With All Your Soul Fear the Lord (Sir. 7:27): Collected Essays on the Book of Ben Sira II

In past decades the Book of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus, has

attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, both in its different

Hebrew and Greek versions, as well as in its Syriac and Latin form.

This volume opens with a quick overview of two much discussed topics.

Is Ben Sira supposed to be a priest? And in what way does Ben Sira

correlate Wisdom and Torah?

It is followed by a section in which specific passages are studied. It

contains texts relating to Lady Wisdom, the Patriarchs, Elijah, Ben

Sira’s rereading of the primeval narratives.

The next part is an inquiry into Ben Sira’s use of books from the Hebrew

Bible in process of formation and his view of some major theological

notions from Deuteronomistic heritage.

The last section covers topics such as apocalypticism, friendship, Philo

and Ben Sira, Augustine’s sermons on Ben Sira, and a striking type of

intertextuality discovered in this writing.