. . . we read in b. Sanhedrin 100b:
“R. Joseph said: Even though the rabbis withdrew the book of Ben Sira, we
expound all the good passages contained in it (Leiman, Canonization of
Hebrew Scripture, 95). The book is cited several times in the Talmud and
the midrash (Leiman, Canonization of Hebrew Scripture, 96-97). Sid Leiman
suggested that Ben Sira was regarded as “uninspired canonical literature” (Leiman,
Canonization of Hebrew Scripture, 100), but that category is exceedingly
problematic. Ben Sira may have been popular and regarded as good to read, at
least in part, but it was not accorded the same status as the so-called
canonical books. We might compare the attitude of Athanasius to the seven
books, including Ben Sira, that were recommended for reading, even though they
were not canonical.
It does not appear, then, that the
rabbis had any ideological quarrel with Ben Sira. It may be that his book was
not canonized because it was transparently the work of a human author of a
relatively late period. Daniel could be accepted because it was supposed to
have been composed centuries earlier, at the time of the Babylonian exile. It
is somewhat ironic that Ben Sira’s candor about his authorship may he thwarted
his desire to have his work accepted among the “other writings” that carried
authority in Jewish tradition. (John J. Collins, “The Penumbra of the Cannon:
What Do the Deuterocanonical Books Represent?” in Ancient Jewish and
Christian Scriptures: New Developments in Canon Controversy, ed. John J.
Collins, Craig A. Evans, and Lee Martin McDonald [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2020], 17)
