§ 3. THE ORIGINAL HEBREW TEXT

Apart from a few scattered citations in the Talmudic and post-Talmudic Jewish literature the Book of Ben-Sira was, until recent years, known only in the two principal ancient translations of it, viz. the Greek and Syriac versions, and the secondary versions based thereon. The disappearance of the Hebrew MSS. of the book may be explained as due, ultimately, to its exclusion from the Canon, for which early rabbinical evidence exists.3 In spite of such exclusion, however, the book long retained its popularity in Jewish circles,4 and in Jerome’s time apparently MSS. of the Hebrew text were still accessible in Palestine. In his preface to the Books of Solomon, Jerome expressly mentions one of these which he had in his possession: ‘Quorum priorem—sc. Iesu filii Sirach librum—Hebraicum reperi.’ In the succeeding centuries, down to the eleventh, the book was still freely quoted in a Hebrew (and also an Aramaic) form. One of the most interesting references to the existence of copies of the Hebrew text is made by Sa‛adya, Gaon of Bagdad (a.d. 920), who states that vowel-points and accents—usually reserved only for canonical writings—were to be found in copies of Ben-Sira.5 Sa‛adya also cites some seven (or eight) genuine sayings of Ben-Sira in classical Hebrew. Of the existence of the book in Spain, Provence, or among the Rabbis of France, the Rhineland, and Germany, there is no direct trace. The Hebrew text was apparently unknown (or at least inaccessible) to Rashi, the Tosafists, and even to Maimonides,6 and seems to have completely vanished from knowledge in the eleventh century. The recovery of large portions of it has been one of the most striking discoveries of recent years.