The Other Jesus Who Wrote Scripture

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Rocking and rolling, living the dream. Living the la vida loca? All of the cliches you can think of are happening right now at the same time. I'm pretty excited because we're going to get into an Is It Canon?

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher We're looking at a book, Sirach, that I had not heard of until you suggested it as a topic, because I don't know a lot of things, and that's my job. My job is to drink and not know things. So, that's what we're going to get into.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I like it. It is still canon for plenty of people, so that's just my Protestant-ish raising that- Yeah ... kept me ignorant. So, let's dive into, Is It Canon?

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Here we go.

Dan McClellan Is It Canon?

Dan Beecher Sirach, or any of the myriad other- Yeah ... names for this book.

Dan McClellan Ben Sira. We got Sirach. We got Ecclesiasticus.

Dan Beecher Yeah. We got the Wisdom of Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sirach.

Dan McClellan Yeah. This is a book that seems to have been originally composed around 1 AD-ish BCE.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan The Hebrew original. Now, it was originally written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek by none other than the grandson of the author.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, this is a pretty cool text from Second Temple period Judaism, where we not only have an indication who the author is, we have no reason to doubt it. It's pretty straightforward. Yeah, this seems like this is accurate.

Dan Beecher Well, and we can date it properly, too. Unlike so many of the other books that we've talked about- Mm-hmm ... this one actually talks explicitly about a few things that we actually know the date of, so we can actually nail this one down. Is that right?

Dan McClellan Yes. So, in the prologue, the grandson says that his grandfather had come to Egypt in the 38th year of the reign of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes, and that would've been around 132 BCE.

Dan Beecher I'm sorry.

Dan McClellan The author's grandson, he came to Egypt- Yeah, that's the grandson ...

Dan Beecher 132.

Dan McClellan That's where Greek is a lot more common. So he was like, "Well, I've got to translate this thing." And so he has it translated probably, he says he finished it soon after the king's death, and we know that that king died around 116 BCE. So, the Greek translation that we have seems to have been finished around 116 BCE, based on his coming to a land where people needed to access it in Greek, and he's like, "Well, I'm going to translate this thing." And so based on his age, how much earlier his grandfather would've been writing probably- Well, I was going off of what it says in Wikipedia.

Dan Beecher No less fine a source as Wikipedia.

Dan McClellan Yes. What does Wikipedia say?

Dan Beecher Where it talked about how in the Book of Sirach, the text refers to, in the past tense, to the high priest Simon, son of Onias.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And that is almost certainly Simon, the high priest, the son of Onias II, who died in 196 BCE.

Dan McClellan 196.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Because the struggles between Simon's successors and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so literally because of that being in the past, we know- Yeah ... we can actually date it to between 196 and- We get a, yes ...

Dan McClellan 175 BCE. A terminus post quem.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan Time after which would be- Yeah ... 196 BCE, and that's chapter 50 that discusses the high priest.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan We don't have any reference to Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who comes to power around 175, so that's probably our terminus ante quem.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, we've got a 21-year period between which this text was written, and I think we have some Hebrew manuscripts, don't we?

Dan Beecher Yeah. Oh, do we?

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That's unique. That's fun.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Because the grandson translated into Greek, and we have a bunch of those manuscripts.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But this text was probably widely known prior to the grandson's translating it, and so it was probably in circulation in Hebrew manuscripts as well. So, at Masada, which is a kind of cliff-like fortress thing by the Dead Sea, a very cool place if you ever have the opportunity to go. But there was a Hebrew manuscript there, a scroll that had portions of chapters 39 through 44. There were a couple of manuscripts that were discovered at Qumran as well.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then we've got some incomplete manuscripts from the medieval period that preserve the text in Hebrew.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And Genizas.

Dan Beecher Although, my understanding was that this was never included in the Hebrew Bible. So, it wasn't considered scripture within Judaism. Is that right?

Dan McClellan Well, by the time a Jewish canon formalized It would be left out. However, there were debates that went on for a long time before that formalization of the canon, during which time a lot of people advocated for the inclusion- Okay ...

Dan Beecher of Ben Sira.

Dan McClellan And it is quoted in some rabbinic literature. It was definitely considered scripture by a representative portion of Second Temple and then rabbinic Judaism prior to this firming up of the canon with Ben Sira on the outside.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And I think there are different ideas about why that would've happened. Some of the texts of the Apocrypha, they were left out because they were originally composed in Greek. And now this one is widely circulated in Greek, but was not composed in Greek, was originally composed in Hebrew. However, it was pretty openly a product of the second century BCE, and one of the criterion, or one of the criteria, of these arguments that developed as things were firming up was it needs to be inspired, and inspiration kind of came to a close with the last prophets.

