Some Christian traditions have more books in their Bibles than others. For instance, Catholic and Orthodox traditions may have as many as 81 books, whereas Protestant Bibles have 66. You will find the Book of Sirach in a Catholic or Orthodox Bible but not in a Protestant Bible.
The Book of Sirach didn’t make it into our canon for various reasons, but that doesn’t mean we can’t derive some wisdom from its pages. As always, if something is not part of the universal biblical canon, we must take its information with a grain of salt. Today, we’ll uncover the contents of the Book of Sirach, who wrote it, and why it didn’t make the cut for the Protestant Bible. Let’s dive in.
We need to understand the contents before we can understand why we can’t find Sirach in our Bibles.
First, the book may be listed under a couple of different names. It may be labeled as the Book of Ecclesiasticus, Ben Sir, or sometimes The Wisdom of Jesus (another person going by the name of Jesus, not to be confused with Jesus Christ).
The Book of Sirach has 51 chapters, all written in the books of Wisdom style we see in books like Proverbs, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and especially Proverbs.
We see many short vignettes of verses in Sirach that give the reader wisdom on how to live, such as, “A righteous person's offering is acceptable, and its memory will last forever.”
Unlike many books of wisdom literature, this book doesn’t seem to follow any organizational flow. It spouts wisdom at random but with no seeming structure attached to it, which is not uncommon for proverbial books in the ancient world.
It covers a variety of subjects such as legal matters, sacrificial protocols and religious practices, duties toward one’s family and community, how to handle wealth and finances, etc. Having read it myself, I can tell you that you cannot easily read this book in one sitting—although you’ll feel a temptation to do so.
Like many proverbial books of the day, it combines religious advice and what we could call secular advice (how to live everyday life, etc.). We can probably think of many inspirational books that do the same today. Perhaps written by Christians, these books combine biblical wisdom and wisdom from life experiences.
We also see a section dedicated to Israel’s heroes and great people. Coming off the heels of the Maccabean revolt (which will be discussed in a moment), we can see why the people of Israel took solace in stories of their great heroes such as Samson, David, and Hezekiah. We can also see a yearning for a savior to step in and save them again.
Now that we have a rudimentary understanding of the contents of the Book of Sirach, let’s look at the author and when he wrote the book.
In biblical history, we witness nearly 400 years of silence. The last book in our canon, Malachi, was penned in 430 BC, roughly. This means that in 400 years, no prophet had written down a book that made it into the Old Testament canon.
We know these years as the Silent Years. During this time, we learned many things from a document called Apocrypha (more on this in a moment). These teachings gave us insight into the Silent Years, including when the Greeks and Greek-like kingdoms attempted to Hellenize the Jewish people.
The book is no exception to this timeline. Likely penned in 200-175 BC, this took place after the Maccabean revolt and slightly before when Rome had taken over Israel (they took over roughly in 63 BC).
The book is believed to be written by a Jewish scribe, Ben Sira of Jerusalem. He also goes by the name Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sirach. He originally wrote the book in Hebrew, but his grandson later translated it into Greek. The process shows us the Hellenization of the Jewish world.
Unfortunately, we don’t know much else about the author. He probably didn’t want us to know much about him, focusing on the wisdom he wrote for future readers.
Since the Book of Sirach focuses so much on making ourselves right with God and others and how we live, we may wonder why it didn’t make it into our Protestant Bibles.
The 20 and more books that are typically excluded from Protestant Bibles are also known as the Apocrypha. There are several reasons why Protestant Christians chose to exclude these books from their biblical canon.
First, many Protestants will point out that Jesus never quoted from the Apocrypha, but he did quote from other books from the Old Testament period. Jesus may have read the Apocrypha growing up, but he didn’t think it important enough to quote from.
Furthermore, we run into some issues where the Apocrypha’s texts seem to communicate things that conflict with New Testament teachings.
For instance, the book of Sirach seems to imply that our actions will make us right with God. The New Testament teaches the opposite: our good works are like rags. Instead, we become right with God by experiencing salvation through his son, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit then sanctifies and refines us throughout our lives to become more like God.
We see another issue in the Book of Sirach, which seems to indicate that if we do nice things to others, we’ll see a karmic principle in play. We will then see those nice actions returned to us.
Although God does honor our actions in secret—and we can often see them repaid in ways we don’t expect—we don’t do nice things to see results. We do them out of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
Unfortunately, it seems that Sirach had too much of a worldly influence on it to have made it into the biblical canon. It makes it into a group of texts called the Apocrypha—non-inspired books that still give us a good picture of the lives of the Jewish people during certain periods, such as the Silent Years.
Nevertheless, even though the Book of Sirach didn’t “make the final cut,” we can still appreciate its historicity and unique take on the lives of the Jewish people right before the time of Jesus.
We can learn the following three things about this book.
Not All Christians Have the Same Bible: Protestants have 66 books in their Bibles, but Catholics and Orthodox Christians (and some Christians in Protestant and Episcopalian traditions) may have Sirach in their Bibles. It helps us know the differences between denominations and what texts they view as inspired.
The Apocrypha Shows Us the Silent Years: The Book of Sirach was penned during a unique period. After the Greeks, but right before the Romans. We can see a yearning for a savior spoken of in Old Testament literature. We can understand the legal practices at the time and how the family unit operated.
We Can Still Learn Wisdom: Many of the verses in Sirach do follow biblical tradition. Although we can ignore the ones that certainly had a Hellenized influence, we can see many great biblical principles, such as the need to treat our family members well and with honor.
As always, we need to read the Apocrypha with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t be afraid of books like this. As long as we operate with biblical discernment, we can appreciate the historicity of The Book of Sirach and its role in telling us about the lives of the pre-Christ Jewish people.
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Hope Bolinger is an acquisitions editor at End Game Press, book editor for hire, and the author of almost 30 books. More than 1500 of her works have been featured in various publications. Check out her books at hopebolinger.com for clean books in most genres, great for adults and kids. Check out her editing profile at Reedsy.com to find out about hiring her for your next book project.
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