Libraries, Translations, and 'Canonic' Texts: The Septuagint, Aquila and Ben Sira in the Jewish and Christian Traditions

The book deals with the field of decanonization of ancient traditions by the technique of deconstructing their original context; in particular: the process of canonization of the Greek Torah in Jewish-Hellenistic and Christian tradition and its decanonization in Rabbinic literature; the use and abuse of the translation(s) of Aquila in Patristic and Rabbinic literature and the substitution of Aquila by Onkelos in Babylonian academies; the decanonization of the book of Ben Sira in Rabbinic literature. On the basis of his analysis, the author concludes that, if a canon is the ability of a text to produce and authorize commentary deconstructing its original context by generalization, de-canonization is the inverse way of contextualizing a 'canonical' text by reconstructing the supposed original context.