Dan Beecher Oh, they stopped- And so- They stopped getting inspiration. That's sad.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, fourth century BCE, there was a movement to treat anything that came from after around 400 BCE, as far as they knew. Daniel comes from even after the original composition of Ben Sira.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But they didn't know that. So anything that they knew came from after the prophetic period couldn't qualify. I think that's probably one of the central considerations that kept it out of the canon.

Dan Beecher So the author of Ben Sira just made the mistake of not pretending- Letting everybody know.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Not- Not pretending to be significantly older than it actually was.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And one of the titles was "The Wisdom of Yeshua or Jesus ben Eleazar, Ben Sira." And it is in the vein of wisdom literature, so like Proverbs, like Ecclesiastes, like those other texts that are all about the right way to live.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And which is why the opening chapters are like, "Here's wisdom in personal life. Here's what you got to keep in mind. Here's your duties toward God. You got to do..." And a big one is alms for the poor.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan You got to treat the parents nice. You got to treat the God nice. Got to be humble. And then the poor and the oppressed are also a big part of that. So I think there's a degree to which the New Testament's concern for the poor and things like that is a part of this same genealogical line within Judaism where taking care of the poor is a big deal. But the interesting thing, I think one of the most interesting things about Sirach is basically it's painting this picture of wisdom, and it's picking up on some of the stuff you see in Proverbs 8, where wisdom is personified as this woman who's born at the beginning of creation and all this kind of stuff. Sirach is kind of playing with different personifications of wisdom as well, but kind of settles on the notion that Torah is wisdom. And so that's one of the main theses, I think, is that, hey, wisdom helps you do all this stuff. Wisdom is important for all this stuff. Guess where you get wisdom? In the word.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan In the Torah. And so it's advocating for meditating day and night on the Torah because that is... And Torah, the word in Hebrew fundamentally means instruction, not law.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Instruction. And so, I think one of the main ideas is basically to cheerlead for the Torah.

Dan Beecher Okay. Well, there you go. It sounds a little like brown-nosing to try and get in- ... to the canon there.

Dan McClellan Yeah. There's other wisdom literature that's probably post-fourth century BCE as well, but where the author of Ben Sira was like, "I'm not going to be honest.

Dan Beecher I'm not. Or I'm going to be honest.

Dan McClellan I'm not going to pretend to be a prophet from centuries before all the other guys who were like, 'Nah, we're just going to lie.'"

Dan Beecher Right. They made it in.

Dan McClellan They made it in the canon. They made it in.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It was a noble gambit, I would say, to try and- Mm-hmm ... to try and be honest, but turns out a fool's errand.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And, if you access Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus, and in fact, I think in an awful lot of scholarly settings, that's what I frequently hear it referred to as, Ecclesiasticus. But that's more of a Christian name for it. The translations have to rely on both the Hebrew and the Greek because we have Hebrew manuscripts, but there are gaps. About a third of the Hebrew isn't there.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so we have to rely on the Greek. So you're getting a mix of translation from Hebrew and from Greek, which is kind of similar to the Book of Daniel, where you've got Aramaic and Hebrew.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And if you're reading it in translation, you don't know when it's switching from one to the other, really. The same is true of Sirach. I thought it would be fun to read the prologue because- Oh, okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah, sure ...

Dan McClellan because it talks about translation, which is one of the earliest kind of meditations on translation. It's not too long.

Dan Beecher And the prologue is contained, if you have a Bible that has Sirach in it, the prologue is part of that.

Dan McClellan It's not just- Yes ...

Dan Beecher because when I was reading about it, before I started to actually read part of the book itself, I thought the prologue was just something that- ... the grandson was like, "Hey, just so you guys know where this came from, Granddad did this.

Dan McClellan I thought- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher it should be in Greek. Here you go." And so I would assume that the prologue would not be part, that would just be tacked onto the translation.

Dan McClellan Well, yeah.

Dan Beecher Anyway, interesting.

Dan McClellan It's pretty much always included because this is the person who translated it, and if you're going in Greek, it's part of the manuscript, but also just because of the commentary that it offers. And as I read this, keep in mind, usually when we read biblical texts out loud on this program, we're reading stuff that was not written when it claims to have been written.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan We're reading claims to have witnessed stuff that the author didn't witness. In the case of Sirach, as far as we know, we're getting the gosh honest truth here.

Dan Beecher The straight dope.

