Bart Ehrman (2026) on the Ethical Teachings of Jesus and those in the Book of Sirach

  

Some of the many ethical teachings of Jesus son of Sirach are intriguingly similar to those of Jesus of Nazareth. Consider the following:

 

Jesus son of Sirach: “Do not reject a suppliant in distress, or turn your face away from the poor; Do not avert your eye from the needy and give no one reason to curse you” (Sirach 4:4-5, NRSV). Jesus of Nazareth: “Give to all that ask you; and do not turn away the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42).

 

Jesus son of Sirach: “Stretch out your hand to the poor, so that your blessing may be complete” (Sirach 7:32); Jesus of Nazareth: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Luke 6:20).

 

Jesus son of Sirach: “The Lord overthrows the thrones of the rulers, and enthrones the lowly in their place” (Sirach 10:14); Jesus of Nazareth: “The first will be last and the last first” (Matthew 20:16).

 

Jesus son of Sirach: “The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself, so you will find favor in the sight of the Lord” (Sirach 3:18); Jesus of Nazareth: “Everyone who humbles themselves will be exalted and the exalted will be humbled” (Luke 14:11).

 

Jesus son of Sirach: “Someone becomes rich through diligence and self denial . . . and he says ‘I have found rest, and now I shall feast on my goods!’ He does not know how long it will be until he leaves them to others and dies” (Sirach 11:18-19); Jesus of Nazareth [speaking about the “rich fool” who builds bigger and better barns for all his produce and says]: “’Soul, you have ample good laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry’ but God says to him ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you’” (Luke 12:16-21).

 

Jesus son of Sirach: “Do not delay to return back to the Lord and do not postpone it from day to day; for suddenly the wrath of the Lord will come upon you and at the time of punishment you will perish” (Sirach 5:6-7). Jesus of Nazareth: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15); “At that time there will be great suffering, such as has not been form the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. . . . Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (Matthew 14:21, 34).

 

Clearly these teachings are not identical, and many of Ben Sira’s teachings are not found in the Gospels or Jesus’s teachings in Sirach. My point is that the two had very similar emphases, along with distinctive twists of their own, as had other Jewish teachers are the time. (Bart D. Ehrman, Love Thy Stranger: How Jesus Transformed Our Moral Conscience [London: Oneworld Publications Ltd., 2026], 82-84)

 

Perla Fuscaldo on the Execration Pits at Tell El-Dab'a

  

1. EXECRATION PIT LOCUS 1055

 

Pit 13, execration pit L1055 (Plate Ia), is located in square H/III-s/16, which was cut under wall M1019, 1.75 m east of execration pit L1016 (Plate Ib). It belonged to the transitional phase D/1.2 as does foundation deposit L1057.

 

It was an oval pit, measuring 40 by 50 cm in section and 15 to 20 cm in depth, containing three skulls, nine fingers, and some pottery sherds (Fig. 6). According to a preliminary report on the human remains presented by the anthropologist of the mission, Karl Großschmidt, skulls No. 1 and No. 3 belonged to two early mature males, and No. 2 to a mature adult. Skull No. 1 lay on its left side looking south-east, while No. 2 was found on its back and No. 3 on its face. One of the skulls has a hole on its right side above the ear, probably resulting from a blow which also appears to have damaged the right temple. Only the fingers belonging to three right hands were found, and no traces of cuts were observed on the fingers. Five fingers were found beside skull No. 1, two beside No. 2 and two beside No. 3.

 

Some sherds found with these human remains probably served as filling material. These included the body fragment of a drop jar and a sherd of another. Both vessels had a maximum diameter of 17 cm and were made from uncoated Nile B2 fabric. There was also found the body fragment from a cooking pot in Nile E2 which belongs to the Middle Bronze Age II B–C tradition.

