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14 - Ben Sira
from Part III - Wisdom Literature beyond the Hebrew Bible
- By Seth A. Bledsoe
Edited by Katherine J. Dell, University of Cambridge
Edited in association with Suzanna R. Millar, University of Edinburgh, Arthur Jan Keefer
Book:

The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Wisdom Literature

Published online:

28 July 2022

Print publication:

09 June 2022, pp 261-282
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Summary

Seth Bledsoe introduces the 2nd century BCE wisdom book of Ben Sira. While not forming part of the Tanakh or Protestant Old Testament, Ben Sira appears in the LXX and subsequently the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons. The book presents itself as the words of a well-educated scribe, and draws on both Jewish and Greek traditions. Central to the book is Wisdom, which is intimately connected to creation, fear of the Lord, Torah, and tradition. It also contains advice on practical matters, such as finance (it both respects wealth and advocates generosity) and relations with women (it is in places decided misogynistic). Although generally optimistic that good deeds will lead to positive consequences, Ben Sira also grapples with the problems of theodicy and death, concluding that righteous persons can live on through the legacy of a good name.

Knowledge and Power, Religious and Secular
Douglas Yoder
Published online:

28 April 2020

Print publication:

21 May 2020
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In this volume, Douglas Yoder uses the tools of modern and postmodern philosophy and biblical criticism to elucidate the epistemology of the Tanakh, the collection of writings that comprise the Hebrew Bible. Despite the conceptual sophistication of the Tanakh, its epistemology has been overlooked in both religious and secular hermeneutics. The concept of revelation, the genre of apocalypse, and critiques of ideology and theory are all found within or derive from epistemic texts of the Tanakh. Yoder examines how philosophers such as Spinoza, Hume, and Kant interacted with such matters. He also explores how the motifs of writing, reading, interpretation, image, and animals, topics that figure prominently in the work of Derrida, Foucault, and Nietzsche, appear also in the Tanakh. An understanding of Tanakh epistemology, he concludes, can lead to new appraisals of religious and secular life throughout the modern world.

Scriptural Reasoning: Its Anglican Origins, its Development, Practice and Significance
David F. Ford
Journal:

Journal of Anglican Studies / Volume 11 / Issue 2 / November 2013

Published online by Cambridge University Press:

27 September 2013, pp. 147-165
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Scriptural Reasoning is the study and discussion of Tanakh, Bible and Qur'an together, usually by Jews, Christians and Muslims. On its Christian side it has had strong Anglican participation since it began in the mid-1990s. This article recounts its origins and development (including its spread beyond the academy and to many countries, including China); offers guidelines for its practice; discusses four key publications that offer Anglican theological understandings of it; summarizes its significance; and proposes that it be practised more widely in the Anglican Communion. The article concludes with meditative and prophetic postscripts.