Dan McClellan Yeah. This is the person who translated this into Greek talking about where it came from, and as far as we can tell, it is basically historical.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, here we go. "Many great teachings have been given to us through the law and the prophets and the others that followed them, and for these, we should praise Israel for instruction and wisdom. Now those who read them must not only themselves understand them, but must also, as lovers of learning, be able, through both speaking and writing, to help the outsiders." So we're getting kind of the rationale.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan If you're good with the scriptures, you need to be able to communicate the scriptures. You need to be able to help the outsider. "So my grandfather, Jesus, who had devoted himself especially to the reading of the law and the prophets, and the other books of our ancestors, and had acquired considerable proficiency in them, was himself also led to write something pertaining to instruction and wisdom, so that by becoming familiar also with his book, those who love learning might make even greater progress in living according to the law." So now we get where this is being situated within all of this. This is like a supplement to the law. This is something to help the law taste better.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "You are invited, therefore, to read it with goodwill and attention, and to be indulgent in cases where we may seem to have rendered some phrases imperfectly, despite our diligent labor in translating. For what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same effect when translated into another language. Not only this book, but even the law itself, the prophets, and the rest of the books differ not a little when read in the original. In the 38th year of the reign of Euergetes, when I came to Egypt and stayed for some time, I found a copy affording no little instruction. It seemed highly necessary that I should myself devote some diligence and labor to the translation of this book. During that time, I have applied my skill day and night to complete and publish the book for those living abroad who wish to gain learning and are preparing to live according to the law." So I think that's such a cool opportunity to be a bit of a fly on the wall- Yeah ... in the head of this individual who's like, "Hey, my granddad was awesome. He did this thing, and now I want to share it with you all."

Dan Beecher And- And here's why he said he did it. And just- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan yeah. And here's what it can do for you. And, yeah, telling a little bit of the autobiography, too. "I came here, I found this copy, and I was like, 'Man, this is great.'"

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "But people here can't read it because it's in Greek. Man, what are we going to do?"

Dan Beecher And- Can I just register one small complaint?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Whoever did the versification of this- Oh, yeah ...

Dan McClellan prologue- I don't know what's up with that.

Dan Beecher ... it was insane. I'm going to read verse 17 of chapter one of Sirach to everyone. That was included in what Dan read. Here's verse 17: "To read it."

Dan McClellan And what verse comes after verse 17?

Dan Beecher That would be verse 16.

Dan McClellan Verse 16.

Dan Beecher Which is amazing. And also, verse 16 is, "With goodwill and intention."

Dan McClellan Yeah. So what I imagine is going on here is the manuscript in which this is preserved, is probably pretty inconsistent, and there are some places where things are written, a little bit is written on one line, and you got to go to the next line.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But here, "You are invited therefore," in Greek, you would usually say, "With goodwill and attention."

Dan Beecher To read it.

Dan McClellan You would usually place that before the verb.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so I think literally it would be, "You are invited therefore with goodwill and intention to read it and to be indulgent." But yeah, why are they- Why does verse 16 have to be that prepositional phrase, and verse 17 has to- Yeah ... contain the verb?

Dan Beecher And verse 15 is- And you could solve the entire problem by making 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 into a single verse. That whole thing is like, that's not even a whole sentence. I'm- And there's that many... Anyway, sorry. I'm mystified by a lot of the versification of the Bible.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I feel like frequently there's no sense to be made of it.

Dan McClellan But- Well, yeah. Last night I hopped online with Kip Davis, where every week he reads through some Hebrew and comments on it- Sure ... as part of a live stream. So I hopped on there with him, and he was like, "Yeah, we're going to be doing Zechariah 2:10." And I flipped it open and I was like, "In the Hebrew versification or the English?" And he was like, "It's different? What's going on here?" And yeah, that happens every now and then, between the Hebrew and the English. And really, it's just because of tradition that- ... that it has stayed the way it is. I'm going to see if I can find what the manuscript must look like- Hmm ... that compels people to divide up the verses into such minute segments.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Do we just have one manuscript of the prologue and it's...

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It does seem like probably they're taking versification that was done in the Greek, and then just trying their best to apply it to- They wouldn't have versified it in the original Greek, though. There wouldn't have been any verses.

Dan Beecher Well then, I don't know, Dan.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher I have no answers.

Dan McClellan One other interesting thing to talk about is, as Ben Sira goes on, chapter 34 begins by talking about how dreams mean nothing.

Dan Beecher Take that, Daniel.

Dan McClellan There's a lot of fear the Lord stuff, and don't have false friends.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Be careful in taking advice. Be careful about physicians and healthcare and stuff like that.

Dan Beecher Uh-oh.

Dan McClellan Don't take the backs.

Dan Beecher That's the RFK Jr.

Dan McClellan verse.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But we get to, I think it's chapter 44, and it's a hymn in honor of our ancestors. It's a long poem.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan It's praising people, and it starts with Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and Aaron, and Pinhas or Phinehas.

Dan Beecher Phinehas?

