ספר בן-סירא בקומראן

This short article refers to the chapter of M. Baillet in the new volume of "Discoveries in the Judean Desert" (vol. III, pp. 75–77) on the fragments of the Hebrew Ecclesiasticus discovered in the second cave at Qumrân (Q). After expressing disappointment at the painfully slender remnants recovered from the cave, the writer gives a brief resumé of the chapter with some observations of his own. The writer holds that in line 3 (v. 22) נכח should be pointed נכח, as in xi 21 (26). This is the opposite of עקובה in line 1 (or עקב, Isaiah xl 4, Jeremiah xvii 9). In reference to M. Baillet's dating of the remnants in the second half of the first century ante, the writer mentions a quotation from the Book of Ben-Sira attributed by the Rabbis to Simeon ben Shetaḥ in a conversation with King Janneus (J. Berakoth vii 2, and parallels) which shows that the book was familiar in those days. M. Baillet finds that the text of 2Q was arranged in two parallel columns as in MS B of the Geniza (and it may be added, as also in MS E, the fragment discovered by J. Marcus). The writer sees in this arrangement evidence of the honour accorded to the book by the Qumrân sect, though the spirit of the book was hardly sympathetic to the tenets of the sect. But the book shared with the sect the belief in the divine election of the house of Zadok for the priesthood; cf. L1 29 (in my edition p. שנה), and the glorification of the Zadokite Simeon in ch. L. This may explain the regard of the sect for Ben-Sira. Finally the writer criticises M. Baillet's statement that this arrangement of the text common to 2Q and to MS B (and E) provides support for the theory that the Geniza fragments were copied from a Qumrân text brought from the caves in the 8th century when according to a report the caves were accidently discovered as in our own days. The assumption of this theory hat Ben-Sira's book was lost and unknown to the Jews during the many centuries from the Qumrân sect and the 8th century is refuted by historical facts. The Geniza MSS and also the original Hebrew text underlying the Syriac version contain numerous verses composed in Mishnaic Hebrew as distinguished from the biblical Hebrew of the same verses in the Greek version, and from the usual bibilcal style of the rest of the book. These Mishnaic verses obviously belong to a later stage in the development of the text which proves the existence and the spread of the book in Talmudic times. This is fully confirmed by the widespread and profound influence which the book exercised upon the Talmudic and Midrashic literature and on the Jewish liturgy, as detailed in the Introduction to the writer's edition of the book (Sepher Ben-Sira ha-Shalem, pp. 62 ff.). The truth is that, like innumerable other MSS in the Cairo Geniza, the MSS of Ben-Sira were made by impecunious scribes in the eastern Jewish diaspora from texts extant in their locality for sale to wealthy booklovers in Egypt where their remnants finally found a resting place in the store chamber attached to the Synagogue for disused sacred writings. MS B certainly originated in Persia, as shown by the Persian notes in the margin.