Java runtime environment 1.5

What is the app you are wanting to use in Sierra, as you were using it in Tiger (released in 2005) it may be that there is an update/ newer version for it so it will run in macOS Sierra (released 2016), rather than relying to run the old the old version.

Check here if it is compatible with Sierra, https://roaringapps.com

Java support is at Oracle, and they’ll not be interested in helping with this.

Java 5 (free) support ended in November 2009.

Java 5 and Java 6 can’t make secure network connections, among (many) other issues.

What’s the problem you’re trying to solve here?

Not about this particular app and its antique prerequisite.

What are you up to?

You’ll either be replacing this app, or figuring out how to spend way, way, way more than that $300 cost in terms of time and effort and hassles and instabilities getting this old stuff to work as a guest in a virtual machine. And that assumes this app needs Tiger on Intel and not on PPC, and which is not at all certain.

Or you figure out how to purchase the replacement app, or a (cheaper) alternative, or acquire the donations or grants necessary.

The application may have been written to explicitly check for the presence of Java v1.5 and simply fail when it finds anything newer. Or it may reference a Java 1.5 language or library feature that was deprecated and removed in later releases of Java.

Your best bet is Eau Rouge's suggestion, or forget about getting that application running with current Java revisions.