Dan McClellan Okay. Is that how- Phinehas? How do we say it in English?

Dan Beecher Phinehas?

Dan McClellan Phinehas.

Dan Beecher Phinehas?

Dan McClellan Yeah. Yeah, Phinehas was the guy who was zealous, and because there was an Israelite who was getting down with somebody from the wrong side of the tracks, so he drove a spear through them.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Joshua- As you do.

Dan McClellan As one does. Joshua and Caleb, Nathan, David. And it's a fascinating little journey through the figures from the Hebrew Bible that Jesus obviously thought were the most important. And it's fascinating that they talk about the judges, Nathan and David. Nathan only gets one verse, but Phinehas has to be in there. And then we get this retrospect, and this is before we move on to Simon, son of Onias. But it says, "Few have ever been created on Earth like Enoch, for he was taken up from the earth. Nor was anyone ever born like Joseph. Even his bones were cared for. Shem, and Seth, and Enosh were honored. But above every other created living being was Adam."

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan So, yeah. And then before that, he lists Josiah and other worthy people. Ezekiel, the Book of Job. How shall we magnify Zerubbabel?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan He was like a signet ring on the right hand.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's kind of in the same vein as Genesis 49, where Jacob is blessing all his sons, and refers to them as a vine growing over a wall. And this is like, "The memory of Nehemiah also is lasting. He raised our fallen walls, and set up gates and bars, and rebuilt our ruined houses." So, in some sense, it's kind of trying to echo some of the scriptures.

Dan Beecher Yeah. As I sort of thumbed through, I didn't have time to read the entire book, but I checked in on a bunch of things, and it's an interesting mix of poetry. It'll just sort of say some stuff about, like you said, praising the heroes, but also telling you what's good, and telling you what's bad, and honor your parents- Yeah ... and don't worry about the priests, and just a whole bunch of weird- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan stuff.

Dan Beecher It does feel like it's just a guy. It has the feel of this is just a guy saying some stuff.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I tell you the vibe I get. I get a Baz Luhrmann vibe here. Wear sunscreen. Do you remember that from the late '90s, like mid to late '90s?

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan Where do you- His wear sunscreen song?

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan You don't remember that? He did this song- ... that was on the radio for, gosh, it was on the radio for a long time, and it was an essay, I guess, that was put to music.

Dan Beecher Oh, how funny.

Dan McClellan So it became like a spoken word thing.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay. It was like a graduation speech or something.

Dan McClellan Something like that, yeah. A spoken word song released in 1997, became known as the sunscreen song.

Dan Beecher Oh, how funny.

Dan McClellan Where he's just rattling off advice.

Dan Beecher Little bits of advice.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher All right. There you go.

Dan McClellan But it starts with the wear sunscreen thing- Right.

Dan Beecher Well- ...

Dan McClellan and goes on from there. Good grief, I haven't heard that song in- ... 25 years, and I don't know how rapidly and recklessly my mind would revert to the late '90s if I suddenly heard that song.

Dan Beecher But it is kind of like- I feel like your mind may never have left the late '90s. I feel like your mind might still be there.

Dan McClellan There's some truth to that. That's fair.

Dan Beecher But yeah, it is kind of like a boomer was like, "Gather around, children, and-" Let me just tell you some bits of advice.

Dan McClellan Your dreams mean nothing. These new agey people who are trying to read your dreams, they're all fools.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, there you go. It's an interesting book, and unique, I think, in some canon and not in other canon.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But if you want to get a sense for what was important to Jewish folks in the second, first century BCE, and first and second, and into the third and fourth centuries CE for Jewish folks and an awful lot of Christians, yeah, definitely check it out.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan A lot of interconnections with the Bible going backwards, but also a lot of influence going forward, too.

Dan Beecher And the guy's name was Jesus.

Dan McClellan You've got to listen.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan The whole book should be written in red.

Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly.

Dan McClellan Except the prologue.

Dan Beecher Except the prologue.

Dan McClellan All right. But they do need to fix the verses.

Dan Beecher They do.

Dan McClellan Because you remember about how long it took for me to read that.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That was 36 verses according to- That was 36 verses ...

Dan McClellan the Masoretic Text.

Dan Beecher It was a lot of verses.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It was a lot of verses. All right, friends. Well, that's it for today. Thank you so much for joining us. If you'd like to become a part of making this show go and getting access to an early and ad-free version of every episode, as well as access to the patrons-only content, go over to patreon.com/dataoverdogma and sign up. You choose what level you want to support us at, but boy, does it help. Also, if you want to help us out, give us five stars on whatever platform you're on, or leave a comment, share, like, subscribe, all of those sorts of things. It helps a lot, and we always appreciate it. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show. We'll talk to you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.