The relationship between manuscripts A, B, D and the marginal readings of manuscript B of Ben Sira

The relationship between the Hebrew manuscripts of Ben Sira has long been a riddle for scholars. In his seminal article on The Evolution of the Hebrew Text of Ben Sira, published in 1934, Moshe Segal came to the conclusion that the material provided by these short and fragmentary parallel passages is too scanty to enable us to establish a classification of the Hebrew MSS. on the basis of their textual character. In this study I would like to reassess the intricate question of the relationship between the Hebrew manuscripts of Ben Sira by limiting myself to manuscripts A, B and D with special attention to the numerous and characteristic marginal notations of manuscript B and their relationship to other manuscripts.