It has been translated into Latin, Yiddish, Judaeo-Spanish, Judeo-Persian, French and German. An English translation by Norman Bronznick appeared in Stern and Mirsky (1998). A critical edition under the title סיפורי בן סירא בימי הביניים was published by Eli Yassif in 1984.[2]
The Aramaic proverbs are the older part of the book. Five of them can be traced to Talmudic-Midrashic literature. The Hebrew commentary, illustrating the proverbs with fables, is much younger.
The 22 Hebrew proverbs are quite different in character from the Aramaic ones, and much more recent. Half of the proverbs are borrowed from the Talmud, and are only a pretext for the presentation of a number of legends surrounding Ben Sira. Ben Sira is presented as the son of Jeremiah, born to the prophet's own daughter who dipped in a mikveh into which Jeremiah was previously forced to lay seed. Ben Sira's fame reached Nebuchadnezzar II, who called him to his court. Nebuchadnezzar sets forth various ordeals for Ben Sira, who responds with 22 stories.
David Stern, Mark Jay Mirsky (eds.), Rabbinic Fantasies : Imaginative Narratives from Classical Hebrew Literature, Yale Judaica Series (1998). ISBN 0-300-07402-6
Taylor, C., The Alphabet of Ben Sira, in: JQR 17 (1904/05) 238–239.
Taylor, C., The Alphabet of Ben Sira, in: Journal of Philology 30 (1907) 95–132.
Tobias Lachs, Samuel, The Alphabet of Ben Sira, Gratz College Annual of Jewish Studies 11 (1973), 9-28.