מגילות ים המלח ובן-סירא

The appearance of Ben Sira material from 11 Q and Massada vindicates the following prediction made by the writer in 1961: "Discovery of further Ben Sira texts in the Qumran area can be predicted with almost complete certainty." In "The Psalm Scroll of Qumran Cave 11", the Editor, J. A. Sanders, fails to identify several passages and terms which are clearly attributable to Ben Sira. His only identification concerns the "Canticle" (Ben Sira LI), but since it seems to him isolated among Psalms attributed to David, Sanders denies its Sirachide authorship. It is the thesis of this paper that close textual comparisons and exegetical analyses can properly be applied only to authorized biblical texts especially identified as scribal reference texts. Two categories of texts, therefore, cannot undergo the same scrutiny: 1) authorized biblical texts not intended as scribal reference texts and, 2) unauthorized (apocryphical) texts transmitted in non-scribal works. Consequently, it is not surprising that biblical quotations deviate from the Massoretic text in the Talmud (especially the Yerushalmi), Septuagint, New Testament, Passover Haggadah, etc. This does not pre-suppose a different Vorlage; the passages are simply quoted loosely for liturgic, legal, theological or other (but not scribal!) reasons. Consequently, the text of Ben Sira was handed down in a loose textual manner, resulting in several variants throughout the previously known sources (the Talmud and Midrash), as compared with the Cairo document discovered about 70 years ago. Likewise, we cannot expect to find faithful, literal transmission of Ben Sira passages in the 11 Q and Massada texts. Allowing for such natural deviations, we can trace a number of quotations from Ben Sira of undoubted Sirachide authorship throughout the 11 Q Psalm Scroll. Consequently, there is no reason to doubt that the Canticle, too, was always an integral part of the Book of Ben Sira. The 11 Q Psalm Scroll is a liturgical work and this fact allows for additional literary liberties, not only in the Ben Sira material, but also in the use of canonical Psalms. The occurrence of the Greek letter "Psi" in the Massada scroll may indicate passages which could be used in Psalm-like liturgical texts. The popularity of Ben Sira texts for inclusion in liturgical texts must have added to the factors which necessitated rabbinic safeguards against the book's inclusion in the Canon. Hence the rabbinic "ban" against the work applied to the mere "reading" of it — (the canonical Bible was also subject to a similar prohibition!) — but not against "interpreting" it (following the Midrash process). The purpose of this "ban" was to prevent the elevation of Ben Sira — as in Qumran — to pseudo-Biblical standing within the synagogal liturgy.