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The medieval Toldot Ben Sira, or Chronicle of Ben Sira,1 tells the fictional biography of the author of the apocryphal Wisdom of Ben Sira: his conception and birth, his great feats of wisdom, and his ultimate test by Nebuchadnezzar at his court.2 Pseudo-biography like this was not a genre written in the so-called “rabbinic” period of late antiquity. The convention in medieval Hebrew literature was to follow the models established in the rabbinic period, so our text is quite unusual. I argue that this departure from convention is part of a bigger iconoclastic stance developed in the Toldot regarding the influence of earlier Hebrew text. The narrative begins by detailing events leading up to the conception and birth of the hero Ben Sira, providing him with an illustrious father, none other than the biblical prophet Jeremiah. As part of this relationship, Ben Sira says:

“Changing the Order of Creation”: The Toldot Ben Sira Disrupts the Medieval Hebrew Canon