Sirach

Just determining the author of this book constituted a little mini-study of its own.  The author's name is Jesus, from the Hebrew Yeshu'a, but he is Ben Sira or son of Eleazar who is the son of Sirach.   Consequently the book is known as the Book of Ben Sira, but for Christians it's also known as Ecclesiasticus (not to be thought of as the name of the author and so not to be confused with Ecclesiastes or Qoheleth) meaning the book of the church or churchly matters.  In addition, there is a translator mentioned, Ben Sira's grandson, who translated the book from Hebrew into Greek.

Despite all this, the book was written around 180 B.C. in Jerusalem prior to the Maccabean revolt.

As it turned out, the historical period during which the book was written proved more interesting to me than the content of the  book itself.   Ben Sira lived in a Hellenized Jerusalem and was writing against a background of several threats to Jewish culture.  According to HC, these threats are the rule of foreign kings, disputes between priestly (I presume Jewish) families vying for power, conflicts between the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids who succeeded Alexander the Great (both groups of which I, at present, know precious little), all constituting threats to Jewish religious practices and beliefs and daily living.