An Essay on the Place of Ecclesiasticus in Semitic Literature

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Excerpt from An Essay on the Place of Ecclesiasticus in Semitic Literature: Being the Inaugural Lecture Among the many merits of Dr. Hatch's Studies in Biblical Greek, not the least consists in his having called attention to the interesting problems connected with the text of Ecclesiasticus, a field into which he invites collaborateurs. Those problems are indeed peculiarly interesting. We have two independent versions in Syriac and in Greek, each made from a Semitic original, and the Greek version exists in several different recensions, embodying progressive revisions by persons who had the original before them, and there is a third version in Latin, in a remarkable dialect, really a farrago of several versions, one of which gives independent testimony concerning the original, whether directly or indirectly obtained. Besides these versions there are many quotations and reminiscences in the Rabbinical literature, which, if they make little claim to accuracy, give help and guidance in estimating the other evidence. Now if the translators had done their work well, we should have known exactly what Ben-Sira meant, but have had no clue to what he wrote. As the case stands, they have done their work so badly, notably the Syrian translator, that there are few verses in which some scrap of the original does not appear through the versions, for it is rare that more than one Hebrew word can be represented in the same two ways, although the imperfection of the Semitic writing leads to greater ambiguities than would be possible in a Western document. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.