MSB of Sirach (in English)

Since working in the Epistle of James for my thesis, I’ve gained an appreciation for the Wisdom of Sirach. (There are several passages in James that reflect similar thought and may even be dependent on specific passages in Sirach. See this post.) Though I am Protestant, I wish it were in my canon! http://bibleworks.oldinthenew.org/wp...icon_smile.gif A few months ago I converted Cowley & Neubauer’s English translation of the Original Hebrew of a Portion of Ecclesiasticus (Oxford: Clarendon, 1897) into a BibleWorks version. This is a translation of Hebrew Manuscript B of Sirach.

For more information about MS B, see my blog post at Old in the New. In that post I also link to PDF scans of the original work (one for viewing on screen and one for printing).

The English transcription I used to make the BibleWorks version originated at the Sacred Texts site (here).

I have not yet had a chance to closely check the versification or to map the verses correctly to the LXX or NRSV, still the file is functional.
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wow, great...thanks...
i am working on Sirach for my thesis...

Accordance has a module put together by Martin Abegg that contains the tagged text of all existent Hebrew manuscripts of Sirach (the module's called BENSIRA-C). It came in very handy during my thesis writing time.

So, I wonder how hard it will be to convince the folks here at BW that this would be a helpful text to have!

Oh, and if you're interested in looking at the Syriac text of Sirach, Nuria Calduch-Benages, Joan Ferrer and Jan Liesen put together an edition that includes the Syriac text of Codex Ambrosianus along with translations in English and Spanish.

Black & white photos of Codex Ambrosianus are available online. (See here. You'll need to use the username "any" and the password "any".)

Nuría Calduch-Benages, Joan Ferrer & Jan Liesen, La Sabiduría del Escriba / Wisdom of the Scribe (Estella [Navarra], Spain: Editorial Verbo Divino, 2003). ISBN:84-8169-517-3 / WorldCat / Publisher

http://www.verbodivino.es/documentos/libros/951.jpg

Thank you Jim - I know sister Nuria and I already have her book (and most of the major commentaries and important texts for the study of Ben Sira), but it is always good to have electronic editions of texts since they facilitate analysis and research. I have also downloaded the photos of Codex Ambrosianus available online, but I have tried getting the electronic edition of the Syriac text by writing to Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon – on their site they have most of the Peshitta texts online, but Ben Sira is missing. I hope I’ll find one day the Syriac text of Ben Sira –otherwise I’ll make my own one.

By the way if you are still inteested in Sirach and syriac, there were once on Google books these two books:
1)Konkordanz zum hebräischen Sirach: Mit Syr.-hebrä. Index/im Auftr d. Bibl. Inst. D. Univ. Freiburg, Schweiz hrsg. Von D. Barthélemy U. O. Rickenbacher – which seems not available anymore, and

2)A concordance to the Peshitta version of Ben Sira by Di Michael M. Winter

That's too bad that those two books are no longer available!

Here are a few links to currently available full-view books in Google and the Internet Archive:

• http://tinyurl.com/sirach-googlebooks
• http://tinyurl.com/sirach-internetarchive

I was interested in finding the Syriac text of Sirach on the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon as well. In fact, when I saw that they did not have it, I suggested to people who run the CAL that they contact Sister Nuria about the text in La Sabiduría del Escriba. It does not look like the text has been added to the lexicon, however. :(

Perhaps if you know Sister Nuria, you could ask her for the electronic text of La Sabiduría del Escriba. Then the text could be converted into a BW file! If she gives you permission to distribute, we could make it available on the BibleWorks Blog!

The second book is still partially available on google books (http://books.google.it/books?id=A2dw...qXKlggJzKKnakQ), while I have never thought of asking sister Nuria for the text. Actually, the next time I’ll meet her, I’ll see what can be done. Since it is the Codex Ambrosianum text which is a public domain and posted on the internet, I don’t think the Syriac text should be a problem.

Does anyone know where I can find the Wisdom of Ben Sira in Hebrew as a text file? Or websites that I can copy and paste the Hebrew text? I am working on a project that needs to make use of Ben Sira in Hebrew. BW has the English translated version but not the original Hebrew version.

Thank you for anyone who will help.

A number of years ago there was a web site where the raw CCAT text of a Hebrew/Greek parallel Sirach was available. I started trying to separate out the Hebrew text, but it contained varients, and was formatted word for word instead of line by line, so I gave up. A couple years ago I went back to that site, but it no longer existed.
I did a Google search, and found "chapter 52" in Hebrew and English here:
www.sacred-texts.com/jud/ohpe/ohpe05.htm
As Jim Darlach wrote when he started this thread, he has posted a PDF version Ecclesiasticus 39:15-49:11 in Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, English and Greek here:
www.oldinthenew.org/pdf/cowley_neubauer.pdf
The latter can't be searched, copied, or pasted, but someone could transcribe it, and then make it available for Bibleworks. Anybody have the time to do that?
The request has been made multiple times for BW to find a Hebrew text of Sirach, since HALOT sites it extensively. But as of now I know of no progress on this. Others are probably more informed about this than I.
Mark Eddy

Raw CCAT parallel Hebrew-Greek text should be still available on Penn-U, but I cannot find the link at the moment ... and as far as I know this is the only text available online. Otherwise, your alternatives are Tov's parallel Hebrew-greek module for Libronix or Accordance Ben Sira module ... I think Jim has even made some bw module of chapters 39-49, ones mentioned by Mark, but you'll have to check this directly with Jim ...
P.S. If you need only a chapter or a certain pericope I can send you a text in searchable pdf.