In Scribal Culture in Ben Sira Lindsey A. Askin explores scribal culture as a framework for analysing features of textual referencing throughout the Book of Ben Sira (c.200 BCE), revealing new insights into how Ben Sira wrote his book of wisdom.
The scribes of ancient Israel are indeed the main figures behind the Hebrew Bible, and this book tells their story for the first time. Drawing comparisons with the scribal practices of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, van der Toorn details the methods, assumptions, and material means that gave rise to biblical texts. Traditionally seen as the copycats of antiquity, the scribes emerge here as the literate elite who held the key to the production and the transmission of texts.
In this book, Philip Zhakevich examines the technology of writing as it existed in the southern Levant during the Iron Age II period, after the alphabetic writing system had fully taken root in the region. Using the Hebrew Bible as its corpus and focusing on a set of Hebrew terms that designated writing surfaces and instruments, this study synthesizes the semantic data of the Bible with the archeological and art-historical evidence for writing in ancient Israel. The bulk of this work comprises an in-depth lexicographical analysis of Biblical Hebrew terms related to Israel’s writing technology. Employing comparative Semitics, lexical semantics, and archaeology, Zhakevich provides a thorough analysis of the origins of the relevant terms; their use in the biblical text, Ben Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient Hebrew inscriptions; and their translation in the Septuagint and other ancient versions. The final chapter evaluates Israel’s writing practices in light of those of the ancient world, concluding that Israel’s most common form of writing (i.e., writing with ink on ostraca and papyrus) is Egyptian in origin and was introduced into Canaan during the New Kingdom. Comprehensive and original in its scope, Scribal Tools in Ancient Israel is a landmark contribution to our knowledge of scribes and scribal practices in ancient Israel. Students and scholars interested in language and literacy in the first-millennium Levant in particular will profit from this volume.
Ancient Readers and their Scriptures explores the ways that ancient Jews and Christians interpreted the Hebrew Bible in antiquity, focusing on the processes of reading that are preserved in the textual and material record of the corpora that engage Jewish scripture.
For many years it has been recognized that the key to explaining the production of the Bible lies in understanding the profession, the practice and the mentality of scribes in the ancient Near East, classical Greece and the Greco-Roman world. In many ways, however, the production of the Jewish literary canon, while reflecting wider practice, constitutes an exception because of its religious function as the written "word of God", leading in turn to the veneration of scrolls as sacred and even cultic objects in themselves. "Writing the Bible" brings together the wide-ranging study of all major aspects of ancient writing and writers. The essays cover the dissemination of texts, book and canon formation, and the social and political effects of writing and of textual knowledge. Central issues discussed include the status of the scribe, the nature of 'authorship', the relationship between copying and redacting, and the relative status of oral and written knowledge. The writers examined include Ilimilku of Ugarit, the scribes of ancient Greece, Ben Sira, Galen, Origen and the author of Pseudo-Clement.
How did Jews understand sacred writing before the concepts of "Bible" and "book" emerged? The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity challenges anachronistic categories to reveal new aspects of how ancient Jews imagined written revelation-a wildly varied collection stretching back to the dawn of time, with new discoveries always around the corner.
The Book of Ben Sira comes to us in a bewildering variety of ancient textual forms. Each version shows how the book was received and interpreted in a new situation and by another community of readers. The present volume contains studies by some of the best specialists in this field of research. Each of the ancient text forms of Ben Sira—Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin—is studied in its proper context and analysed in regard to what explains the typical changes it contains.
A comprehensive introduction to ancient wisdom literature, with fascinating essays on a broad range of topics. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Wisdom Literature is a wide-ranging introduction to the texts, themes, and receptions of the wisdom literature of the Bible and the ancient world. This comprehensive volume brings together original essays from established scholars and emerging voices to offer a variety of perspectives on the “wisdom” biblical books, early Christian and rabbinic literature, and beyond. Varied and engaging essays provide fresh insights on topics of timeless relevance, exploring the distinct features of instructional texts and discussing their interpretation in both antiquity and the modern world. Designed for non-specialists, this accessible volume provides readers with balanced coverage of traditional biblical wisdom texts, including Proverbs, Job, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes; lesser-known Egyptian and Mesopotamian wisdom; and African proverbs. The contributors explore topics ranging from scribes and pedagogy in ancient Israel, to representations of biblical wisdom literature in contemporary cinema. Offering readers a fresh and interesting way to engage with wisdom literature, this book: Discusses sapiential books and traditions in various historical and cultural contexts Offers up-to-date discussion on the study of the biblical wisdom books Features essays on the history of interpretation and theological reception Includes essays covering the antecedents and afterlife of the texts Part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion series, the Companion to Wisdom Literature is a valuable resource for university, seminary and divinity school students and instructors, scholars and researchers, and general readers with interest in the subject.