Encyclopaedia of Judaism

Get access Subject: Jewish Studies
General Editors: Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck and William Scott Green

Help us improve our service

The Encyclopaedia of Judaism Online offers more than 200 entries comprising more than 1,000,000 words and is a unique reference tool.  The Encyclopaedia of Judaism Online offers an authoritative, comprehensive, and systematic presentation of the current state of scholarship on fundamental issues of Judaism, both past and present. While heavy emphasis is placed on the classical literature of Judaism and its history, the Encyclopaedia of Judaism Online also includes principal entries on circumcision, genetic engineering, homosexuality, intermarriage in American Judaism, and other acutely contemporary issues. Comprehensive and up-to-date, it reflects the highest standards in scholarship. Covering a tradition of nearly four thousand years, some of the most distinguished scholars in the field describe the way of life, history, art, theology, philosophy, and the practices and beliefs of the Jewish people.

Subscriptions: see brill.com

Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira, Midrash and

(10,199 words)

Author(s): Veltri, Giuseppe
The book of Jesus ben Sira, the so-called Ecclesiasticus or Siracides, considered in Jewish and Protestant tradition to be apocryphal, but in the Catholic Church to be an authentic biblical book, is very peculiar in the history of the biblical canon with regard to its use and understanding in midrashic and talmudic tradition. Composed as a book of proverbs and maxims, it claims to be an ethical tribunal not only for Israel's contemporary society but also for its past. Ben Sira is one of the firs…