Description
The powerful collection of books from the Greek version of the Jewish Bible—the earliest complete version of the Bible we possess—but that were not included in the final, canonical version of the Hebrew Bible.
They were called “Apocrypha,” the hidden or secret books, and while they formed part of the original King James version of 1611, they are no longer included in modern Bibles. Yet they include such important works as The First Book of Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and the stories of Susanna, Tobit, and Judith, and other works of great importance for the history of the Jews in the period between the rebuilding of the Temple and the time of Jesus, and thus for the background of the New Testament. These works have also had a remarkable impact on writers and artists. Beyond this, they are often as powerful as anything in the canonical Bible.
The translation into contemporary English is by Edgar J. Goodspeed.
Preface by Edgar J. Goodspeed
Introduction by Moses Hadas
The First Book of Esdras
The Second Book of Esdras
The Book of Tobit
The Book of Judith
The Additions to the Book of Esther
The Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus or the Wisdom of Sirach
The Book of Baruch
The Story of Susanna
The Song of the Three Children
The Story of Bel and the Dragon
The Prayer of Manasseh
The First Book of Maccabees
The Second Book of MaccabeesEDGAR J. GOODSPEED, Biblical scholar and translator, was born in Quincy, Illinois, in 1871, attended Denison University, received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1898, and taught at the University of Chicago from 1899 to 1937. He brought out The New Testament: An American Translation in 1923, and continued to work on a translation of the entire Bible, completing his work with the publication of this translation of The Apocrypha in 1938. His other works include An Introduction to the New Testament (1937), A Life of Jesus (1950), and As I Remember (1953), his autobiography. Goodspeed died in 1962.US
ISBN-13 : 9780679724520
ISBN-10 : 0679724524
Publisher : Vintage
Pub Date : October 1989
Pages : 528
Binding : Paperback