The aims of this significant study are to present pictures of the past as it manifested itself in Jewish literary works written in the Persian and Hellenistic periods, and to reveal the origin of materials and methods used in them in order to construct historical traditions. The works investigated are literary works of three types: pseudohistorical narratives (i.e. historical legends), visions and their interpretations, and 'rewritten Bibles' (i.e. works retelling the historical tradition of the Bible, with alterations in order to create a new structure of history).