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Ben Sira's Teaching on Friendship Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship JEREMY CORLEY BEN SIRA’S TEACHING ON FRIENDSHIP Program in Judaic Studies Brown University Box 1826 Providence, RI 02912 BROWN JUDAIC STUDIES Series Editors 2001– David C. Jacobson Ross S. Kraemer Saul M. Olyan Series Editor 1991–2001 Shaye J. D. Cohen Number 316 BEN SIRA’S TEACHING ON FRIENDSHIP by Jeremy Corley BEN SIRA’S TEACHING ON FRIENDSHIP by Jeremy Corley Brown Judaic Studies Providence Copyright © 2020 by Brown University Library of Congress Control Number: 2019953793 Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attri- bution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact Brown Judaic Studies, Brown University, Box 1826, Providence, RI 02912. Contents Foreword ..........................................................................................................vii Abbreviations....................................................................................................ix Chronology of Ben Sira’s Age ......................................................................xv 1. Introduction....................................................................................................1 2. Sirach 6:5–17 and 37:1–6 ............................................................................35 3. Sirach 9:10–16 ..............................................................................................83 4. Sirach 13:15–23 ..........................................................................................117 5. Sirach 19:13–17 and 27:16–21 ..................................................................155 6. Sirach 22:19–26 ..........................................................................................191 7. Conclusion..................................................................................................213 Appendix: Ben Sira’s Incidental References to Friendship ....................219 Bibliography Texts and Versions of Ben Sira ..............................................................229 Secondary Literature on Ben Sira ..........................................................231 Other Literature on Biblical and Related Topics ................................245 Greek and Latin Literature: Texts and Studies ....................................252 Modern Works on Friendship ................................................................255 Indexes ............................................................................................................257 Primary Sources ........................................................................................257 Modern Authors ......................................................................................285 Subjects ......................................................................................................291 Publishers’ Preface Brown Judaic Studies has been publishing scholarly books in all ar- eas of Judaic studies for forty years. Our books, many of which contain groundbreaking scholarship, were typically printed in small runs and are not easily accessible outside of major research libraries. We are delighted that with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Pro- gram, we are now able to make available, in digital, open-access, format, fifty titles from our backlist. Jeremy Corley’s study, Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship (2002) is the first to examine in depth the nature of friendship in the biblical book Ben Sira (Sirach). Corley’s book has generated scholarship both on the book of Ben Sira as well as on friendship as discussed by several ancient authors. This edition incorporates a new extensive preface that puts this study into conversation with recent scholarship. The original text is unchanged. Michael L. Satlow Managing Editor January, 2020 Preface to the Digital Edition This preface surveys developments in Ben Sira research, pertinent to the topic, since the publication of the first edition in 2002. Because the second edition is not a rewriting of the first edition, this preface seeks to take account of the last two decades of Ben Sira scholarship. The original edition of the study was the revised and updated form of my 1996 doctor- al dissertation at the Catholic University of America, Washington DC. The work was written under the guidance of the late Alexander Di Lella (1929- 2019), known especially for his Anchor Bible commentary, which he wrote jointly with Patrick Skehan.1 My 2002 volume also acknowledges its debt to the 1996 essay collection, based on papers given at the 1995 Salzburg symposium on friendship in Ben Sira.2 Recent Studies of Friendship in Ben