Teaching of a Jerusalem sage (ca. 190 BCE) translated into Greek by his grandson. The translation was regarded as sacred scripture by Greek speaking Jews who included it in the Septuagint. The continued popularity of the original Hebrew version through the 1st c. CE is demonstrated by mss. discovered at Qumran & Masada & in the genizah of the old Cairo synagogue. But it was not accepted into the canon of the Hebrew Bible adopted by the rabbis at Jabneh. Christians, however, accepted it as an apocryphal work. The Latin Vulgate endorsed its scriptural status by entitling it Ecclesiasticus ["belonging to the church"].

[Edition used: Rahlfs, Alfred, ed. Septuaginta. Stuttgart: Deutsche Biblestiftung, 1935].

Other resources on line:

• Sirach - e-edition of Revised Standard Version translation posted by U of Michigan Library.

• Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach - Crawford Howell Toy's detailed article in the Jewish Encyclopedia.

• Ecclesiasticus - article by F. E. Gigot in the 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia [posted by New Advent].

• Sirach - detailed article in Wikipedia's web covers textual history and influence on Jewish liturgy.

• Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach - introduction & links in Peter Kirby's Early Jewish Writings.