Legitimacy of the Book of Sirach

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4HisChurch said:
How can I answer someone who believes that the Book of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) in the Old Testament is a “devotional book read in churches written sometime pre-middle ages and put in the Bible by the Catholic Church”, implying that it was not part of the original canon of Scripture and at any rate, is not legitimately a book of Scripture?
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Have you bought Gary Michuta’s “Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger?” book? It is an exhaustive detail of ECFs using Sirach and other books as Scripture, well organized, quite useful even as a reference book.
 
maljr2001 said:
2nd Gen, wonderful! 👍

Sirach is one of my favorite books in the OT, and when I was young, it actually helped me form my values. I can even say that it prepared me in reading the Gospels. Jesus’ Eucharistic discourse is foreshadowed in Sirach 24:21. Check out my sig.
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I can even say that it prepared me in reading the Gospels.

Amen to that!

It definately helped me understand The Gospels better.

My question to Protestants is…“who” decided that it wasn’t The Inspired Word of God?
 
2ndGen said:
And Sirach was what set me off. I use that book as the guide for how I should act. I had been reading self help books up until that point but realized that they had all plagerized Sirach and this work was written thousands of years ago.

It scared the “hell” out of me literally.
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Thank you so much, 2ndGen, for replying. I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. Your story gives me hope.
The original “Sirach doubter” in my post is my son, who has left the Church at 19.

Now, I am inspired to go back and read Sirach again myself. Thanks for your witness.
 
Ben Sirach and Wisdom are the most Christian books in the OT.
Some Jewish scholars said that actually they are prechristian books and belong in the NT. They are my favorite Deuterocanonicals.
Ben Sirach was also found in the original Hebrew in the DSS, in Masada and in Damascus.
The Pharisees did not what Wisdom and Ben Sirach in their canon because they were too Christian.
Were to found it.

Douay Rheims:
drbo.org/book/26.htm
KJ AV 1611:
etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/KjvSira.html
RSV:
clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/index.htm
NAB:
nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/index.htm#sirach

I add the NETS: ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/30-sirach-nets.pdf

From Wikipedia:
Influence in the Jewish liturgy
Ben Sira was used as the basis for two important parts of the Jewish liturgy. In the Mahzor (High Holy day prayer book), a medieval Jewish poet used Ben Sira as the basis for a poem, KeOhel HaNimtah, in the Yom Kippur musaf (“additional”) service for the High Holidays. Recent scholarship indicates that it formed the basis of the most important of all Jewish prayers, the Amidah. Ben Sira apparently provides the vocabulary and framework for many of the Amidah’s blessings. Many rabbis quoted Ben Sira as an authoritative work during the three centuries before the advent of Yavneh.
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[edit] In the New Testament
Some people claim that there are several allusions to the book of Sirach in the New testament. These include The magnificat in Luke 1:52 following Sirach 10:14, the description of the seed in Mark 4:5,16-17 following Sirach 40:15, and Christ’s statement in Matthew 7:16,20 following Sirach 27:6.[9]
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The distinguished patristic scholar Henry Chadwick has claimed that in Matthew 11:28 Jesus was directly quoting Sirach 51:27.[10]
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Sira
 
inthecloud said:
Ben Sirach and Wisdom are the most Christian books in the OT.
Some Jewish scholars said that actually they are prechristian books and belong in the NT. They are my favorite Deuterocanonicals.
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The list of favorite Deutero’s is incomplete without Tobit. Period.👍
 
Tell him that the Church has always accepted Sirach has part of Scriptures. The Early Church Fathers quoted from this book and said it is Scriptures. Christians accepted the deutrocanonical books since the time of the Apostles. The only group who rejected them, along with the NT, was the Jewish community in their so called council of 90AD. If He want to believe Sirach is not Scripture, then He is following the Jewish canon, not the Christian Canon. He should take out the NT too. Christ and the Apostles quoted/alluded from the book of Sirach, as well as the other deutrocanonical books.

The Church Fathers quoted from the deutros and Christ and the Apostles quoted from too—>scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanon.html

Of course “quotation does not mean Scripture”, but the Early Church followed the Tradition of the Apostles and believe that Sirach was Scriptures. It has been accepted by the Church until Martin Luther came along, and then most Christians started to reject them.
 
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