Sirach / Ecclesiasticus

The longest extant wisdom book from antiquity — a collection of ethical teachings written by Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira, a Hellenistic Jewish scribe, and translated into Greek by his grandson.|||Original Hebrew known to Jerome but lost until the late 19th century. Manuscripts discovered in the Cairo Geniza (1896–1900, 1931) containing about two-thirds of the Hebrew text. Further fragments found at Qumran and Masada. Greek text in Codex Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus.|||Written in Biblical Hebrew between 196 and 175 BCE. Translated into Koine Greek by the author's grandson around 132 BCE, who added a prologue around 117 BCE.|||Deuterocanonical in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Not canonical in Protestant or Jewish traditions. In Lutheran and Anglican Bibles, placed among the Apocrypha.|||The longest and most complete wisdom book of antiquity. The prologue is the earliest witness to the tripartite Hebrew canon.|||Skehan, P. W., & Di Lella, A. A. The Wisdom of Ben Sira. Anchor Bible. Doubleday, 1987.|||Ben-Hayyim, Z. The Book of Ben Sira. Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1973.|||Wright, B. G. No Small Difference: Sirach's Relationship to Its Hebrew Parent Text. Scholars Press, 1989.|||Sirach — Early Jewish Writings|https://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/sirach.html|Full translation and scholarly resources.;; Sirach — Wikipedia|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Sirach|Background and scholarly discussion.|||" Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations." — Sirach 44:1