Table of Contents

Contributors
Contents
Maps, Charts, and Diagrams
Alphabetical Listing of the Books of the Apocrypha
List of Abbreviations
The Editors' Preface
To the Reader
Introduction
Law
Jubilees
Histories and Stories
1 Esdras
Expanded
Tobit
Judith
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
3 Maccabees
Prophecies
Letter of Jeremiah
Baruch
Additions to Daniel [3 Pieces]
Prayer of Azariah/Song of the Three
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
4 Ezra
Poetry and Wisdom
Psalm 151
Prayer of Manasseh
Wisdom of Solomon
Ben Sira
4 Maccabees
ESSAYS
Social Contexts
The Babylonian and Persian Period: History and Culture
The Hellenistic Period: History and Culture
The Roman Period
Ancient Jewish Sectarianism
The Archaeology of Second Temple Judaism
The Hasmonean State and Ancient Jewish Nationalism
The Apocrypha, Canon, and Literary Contexts
Canon
The Septuagint
Dead Sea Scrolls
The Peshitta and the Syriac Biblical Context
The Apocrypha in Rabbinic Literature
Apocrypha in Medieval Hebrew Literature
Wisdom in the Apocrypha
Literary Approaches to the Apocrypha
The Incredible Expanding Bible: From the Dead Sea Scrolls to Haile Selassie
The Apocrypha and Jewish Life
Torah, Law, and Commandments
Prayer in the Apocrypha
Hanukkah in the Apocrypha
Jewish Heroes and the Apocrypha
Gender
Jewish Theology and the Apocrypha
Evil and Sin
Jewish Identity in the Apocrypha
Truth and Lies in Apocryphal Tales
TIMELINE
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF RULERS
TRANSLATIONS OF ANCIENT TEXTS
GLOSSARY
INDEX

About the Author

Jonathan Klawans is Professor of Religion at Boston University. He is the author of Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism, and Heresy, Forgery, Novelty .

Lawrence M. Wills is visiting professor of Judaic Studies and Religious Studies at Brown University. His books include The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World, which was named an Outstanding Academic Book of 1995 by Choice magazine for academic librarians, and also Not God's People: Insiders and Outsiders in the Biblical World.

Reviews

It deserves to be part of the library of all scholars of Second Temple Judaism. It will also be particularly helpful in the classroom, presenting as it does a nonChristian interpretation of what most students know as Christian scripture. In that regard, it fulfills its mission admirably, as did the other volumes in this outstanding trilogy.
*Sidnie White Crawford, Department of Classics and Religious Studies, University of NebraskaLincoln, Dead Sea Discoveries*

It deserves to be part of the library of all scholars of Second Temple Judaism. It will also be particularly helpful in the classroom, presenting as it does a non-Christian interpretation of what most students know as Christian scripture. In that regard, it fulfills its mission admirably, as did the other volumes in this outstanding trilogy.
*Sidnie White Crawford, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, Dead Sea Discoveries 29*

Overall, this volume is an excellent reference book. It targets a Jewish audience, offering guidance for learning the Second Temple heritage which shaped later Judaism. But it would also be a valuable book for Christian students of the bible, not only because the so-called apocryphal texts are part of Scripture in Church tradition, but also because it is important to know the Judaic heritage that formed the foundation of Christianity.
*Lydia Gore-Jones, Phronema *

...excellent essays...
*Rabbi Dr. Stu Halpern, The Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought*

Klawans and Wills have furnished a unique reference tool for readers that is clearly presented and astutely informed by established scholars and experts in the field that is sure to benefit a wide range of readers.
*Daniel M. Gurtner, Gateway Seminary, Religious Studies Review*