 

2. EXECRATION PIT LOCUS 1016

 

In my opinion, Pit 1, L1016, was an execration pit as well. It lay in square H/III-s/16 (Fig. 4) and had been dug into a layer of ash and humus earth (L1013), namely, the courtyard surface (ph. D/1.1), southwest of the building from the late Hyksos period citadel (ph. D/2). In the process, the pit cut into the mud-brick pavement M1029. It was oval in shape and had a maximum diameter of 2.20 m north-south by 1.90 m east-west. The pit was 0.45 m deep at the edges and 1.10 m in the middle (Plate Ib). The level of this courtyard was higher than the interior rooms of the palace of the 18th Dynasty.

 

At the bottom of the pit (Fig. 8 and Plate IIa) were two male skeletons. Both had been laid on their stomachs and were found looking south. Skeleton No. 1 on the west side of the pit was an early adult ca. 1.68 m tall. The right arm and hand were raised, but the head and the left arm were missing. Skeleton No. 2, lying parallel to the first one, was complete with the arms extended along the body the face looking east. It belonged to a mature male, 1.70 m tall. No injuries inflicted by an axe, a knife, sword, or spear were observed on either skeleton..A large quantity of broken pottery (ca. 380 vessels), the small fragment of a limestone relief, part of a limestone senet game board, a silex blade, large amounts of limestone fragments (25 dm2), sandstone chips (3 dm2), two fragments of quartzite, a silex fragment, some river pebbles, a bright dark-brown hard stone, the fragment of a mud-brick, and some animal bones were thrown on top of the two bodies (Fig. 7 and Plate IIb).

 

3. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EXECREATION PITS LOCUS 1055 AND 1016

 

By all appearances, both pits preserved complete and partial skeletons of defeated enemies which had been sacrificed and buried in connection with the construction of new buildings above the Hyksos citadel; thus, they were probably part of an execration ritual to purify the area of the citadel, following the conquest and occupation of Avaris by Ahmose.

 

Figurines of enemies (whether they be foreigners or Egyptians) were usually substituted for the actual bodies. In this way, the soul of the enemy was captured in the ritual figurine that bore its name, and by means of magic rites, the real person suffered the same affliction and death as the figurine. The clay figurines, shown with the hands tied behind their backs, the heads drilled, and sometimes even without hands, were inscribed with the names of various enemies: the chiefs, peoples and countries of Asia, Libya and Nubia, and Egyptians as well. The names of the enemies and the accompanying curse formulae, the so-called “execration texts”, were written on such figurines from the Old Kingdom until the Late Period. Execration texts can also be found on pottery vessels that served the same purpose. (Perla Fuscaldo, Tell El-Dab^ca X/2: The Palace District of Avaris. The Pottery of the Hyskos Period and the New Kingdom (Areas H/III and H/VI): Part II: Two Execration Pits and a Foundation Deposit [Österreichische Akademie Der Wissenschaften Denkschriften Der Gesamtakademie 61; Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010], 23-24)

 

Strack and Billerbeck on Luke 2:14

  

2:14 C: Among those who are well-pleasing, ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας.

 

The ancient synagogue craved the divine εὐδοκία = רָצוֹן in the Eighteen Benedictions (the seventeenth prayer of the Babylonian recension): Take pleasure, Yahweh our God, in your people Israel, and look graciously upon their prayer, and lead the sacrificial service back to the Holy of Holies of your house, and the fire offerings of Israel, and hastily accept their prayer and their ministry in love with mercy, and be pleased לְרָצוֹן with the sacrifice of your people Israel, and be gracious to us, and may our eyes see your return to your dwelling place on Zion in mercy as it was before in ancient times. Praise be to you, Yahweh, who hastily lets his Shekinah (presence) return to Zion.—This is different in the sixteenth prayer of the Palestinian recension.—See further at Pss. Sol. 8:34 (according to the verse division by Fritzsche), “We and our children will have your goodwill ἡ εὐδοκία forever! Lord our Savior, we no longer stagger forever.”—See further Pss. Sol. 3:4, “A righteous man does not pay little attention when he is chastised by the Lord (cf. Prov 3:11f.). His goodwill εὐδοκία αὐτοῦ is always before the Lord.”—In connection with the Messianic age, 1 Enoch 1:8 says: “He (God) will make peace with the righteous and protect the elect. Grace will prevail over them, and they will all belong to God. They will have his goodwill and be blessed, and the light of God will shine on them.”—Testament of Levi 18: “The Lord will rejoice over his children, and the Lord will take pleasure in his beloved εὐδοκήσει ἐπὶ τοῖς ἀγαπτοῖς αὐτοῦ.” (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash, ed. Jacob N. Cerone, 4 vols. [trans. Andrew Bowden and Joseph Longarino; Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2022], 2:136-37)

 

Hans-Joachim Kraus on Psalm 73:10-12

  

[73:10–12] The רשׁעים, who are arrogant and talk “down from heaven,” are successful (v. 10). The “people” become their followers and avidly take in their snobbish, world-conquering words. In v. 11 a significant statement of the רשׁעים is cited. The meaning of this statement is clear: God does not take cognizance of the bustle on earth—he does not react (Isa. 29:15; Ezek. 8:12; Pss. 10:11; 94:9). How impudent this statement is is apparent especially when God is called עליון (cf. Psalms 1–59, pp. 82–86). It is the picture of unbounded hubris that is delineated of the רשׁעים in vv. 6–11. Above all, it becomes evident that the psalmist not only is rather jealous of the well-being of the רשׁעים, but that the uncensured, proud denial of the activity of the judging God represents an unbearable challenge for him. In v. 12 the description of the riotous ways of the רשׁעים is brought to a close. Now the psalmist turns to his own fate. (Hans-Joachim Kraus, A Continental Commentary: Psalms 60-150 [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], 88)

 

Robert Alter on Psalm 73:10

  

and they lap up their words. The literal sense of the very cryptic Hebrew is “and waters of fullness [full waters?] are wrung from them [for them?].” The text has almost certainly suffered mangling in scribal transmission here. This translation adopts an emendation proposed by Hans-Joachim Kraus: instead of the Masoretic umey maleiʾ yimatsu, he reads umileyhem yamotsu. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 3:177)

 

Robert Alter on Psalm 72:5

  

May they fear you. The second-person pronoun is anomalous. As the text stands, it makes better sense to apply “you” to the king, with “they” referring to anyone who would be tempted to be an oppressor. The Septuagint offers an attractive alternative reading: by a simple reversal of consonants in the verb (yaʾarikh instead of yiyraʾukha), the Greek translators render this as “May he live long.” (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 3:173)

 

The LXX uses the verb συμπαραμένω, which according to BDAG means, “stay with someone to help.”

Cassiodorus (6th century) Psalm 69:8 (Vulgate and LXX: 68:9)

  

9. I am become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to the sons of my mother. He calls the Jews here brethren for they were joined to Him by proximity of blood; He became a stranger to them when they refused to show belief in Him. He was Himself descended from the seed of Abraham in the flesh, but they were disinherited by their evil deeds and divorced from their connexion with the patriarch. As Christ says in the gospel, If you were the sons of Abraham, you would have done the works of Abraham. He added: And an alien to the sons of my mother. We term as alien any person dwelling temporarily in our house who is received not through blood-relationship but as a foreigner. By His mother He means the synagogue, from which He was sprung when He deigned to be born of the Jewish race. He calls sons of His mother those whom He earlier described as His brethren; but these sons, if they had been truly sons, would not have regarded the Lord Christ as an alien, but would have received Him as a most dear brother. (Cassiodorus, Commentary on Psalm 68, in Explanation of the Psalms, 3 vols. [trans. P. G. Walsh; Ancient Christian Writers 52; New York: Paulist Press, 1991], 2:146-67)