It's a 1-on-1 from MS Access.
Aah, Ok. You probably used the Access' query designer to create those statements. It seems Access does require parentheses in it's statement at odd points. Unlike "normal" SQL. I've never used a query designer and always create queries "by hand" but it seems that Access' query designer makes it's queries quite difficult to read and somewhat incompatible with other SQL-engines (like SQLite and Firebird/Interbase). I even wonder if MSSQL could run that original query unchanged.
Good luck finding your next problem