The Apocrypha

Discover the hidden biblical treasures that provide essential context for understanding the New Testament: a powerful collection of books illuminating the era between the rebuilding of the Temple and the days of Jesus

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.

EDGAR 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.