Like a house that has vanished, so is wisdom to a fool: The Greek is literally “vanished, disappeared,” rather than “gone to ruin” (Good News Translation). But without effort on someone’s part, houses do not vanish without a trace. Surely ben Sira is thinking here of a pile of stones that were once the walls of a house. Good News Translation interprets the ruined house as “useless,” but there may be a better approach. It will help to remember Pro 9.1a: “Wisdom has built her house.” But when the fool looks at it, all he can see is rubble. Life makes no sense to such a person. We will return to this line after considering the second one.

And the knowledge of the ignorant is unexamined talk: This line is difficult. Scholars who do not resort to the Syriac here interpret the line in several ways. (1) Among ignorant people, what passes for knowledge (Good News Translation “things he is so sure of”) is nothing but some ideas that they have not thought through (unexamined talk; the Greek word for talk can refer to ideas as well as talk). This approach is taken by Good News Translation, New English Bible, and Revised English Bible. (2) Among ignorant people, what passes for knowledge is “words that will not bear investigation” (An American Translation); that is, what they think is true is all wrong. La Bible Pléiade is similar with “incoherent jabbering” (similarly New Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). (3) Ignorant people are not capable of understanding knowledge; to them it consists of talk that they cannot understand. This is the direction taken by New Revised Standard Version, New American Bible, and Shekan. New Revised Standard Version translates the whole line as “and to the ignorant, knowledge is talk that has no meaning.” We believe that New Revised Standard Version is right. Contemporary English Version follows this interpretation with “Knowledge means nothing to ignorant fools.”

If interpretation (3) is followed for the second line, the two lines of this verse are parallel, and it may help to reverse the lines. We offer the following models:

• When ignorant people are confronted with knowledge, they can make no sense of it. It is as though they were looking at a house, but all they see is a pile of rubble.

• When ignorant people encounter knowledge, they can make no sense of it. If wisdom were a house, they would see nothing but a pile of stones.

Without reversing lines, we may translate:

• Ignorant people think that Wisdom is worth no more than a house in ruins; the only thing they know how to do is talk nonsense.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Sirach. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.