Apocrypha

from Jewish literature of the late Second Temple era (roughly 200 BCE-70 CE) - a lot of midrash-like folktales, a few psalms that did not make it into the Hebrew Bible, a little wisdom literature, and a few bits of history. This book is a very easy read, and thus is not just for scholars. Some of the books quoted by de Lange could have been in the Bible- but by and large, much of the quoted work is not that enthralling, and after reading this book I understand why the Hebrew Sages excluded most of these books. For example, the book of Judith is about a heroine who stops the army of Nebuchadnezzar and thus saves Israel from the Assyrians- but as anyone familiar with the Book of Kings knows, Nebuchadnezzar (a) was Babylonian and (b) won his war against the Jews. (Though I do wonder why the Sages excluded the Book of Maccabees, which seems to have been pretty well written, explains the genesis of a Jewish holiday, and shows no obvious signs of falsity).