The Apocrypha: An American Translation by Edgar J. GoodspeedMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a very readable, modern-feeling translation of the Apocrypha even today. Each work has a a preface summarizing the text and giving context. The work's introduction by Moses Hadas feels insightful on the inter-testament works as a whole as trying to make sense of the Chosen People understanding why they suffered so much. Generally, these works do much to set the scene and give exposition to the New Testament events.
Aside from purported history, there's a lot of sound wisdom here, as in Sirach:
Sirach 11:8-10 New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (aka NRSVA, can't find Goodspeed's readable translation online, so I am lazily pasting in quotes from other modern translations)
8 Do not answer before you listen,
and do not interrupt when another is speaking.
9 Do not argue about a matter that does not concern you,
and do not sit with sinners when they judge a case.
10 My child, do not busy yourself with many matters;
if you multiply activities, you will not be held blameless.
If you pursue, you will not overtake,
and by fleeing you will not escape.
The Book of the All-Virtuous Wisdom of Yeshua ben Sira, commonly called the Wisdom of Sirach or simply Sirach, and also known as the Book of Ecclesiasticus or Ben Sira, is a work of ethical teachings and I learned from the preface here that it is believed by some Jesus of Nazareth was named after this "Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem", as may have been commonly done in that time and place. Maybe it even meant as much as to say my name "Thomas" derives from the Disciple Thomas.
Generally, Sirach (which stuck with me about evenly with the bloody battles of Maccabees and the apocalyptic pieces derivative of Daniel), seems like a crotchety old man leery of anything smacking of risk:
2 Do not put yourself in a woman's hands
or she may come to dominate you completely.
3 Do not keep company with a prostitute,
in case you get entangled in her snares.
4 Do not dally with a singing girl,
in case you get caught by her wiles.
Also from Chapter 9, Sirach warns about hookers and the bad parts of town!
6 Do not give your heart to whores,
or you will ruin your inheritance.
7 Keep your eyes to yourself in the streets of a town,
do not prowl about its unfrequented quarters.
Yet the crotchety Sirach knows about staying up late when a daughter is out:
9 Unknown to her, a daughter keeps her father awake,
the worry she gives him drives away his sleep: in her youth,
in case she never marries, married, in case she should be disliked,
10 as a virgin, in case she should be defiled and found with child in her father's house,
having a husband, in case she goes astray, married, in case she should be sterile!
11 Your daughter is headstrong?
Keep a sharp look-out that she does not make you the laughing-stock of your enemies,
the talk of the town, the object of common gossip, and put you to public shame.
Finally, the rich lode of Ch. 9 ends with advice I can follow as someone who often regrets speaking inappropriately: "A man full of words is a dread to his city, but one who speaks rashly will be hated for his word."
Lots of material here showing a Wisdom personified as a woman, practicaly as a co-deity. The Wisdom of Solomon or Book of Wisdom is included in the canon of Deuterocanonical books by the Roman Catholic Church and the anagignoskomenona (meaning "that which is to be read") of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Such religions seems to have co-opted much that could be considered idolatry, so it has a tinge of hypocrisy to me to see the canonize a work that includes such observations:
11 Take a woodcutter.
He fells a suitable tree, neatly strips off the bark all over
and then with admirable skill works the wood into an object useful in daily life.
12 The bits left over from his work he uses for cooking his food, then eats his fill.
13 There is still a good-for-nothing bit left over, a gnarled and knotted billet:
he takes it and whittles it with the concentration of his leisure hours,
he shapes it with the skill of experience, he gives it a human shape
14 or perhaps he makes it into some vile animal, smears it with ochre,
paints its surface red, coats over all its blemishes.
15 He next makes a worthy home for it, lets it into the wall, fixes it with an iron clamp.
16 Thus he makes sure that it will not fall down --
being well aware that it cannot help itself,
since it is only an image, and needs to be helped.
17 And yet, if he wishes to pray for his goods, for his marriage, for his children,
he does not blush to harangue this lifeless thing --
for health, he invokes what is weak,
18 for life, he pleads with what is dead, for help,
he goes begging to total inexperience,
for a journey, what cannot even use its feet,
19 for profit, an undertaking, and success in pursuing his craft,
he asks skill from something whose hands have no skill whatever.
(Chapter 13)
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