Remarks on the Hebrew Text of Ben-Sira

Abstract

ABOUT two thirds of the Hebrew text of Ben-Sira have now been discovered (most of chapters 3-16, 30-32, 35-51, and parts of other chapters)-enough to justify a provisional opinion as to its character. The heated discussions of the last five years appear to have ceased, and a consensus of judgment is gradually being reached. The view is gaining ground that the fragments discovered represent a genuine Hebrew text, but a very corrupt one-a text that has passed through many hands, has suffered a variety of fortunes, and only to a limited extent furthers the reconstruction of the original book.' The hypothesis that the Hebrew text, as a whole, is a retranslation from the Syriac or from the Greek or from both these, can hardly be maintained. The opposite view is supported by the following facts: (1) In a number of cases the Hebrew is obviously independent of the Versions,2 and sometimes enables us to explain the erroneous readings of the latter.' (2) While there is often agreement between the Hebrew and one or both of the Versions, the agreement is so irregularly distributed (the Hebrew inclining now to the Greek, now to the Syriac, in the same paragraph and even in the same couplet), that to suppose the scribe to be a translator would be to credit him with a highly improbable catholicity or capriciousness, or with a still more improbable spirit of critical research. (3) In the majority of passages the style has the qualities of the old aphoristic literature-the condensation and the curtness (sometimes approaching obscurity) of Proverbs and