath been created before all things and the understanding of prudence from everlasting the word of god on high is the fountain of wisdom and her ways are everlasting commandments to whom hath the root of wisdom been revealed and who hath known her wise counsels to whom hath the discipline of wisdom been revealed and made manifest and who hath understood the multiplicity of her steps there is one most high creator almighty and a powerful king and greatly to be feared who sitteth upon his throne and is the god of dominion he created her in the holy ghost and saw her and numbered her and measured her and he poured her out upon all his works and upon all flesh according to his gift and hath given her to them that love him the fear of the lord is honour and glory and gladness and a crown of joy the fear of the lord shall delight the heart and shall give joy and gladness and length of days with him that feareth the lord it shall go well in the latter end and in the day of his death he shall be blessed the love of god is honourable wisdom and they to whom she shall show herself love her by the sight and by the knowledge of her great works the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom and was created with the faithful in the womb it walketh with chosen women and is known with the just and faithful the fear of the lord is the religiousness of knowledge religiousness shall keep and justify the heart it shall give joy and gladness it shall go well with him that feareth the lord and in the days of his end he shall be blessed to fear god is the fulness of wisdom and fulness is from the fruits thereof she shall fill all her house with her increase and the storehouses with her treasures the fear of the lord is a crown of wisdom filling up peace and the fruit of salvation and it hath seen and numbered her but both are the gifts of god wisdom shall distribute knowledge and understanding of prudence and exalteth the glory of them that hold her the root of wisdom is to fear the lord and the branches thereof are long lived in the treasures of wisdom is understanding and religiousness of knowledge but to sinners wisdom is

an abomination

You've got it dramatically in Malachi chapter 3, "The Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple." And this is the promise that God will come back, because I remember once asking William Horbury in Cambridge, one of the great Second Temple scholars of this last generation.

I said, "William, tell me, is there anywhere in Second Temple literature which says that the glory of the Lord has actually come back to the temple?" And William thought for a moment and said, "No, not really." He said, "The only place you might say is the end of Ben Sira," the book we sometimes call Ecclesiasticus, where the vision of the high priest in the temple is almost like a divine visitation.

Though, of course, by the 160s BC, nobody much was taking Ben Sira seriously because of what had happened with the Syrian, uh, invasion and so on.

Um, so you've still got this promise in abeyance.

The, the, the, the long story, the earth shall be full of the glory of the Lord, and the very focused story that one day God has promised to come back in person.

So the book of the 12.

So in the writings of Ben Sira, in the book of Sirach, we see a reference to the 12.

And I'm going to go ahead and read that.

This comes from Sirach chapter 49, verse 10.

That's the great Hebrew word, shuv, to return back to God, repent, to turn back to God.

That was always the hope of the 12 prophets, that they would shape up.

Um, and, uh, and so I think Ben Sira is definitely onto something here.

He's, he's seeing beyond or seeing through these misperceptions of the prophets and saying, actually, they were, they were agents of hope.

But even today, the idea of the emotions is not terribly well defined, which is quite interesting when you contextualize it in this setting of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Can you comment on the book of Sirach with respect to the fear of God and the acquisition of wisdom?

Sure.

Sirach, chapter 1, verses 11 through 21.

Sure.

So that's a fascinating text about the fear of God, right? There's a bit of a linguistic thing to point out because...

Thanks to the Cairo Geniza and the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have access to the Book of Sirach or Ben Sirach in Hebrew.

It was originally in Hebrew.

Um, we could speak about Job.

I think Job is a very interesting, um-- Perhaps, uh, perhaps this might be surprising to some people, but I, I think the fact that, um, we have an inversion in Job of what, um, traditional Hebrew instruction tends to look like because the way instruction is, um, is structured in, um, in Proverbs, in Ben Sira, in ancient Egyptian instruction literature, in Mesopotamian wisdom texts, is that you have a father or a father figure or a teacher, um, someone who is hierarchically above a subordinate who, um, is the speaker.

These are asymmetrical dialogues, right? Um, a speaker and, um, the listener does not respond.

There is no response.