Scribal culture in Ben Sira / / by Lindsey A. Askin.

• Author: Askin, Lindsey A.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill.; c2018.
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 184.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (321 pages).

In Scribal Culture in Ben Sira Lindsey A. Askin examines scribal culture as a framework for analysing features of textual referencing throughout the Book of Ben Sira (c.198-175 BCE), revealing new insights into how Ben Sira wrote his book of wisdom. Although the title of “scribe” is regularly applied to Ben Sira, this designation presents certain interpretive challenges. Through comparative analysis, Askin contextualizes the sage’s compositional style across historical, literary, and socio-cultural spheres of operation. New light is shed on Ben Sira’s text and early Jewish textual reuse. Drawing upon physical and material evidence of reading and writing, Askin reveals the dexterity and complexity of Ben Sira’s sustained textual reuse. Ben Sira’s achievement thus demonstrates exemplary, “excellent” writing to a receptive audience.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- Copyright page -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Tools and Techniques of Scribal Culture: Materiality and Physicality of Reading and Writing -- Noah and Phinehas: Originality and Textual Reuse -- Hezekiah-Isaiah and Josiah: Multiple Source Handling and Harmonization -- On Weather: Nature-Lists and Ben Sira’s Use of Psalms and Job -- Death and the Body: Echoes of Job, Qohelet, and Ancient Perspectives -- The Physician and Piety: Textual Reuse and Perspectives on Medicine -- Conclusions -- Back Matter -- Editions and Translations Used -- Bibliography.