10 Facts About Sirach

Sirach is accepted as part of the canon by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and most Oriental Orthodox Christians.

Sirach is not part of the Jewish canon, once thought to have been established at the hypothetical Council of Jamnia, perhaps due to its late authorship, although it is not clear that the canon was completely closed at the time of Ben Sira.

The question of which apothegms actually originated with Sirach is open to debate, although scholars tend to regard him as a compiler or anthologist.

Occasionally Sirach digresses to attack theories which he considers dangerous; for example, that man has no freedom of will, and that God is indifferent to the actions of mankind and does not reward virtue.

Ben Sirach is unique among all Old Testament and Apocryphal writers in that he signed his work.

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Joshua ben Sirach's grandson was in Egypt, translating and editing after the usurping Hasmonean line had definitively ousted Simon's heirs in long struggles and was finally in control of the High Priesthood in Jerusalem.

Furthermore, Sirach contains a eulogy of "Simon the High Priest, the son of Onias, who in his life repaired the House".

Work of Sirach is presently known through various versions, which scholars still struggle to disentangle.

Yosef Tabori questioned whether this passage in Sirach is referring at all to Yom Kippur, and thus argued it cannot form the basis of this poem.

Some early 20th-century scholars argued that the vocabulary and framework used by Sirach formed the basis of the most important of all Jewish prayers, the Amidah, but that conclusion is disputed as well.