The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

The Book of Sirach raises many questions: philological, exegetical, literary, historical, theological. There were even confessional questions which divided the traditions of synagogues and churches. It is, therefore, a fascinating book, located on the edges of the canon. Does the book attempt to repair the harm done by the erosive criticism of Job and Qoheleth, or is it the work of a thoughtful interpreter who, in a time of change, seeks to bear the tradition towards the new situation emerging from the Hellenistic Diaspora? Is it a book which aims at the restoration of the true faith against the autonomous questing of human wisdom, or is it merely a sincere, if shrewd, experiment at dialogue between the legitimate reasoning of the world and the wisdom given in the Law? According to a well-tried methodology of juxtaposing the specialists of different schools, this volume presents an up to date consideration of historical, exegetical and theological research.

The Book of Ben Sira comes to us in a bewildering variety of ancient textual forms. Each version shows how the book was received and interpreted in a new situation and by another community of readers. The present volume contains studies by some of the best specialists in this field of research. Each of the ancient text forms of Ben Sira—Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin—is studied in its proper context and analysed in regard to what explains the typical changes it contains.

"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.

The last four decades have seen a substantial progress in the study of the Book of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) on the literary, historical, theological, and sociological level. The discovery of the Hebrew Ben Sira Scroll at Masada in 1964 and the find of Hebrew Ben Sira fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls were crucial landmarks to encourage serious investigation into this deuterocanonical document. Nowadays the Book of Ben Sira, which originates from the early second Century B.C.E., is recognized more and more as being an outstanding document of Jewish wisdom literature and an important link between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Following a general introduction into the major topics of recent Ben Sira research, this volume offers a detailed study of several passages that are crucial to the book's history, its content and structure. Important theological issues, such as 'canon and scripture', 'prophets and prophecy', 'theodicee', and 'God's mercy', are discussed as well. This study concludes with some essays relating to the Hebrew text(s) of the Book of Ben Sira.

The apocryphal/deuterocanonical Wisdom of Ben Sira, written towards the beginning of the second century BCE, speaks more about friendship than any other book of the Hebrew Bible. Revising his 1996 doctoral dissertation for the Catholic University of America, Corley describes the seven major pericopes in which the sage, probably Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira, treats friendship. He also places the treatise in the historical and political context of second-temple Israel. Distributed by the Society of Biblical Literature. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The volume publishes the papers read at an international conference on the Book of Ben Sira, held at the Shime'on Centre, Pápa, Hungary. Renowned specialists of the field treat among others various questions of early Jewish wisdom thought, the interpretation of history, and canon forming.