Friendship is important to everyone, but few are aware of biblical writing on this topic. In 2002, Jeremy Corley published an exploration of poems on friendship, composed around 200 BCE by the Jewish wisdom teacher Ben Sira. These Hebrew poems are partly a response to Greek culture, which laid great emphasis on friendship (e.g., Plato and Aristotle). The book contains a new preface, outlining scholarly developments since the original 2002 edition. The updated edition of this volume has now been made available free online. As one of 52 open access books in the series, this development is an initiative of Brown University’s Judaic Studies program under its Open Humanities Book Project.
To see the online book, go to: