Library/Deuterocanon
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
Ben Sira’s long wisdom book: fear of the Lord, skilled speech, a famous hymn to the fathers, and a skepticism about Enoch that still names him. The opposite temperament from 1 Enoch, occupying the same century’s library.
- Status
- Catholic & Orthodox deuterocanon
- Date
- c. 180 BCE, Jerusalem; Greek prologue c. 132 BCE
- Languages
- Hebrew (recovered) · Greek
- Setting
- A wisdom school; praise of the ancestors
What it contains
- Proverbs and instruction
- Praise of Wisdom
- Praise of the fathers
- A numerical hymn
Why it sits outside most canons
Not in the rabbinic canon, though quoted in the Talmud as Ben Sira. Protestants followed that smaller list.
Themes
- Wisdom
- Law
- Ancestors
- Speech
- Piety
Passages
Sirach 44:16
Enoch pleased the Lord and was taken up, an example of repentance to all generations.