http://jsp.sagepub.com Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha RSS feed -- current issue September 2009 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 0951-8207 http://jsp.sagepub.com:80/icons/banner/title.gif http://jsp.sagepub.com http://jsp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/19/1/3?rss=1 In this article a detailed examination of the language, context, content and function of Wis. 19.18-22 is offered, one which throws light on the literary structure and character of the whole book and its religious and cultural setting. Particular attention is given to the translation of Wis. 19.18 and to its musical terms and imagery. This approach leads to fresh conclusions regarding the references in the book to the cosmic elements, conclusions which are significant both for the book as a whole and for tracing the extensive literary history of that phrase. Finally, the light thrown here on the structure and character of the book is used to provide criteria for the assessment of recent hypotheses regarding its main features.

]]> 2009-09-23 info:doi/10.1177/0951820709106104 1 19 43 2009-09-01 3 Articles http://jsp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/19/1/45?rss=1 Pseudo-Sirach is arguably a pseudepigraphon, even though Ben Sira, the protagonist, is referred to in the third person. It is an early medieval Hebrew-language homiletical collection, structured as exchanges between the child prodigy Ben Sira (Jeremiah’s son), and King Nebuchadnezzar. This article offers a general discussion of the structure of the frame-story, in which Nebuchadnezzar and Ben Sira are interlocutors. It contrasts this to another source poking fun at Nebuchadnezzar. Then, the difference between this treatment of the destroyer of the First Temple and how early rabbinic sources treated Vespasian and Titus is considered. The only such locus which comes close to the pattern in Pseudo-Sirach is the subnarrative about how R. Johanan ben Zakkai comes to the rescue of Vespasian as the latter, having been informed, while having put on a shoe, that the Romans made him their king, is unable to put on the other shoe. In contrast, the appearance of the Pseudo Nero shaped the early rabbinic narrative about Nero, and if we are to find a Nero parallel to Jewish derisive treatments of Nebuchadnezzar, it is in the Latin Commenta Bernensia to Lucan’s Pharsalia that we can find them.

]]> 2009-09-23 info:doi/10.1177/0951820709107048 1 19 76 2009-09-01 45 Articles http://jsp.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/19/1/77?rss=1 2009-09-23 info:doi/10.1177/0951820709107049 1 19 80 2009-09-01 77 Articles