Sira While several article-length studies in English have appeared since 2002, the most substantial and systematic analysis of the topic is the chap- ter on Ben Sira within Saul Olyan’s volume on friendship in the Hebrew Bible.3 This concise volume claims to be the first comprehensive exami- nation of the generally neglected topic. Besides Ben Sira, Olyan’s analysis covers prophetic materials, psalms, and pre-Hellenistic wisdom collec- tions. Whereas the first footnote of my 2002 study (p. 1) borrows David Konstan’s definition of friendship as “a mutually intimate, loyal, and lov- ing bond between two or a few persons” who are unrelated by blood, Olyan proposes this definition: “Friendship is a voluntary association be- tween people who enjoy one another’s company and care, at least to some degree, about one another’s welfare.”4 Besides looking at the biblical He- brew vocabulary for the semantic field of “friend,” Olyan’s introduction also recognizes that ancient notions of friendship may differ from modern ideas, and that the Hebrew Bible less often describes friendship among women than among men. Exploring the link between friends and family members, Olyan’s first chapter considers the shared classification of close relatives and intimate friends, the common obligations of kindred and friends, and the differ- ing expectations of them. The second chapter explores failed friendship, 1Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (AB 39; New York: Doubleday, 1987). 2Friedrich V. Reiterer, ed., Freundschaft bei Ben Sira: Beiträge des Symposions zu Ben Sira Salzburg 1995 (BZAW 244; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996). 3Saul M. Olyan, Friendship in the Hebrew Bible (AYBRL; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017) 87-103. 4David Konstan, Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1997) 1; Olyan, Friendship in the Hebrew Bible, 1. Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship including the topic of the disloyal friend in diverse biblical books: “Dis- loyal friends appear in psalms of individual complaint such as Psalms 28, 35, 38, and 88; in prophetic anthologies such as Jeremiah and Micah; and in Proverbs and Job, among other texts.”5 Olyan observes that the fail- ure of friendships to fulfill expectations may contribute to unstable social relations: “For Mic 7:5 and Jer 9:3, untrustworthy friends are representa- tive of a society’s decline, as is the disintegration of marriage and family ties.”6 Olyan’s third chapter deals with friendships in narrative, not only between Ruth and Naomi, and Jonathan and David (with its covenant motifs), but also between Job and his comforters, Jephthah’s daughter and her companions, and Amnon and Jonadab. Most significant for the present study is Olyan’s fourth chapter, which focuses on friendship in Ben Sira.7 He begins by exploring the Hebrew vocabulary and idioms relating to friendship, where the sage often innovates in his lexical choice by comparison with earlier biblical tradition.8 Ben Sira shares some basic notions with older Hebrew writ- ings: the importance of loyalty and trust (Jer 9:3; Mic 7:5; Ps 41:10; Sir 6:7; 22:23; 27:17), behavioral parity (Ps 35:12-14; Sir 6:8-13; 13:21-23; 22:23; 37:1-6), comparability of friends to family members (Deut 13:7; Prov 17:17; 18:24; Sir 7:18), equality (Ps 55:14; Sir 6:11, 17; 13:15-16), and com- mensality (Ps 41:10; Sir 6:10; 9:16; 37:4). However, Ben Sira also adds new ideas: friends as guides (Sir 40:23); the possibility of reconciliation for a damaged friendship (Sir 22:21-22; 27:21); material generosity to friendly peers (Sir 14:13); the need to value friends (Sir 7:18); and the occasional need to fight for one’s friend (Sir 37:5-6).9 Olyan identifies four topics found in both Hebrew biblical texts and Greek non-biblical sources: the idea that wealth multiplies friends but poverty reduces them (Prov 19:4; Sir 13:21-22; Theognis 929-30); friendship as involving reciprocity (Ps 35:12; Sir 37:5-6; Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 8.4.1); the disloyalty of some friends (Pss 35:15; 38:12; 41:10; Job 19:14; Sir 6:8-13; Theognis 643-44, 697-98); the friend as someone like yourself (Deut 13:7; Ps 55:14; Sir 6:11, 16-17; 37:2; Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 9.4.5; 9.9.1; 9.9.10).10 Olyan also observes four Greek ideas that are hardly present in the preceding Hebrew materials: the need to test friends (Sir 6:7; Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 8.4.3; Theognis 125- 26; Xenophon, Mem. 2.6.1); the distinction between flatterers and true 5Olyan, Friendship in the Hebrew Bible, 38. 6Ibid. 7Ibid., 87-103. 8Ibid., 87-90. 9Ibid., 90-94. 10Ibid., 95-97.
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