In this podcast, Francis Borchardt of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong joins us to talk about the Prologue to Sirach and the question of the emerging Hebrew Bible canon. Since the writer of the Prologue — assumed to be Ben Sira's grandson and the translator of the Greek version of Ben Sira — mentions three categories of writings, scholars have often argued that we have here early evidence in the late second century BCE of a tripartite arrangement that we now know as the Torah–Nevi'im–Ketuvim of the Tanakh (the Law, Prophets, and the Writings of the Hebrew Bible).

The writer mentions these categories three times in lines 1-2, 7-10, and 23-25:
1) Πολλῶν καὶ μεγάλων ἡμῖν διὰ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν κατʼ αὐτοὺς ἠκολουθηκότων δεδομένων
Whereas many great teachings have been given to us through the law and the prophets and the others that followed them…
2) ὁ πάππος μου Ἰησοῦς ἐπὶ πλεῖον ἑαυτὸν δοὺς/εἴς τε τὴν τοῦ νόμου/ καὶ τῶν προφητῶν/καὶ τῶν ἄλλων πατρίων βιβλίων ἀνάγνωσιν
…my grandfather Jesus, after devoting himself especially to the reading of the law and the prophets and the other books of our fathers (or: ancestors)
3) οὐ μόνον δὲ ταῦτα,/ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ νόμος καὶ αἱ προφητεῖαι/καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ τῶν βιβλίων/οὐ μικρὰν ἔχει τὴν διαφορὰν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς λεγόμενα.
Not only this work, but even the law itself, the prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little as originally expressed.
Borchardt discusses the difficulties involved with interpreting these statements as an affirmation of the tripartite canon. This is part one of a two part interview with Borchardt, the second of which will include more canonical discussion on 2 Maccabees 2:13-15.

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