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Despite the attention that has already been paid to the theme of creation in the book of Sirach, scholarship has yet to provide a comprehensive analysis of Ben Sira's instruction regarding the cosmic order and its role in the divine bestowal of wisdom upon human beings.This book, which consists of two parts, fills a lacuna in scholarship by offering such an analysis. The first part of this study examines Ben Sira's three main treatments of the created world, thus providing a comprehensive description and synthesis of Ben Sira's doctrine concerning the created order of the cosmos. The second part of this work analyzes the place of human beings in general, and the Jewish people in particular, within the cosmic order. This second part includes an analysis of the role of the created order in Ben Sira's wisdom instruction in 1:1-10 and 24:1-34 as well as an elucidation of the way in which his treatments of various kinds of people-civic leaders, wives, doctors, manual laborers, scribes, and cultic personnel-are integral to Ben Sira's doctrine of creation. This study demonstrates that the created order is a fundamental category that Ben Sira relies upon in articulating his instructions about wisdom and wise behavior.

Hebrew poetry, Biblical. --- Apocrypha. --- Ben Sira, Old Testament. --- Priesthood.

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The book investigates Ben Sira's attitudes toward all matters pertaining to sexuality in the context of family relations and gender issues. The author's seemingly negative attitude to women, the anxiety expressed in the discussions of marital and extramarital relations, and the disciplining of children can lead to the assumption that the work has a negative attitude toward sexuality. Ben Sira's book is a combination of carefully composed wisdom poems and of teachings on everyday issues, including marriage, family life, self-control, desires, and sexual promiscuity. The sage dedicates a greater number of passages than other wisdom books to the discussion of social relations especially in regard to family. In so doing his regular point of departure seems to be what benefits or damages these relations mean, and whether they bring disgrace to a person, especially through sexuality. In addition, we have to make a distinction between the attitudes of the writer of the original Hebrew text of the book and that of the Greek translator. The two texts, produced in different social settings, times and places, differ at times in regard to sexuality. This book examines the wisdom poems, some characterized by openness about issues of eroticism, and all sayings that concern matters pertaining to sexuality found in discussions of passions, family relations and gender issues, and warnings against sexual wrongdoing. All this is done with a special regard to the differences between the Hebrew original text and the Greek translation.

Families --- Sex role --- Sex --- Biblical teaching. --- Bible. --- Ben Sira. --- Family. --- Gender. --- Second Temple. --- Sexuality.

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Professor Maurice Gilbert SJ is widely acknowledged as one of the leading authorities on biblical wisdom literature, in particular the Book of Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon, on which he has produced many publications. This Festschrift, the third one in his honor, brings together twenty-four essays written by both established scholars who are friends and colleagues of Professor Gilbert and younger members of the field who wrote their doctoral dissertation under his guidance at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. There he was rector (1978-1984) and full professor until his retirement (1975-2011). The volume is divided into six main sections, focusing respectively on Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, and Psalms. Some essays display rigorous attention to textual and linguistic issues, whereas others deal with more theological questions (fear before God, joy in Qoheleth, arguments for justice in Wisdom of Solomon) or focus on the comparison between two books (for instance, Qoheleth and Sirach, Sirach and Genesis, Sirach and Tobit).

Wisdom literature --- Criticism, interpretation, etc. --- Ben Sira. --- Job. --- Proverbs. --- Psalms. --- Qohelet. --- wisdom literature.

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Gender in the Book of Ben Sira is a semantic analysis and, also, an investigation of hermeneutical pathways for performing such an analysis. A comparison of possible Greek and Hebrew gender taxonomies precedes the extensive delineation of the target-category, gender. The delineation includes invisible influences in the Book of Ben Sira such as the author's choices of genre and his situation as a member of a colonized group within a Hellenistic empire. When the Book of Ben Sira's genre-constrained invectives against women and male fools are excluded, the remaining expectations for women and for men are mostly equivalent, in terms of a pious life lived according to Torah. However, Ben Sira says nothing about distinctions at the level of how "living according to Torah" would differ for the two groups. His book presents an Edenic ideal of marriage through allusions to Genesis 1 to 4, and a substantial overlap of erotic discourse for the female figures of Wisdom and the "intelligent wife" creates tropes similar to those of the Song of Songs. In addition, Ben Sira's colonial status affects what he says and how he says it; by writing in Hebrew, he could craft the Greek genres of encomium and invective to carry multiple levels of meaning that subvert Hellenistic/Greek claims to cultural superiority.

Sex role --- Biblical teaching. --- Bible. --- Criticism, interpretation, etc. --- Ben Sira. --- Gender. --- Song of Songs. --- Wisdom.

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This volume contains the proceedings of the third international conference on the deuterocanonical literature organised by the Shime‘on Centre in Pápa, Hungary. Renowned international scholars of the field treat questions of text in the Book of Ben Sira, the underlying traditions and theological questions. In the first part, the authors deal with introductory problems of the complex oeuvre of Ben Sira; the second main part of the volume focuses primarily on the wisdom part of book; finally, the reader will find papers dealing with particular pericopae of the Praise of the Fathers section of Ben Sira.

Bible. --- Criticism, interpretation, etc. --- Congresses. --- 223.7 --- Wijsheid. Wijsheid van Jesus Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) --- Ben Sira (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Book of Ben Sira (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Book of Sirach (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Ecclesiasticus (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Ḥokhmat Shimʻon ben Sira (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Ḥokhmat Yehoshuʻa ben Sira (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Jesus Sirach (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Sefer Ben Sira (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Sefer Ḥokhmat Yehoshuʻa ben Sira (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Sirach (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Sirachbuch (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Wisdom of Ben Sira (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Wisdom of Sirach (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Words of Simeon ben Jeshua (Book of the Apocrypha) --- Conferences - Meetings --- Ben Sira --- Deuterocanonical books