Acknowledgements
This book is a revised version of my doctoral dissertation, which I completed at the University of Cambridge, Queens’ College, from 2012 to 2016. I am indebted most of all to my supervisor Dr James K. Aitken. Thanks are due also to Drs Jeremy Corley and Nathan MacDonald, my doctoral examiners; Dr Katharine Dell, who kindly acted as my interim supervisor; the Israel Antiquities Authority; and Dr Noam Mizrahi for visiting the Ben Sira manuscript witnesses there with me. I am grateful, as well, to Professor Robert Hayward for his teaching and guidance during my Masters studies at Durham. Thanks are due to Professor Benjamin G. Wright for his feedback on this book as (former) series editor. I am grateful for the feedback and encouragement of the current series editors Professors René Bloch and Karina Martin Hogan, and associate editors Professors Hindy Najman and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar.
Thanks, as well, to my husband Alexander Davidson, for standing on Masada and Qumran with me in 40C weather, and to my sister Kristen and parents Dean and Erika, who unfailingly put the cats on Skype.