it ceased to be printed in the
standard editions of the Bible. The modern revival of interest in the
apocryphal books, both in Europe and America, is tending to restore this
book, in common with I Maccabees, to the position which they certainly
deserve in the practical working canon of the Old Testament. The discovery
in 1896 of a fragment of the original Hebrew manuscript of Ben Sira, and
the subsequent recovery of many other parts, have also tended to arouse
wide interest in this hitherto much-neglected book. Hebrew portions of
thirty-nine out of the fifty-one chapters have thus far been discovered.
Most of them come from about the eleventh Christian century and are of
widely differing values. By means of these, however, and the quotations by
the Jewish rabbis and Christian fathers and in the Greek, Syriac, and
Latin versions, it is now possible to restore most of the original Hebrew
text, and the resulting translation is far superior to those based on the
Greek text.

IV. Its Picture of Jewish Life. Ben Sira has given a vivid picture of
the domestic, economic, and social life of the Jews of his age. The
debased, Oriental conception of marriage had corrupted the atmosphere of
the home. Wives were regarded as the possessions of their husbands, and
the immoral influence of Hellenism still further undermined the purity
and integrity of many a Jewish home. Greek customs and usages were
pervading Palestine more and more. Ben Sira refers to banquets with their
accompaniments of music and wine. Even these meet with his approval.
Agriculture and commerce are the chief occupations of the people. In
general Ben Sira voices the wholesome Jewish attitude toward labor:

Hate not laborious work;
Neither agriculture that the Most High hath ordained.

He is especially strong in his commendation of physicians:

Be a friend to the physician, for one has need of him,
For verily God hath appointed him.
A physician receives his wisdom from God,
And from the king he receives presents.
The knowledge of a physician causes him to lift up his head,
And before the princes may he enter.
God created medicines out of the earth,
And a prudent man will not be disgusted with them.

The following proverb has a universal application:

He who sins before his maker,
Let him fall into the hands of his physician!

V. Rise of the Scribes. The writings of Ben Sira reveal the close
connection between the earlier wise and the later scribes. He lived