Apocrypha

Apocrypha is the name Protestant Bibles give to a group of Old Testament texts that are absent from the Hebrew Bible. Most of them are canonical for the Catholic and Orthodox churches, which call them deuterocanonical, but the two lists are not identical: this volume also contains 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which Rome does not treat as canonical.

Most were originally written in Hebrew, and a minority in Greek.

Several of them survived in Jewish tradition without belonging to the Jewish canon, and some of their stories — Judith, the Maccabees — remained important all the same.

Historically, they have been included in all Christian Bibles prior to the 16th century reformation and the rise of Protestantism.

To this day they are still printed in Lutheran and Anglican Bibles, usually as a separate section between the Testaments rather than as canon.

"1:1 And Josias held the feast of the passover in Jerusalem unto his Lord, and offered the passover the fourteenth day of the first month; 1:2 Having set the priests according to their daily courses, being arrayed in long garments, in the temple of the Lord".

This volume includes the following books:
The First Book of Esdras, The Second Book of Esdras [sometimes Fourth Book of Ezra], The Greek Additions to Esther, The First Book of the Maccabees, The Second Book of the Maccabees, The Book of Tobit, The Book of Judith, The Wisdom of Solomon, The Book of Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus), The Book of Baruch, The Epistle (or letter) of Jeremiah, The Book of Susanna (in Daniel), The Prayer of Azariah, The Prayer of Manasseh, Bel and the Dragon (in Daniel).