The Book of Sirach is known by various names. Some call it The Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sira. The New Revised Standard Version calls it The Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach, and The New American Bible calls it Sirach, the Greek form of the name. It is also known as Ecclesiasticus, Latin for “Book of the Church,” a designation that probably stems from the book’s frequent use as a kind of catechism in the early centuries of the Western Church. Sirach is one of the few biblical books actually written by the ascribed author, who is identified in the book itself: “Jesus son of Eleazar son of Sirach” (50:27).

This book is not found in all Bibles. At the time of the Reformation, the official version of the Old Testament became a point of disagreement among Christian groups. The Protestants retained the shorter Hebrew canon, or listing of books, and thus preserved the more ancient Jewish version of the Bible. The Roman Catholics accepted the wider Greek canon and thereby preserved an authentic early-Church version. Those books not found in the Hebrew canon are called deuterocanonical (second listing) by Roman Catholics and Apocrypha (inspiring but not inspired) by Protestants. Sirach belongs to this listing.

When Alexander the Great moved across the then-known world, he not only conquered it militarily but also culturally. Greek became the official language, and Greek culture was adopted by most of the world. This process of Hellenization had already taken hold among the educated upper class of the Jewish community by the time the book’s author put his teachings into writing, around 132 bce (Before the Common Era).

In the prologue of the Book of Sirach, the grandson of Ben Sira explains that he translated his grandfather’s work so that “those who love learning might make even greater progress in living according to the law.” Many Jewish people had migrated to Egypt and over the years had been assimilated into its Hellenized culture. Ben Sira’s grandson was concerned that they had abandoned the practice of their faith. Rather than allow this to continue, he translated his grandfather’s instruction into the language of the day for them.

The actual structure of the bulk of this biblical book is difficult to determine. Many commentators simply regard the material as a collection of various unrelated instructions and don’t even try to divide it into smaller units. However, they all agree that the last two sections can be easily identified. A eulogy of the heroes of Israel is a distinct unit (44:1—50:24). The final section (50:25—51:30) consists of an epilogue along with an acrostic poem, a poem in which the first word of each verse begins with a successive letter of the alphabet.


Unlike those books of the Old Testament that describe some of the major events of the history of the ancient Israelites or the prophetic responses to those events, the wisdom tradition is not occupied with narrative accounts. Nor is it particularly interested in the religious interpretation of Israel’s history, an interpretation that has been called “salvation history.”