Following a successful symposium held in Leiden in 1995 a second international gathering took place, also in Leiden, two years later. The volume contains revised papers covering a wide range of linguistic and textual subjects and presented by scholars from eight countries: Austria (Reiterer), Denmark (Ehrensvärd), France (Joosten), Israel (Fassberg, Hurvitz, Kister, Qimron), Netherlands (Baasten, Beentjes, Muraoka, van Peursen, van Uchelen, Wesselius), Spain (Pérez Fernández), UK (Aitken, Elwolde), USA (M. Smith). A subject index and an index locorum are included.

Following a successful symposium held in Leiden in 1995 a second international gathering took place, also in Leiden, two years later. The volume contains revised papers covering a wide range of linguistic and textual subjects and presented by scholars from eight countries: Austria (Reiterer), Denmark (Ehrensvärd), France (Joosten), Israel (Fassberg, Hurvitz, Kister, Qimron), Netherlands (Baasten, Beentjes, Muraoka, van Peursen, van Uchelen, Wesselius), Spain (Pérez Fernández), UK (Aitken, Elwolde), USA (M. Smith). A subject index and an index locorum are included.

Now available from SBL Press Thirteen essays, some in German and others in English, tackle the complicated history of textual transmission of Sirach. This book presents the proceedings of an international conference held in 2014 in Eichstaett, Germany on the text of Ben Sira within its historical contexts.Contributors include James K. Aitken, Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, Franz Böhmisch, Anthony J. Forte SJ, Jan Joosten, Otto Kaiser, Siegfried Kreuzer, Jean-Sébastien Rey, Werner Urbanz, Knut Usener, Oda Wischmeyer, Markus Witte, Benjamin G. Wright, and Burkard M. Zapff. Features: A sociocultural and theological history of Sirach Philological and textual problems of the Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions Translation strategies based on Greek, Syriac, and Latin text traditions and related hermeneutical questions

The present exegitical study of the Hebrew and Greek texts of Sirach 50 provides an impressive illustration of Israels religion from 200-132 BCE, offering two pictures of Simon the High Priest, one by Ben Sira and one by his grandson.

Of Scribes and Sages focuses primarily on early interpretation of Scripture, including the emergence of Scripture as Scripture in its various versions and contexts. It examines recent research into the relationship of the Old Testament to the New and how sacred Scripture was interpreted during New Testament times. It also provides stimulating examples to students, scholars, and clergy in how the task of interpretation is to be done.

4QSama is the Qumran scroll of 1 and 2 Samuel written in c. 200 BC in Hebrew Herodian script. The surviving fragments allow a faithful glimpse of about 60% of the Hebrew Samuel at the dawn of the birth of Christianity. The book is divided into three sections: 1) Plates showing the handwork of the author in replicating the fragments and restoring the gaps between them. 2) An apparatus giving the variants of the restored text from the traditional Hebrew Bible and the justification for the restoration. 3) A table comparing text breaks in the scroll with those of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint. The book is a source work for the upcoming revised critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, viz. Biblia Hebraica Quinta. New translations of the books of 1 and 2 Samuel will use it as source or include notes to its variant readings at page bottom or in the margins. Furthermore, it may serve as textbook for students of Hebrew and Greek in their coursework on Samuel and/or Dead Sea Scroll compositions.

This volume explores the language and poetic structure of the seven non-Masoretic poems preserved in the Dead Sea Scroll labeled 11Q5 or 11QPsa. It presents fresh readings of the Hebrew poems, which were last studied intensively almost fifty years ago, stressing their structural and conceptual coherence and incorporating insights gained from the scholarship of recent decades. Each chapter addresses a single poem and describes its poetic structure, including its use of parallelism and allusion to scripture, as well as specific problems related to the poem's interpretation. In addition, the book considers these poems in relation to what they reveal about the development of Hebrew poetry in the late Second Temple period.