The object of this Introduction is to provide a short account not only of the books in the Church Apocrypha, but of the other Jewish writings from 200 B.C. to A.D. 100, which should be now occupying the attention of those interested in the New Testament. For without some knowledge of the contemporary literature of the period, we lose the chief key to the understanding of the world to which Christ came, and the atmosphere in which the Church was born. - From the Preface