“Non-Canonical” Religious Texts in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (T&T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts)

This volume examines what are traditionally seen as “non-canonical” texts and the role they played in early Judaism and Christianity. The contributors discuss several important Jewish and Christian apocryphal and pseudepigraphal texts and describe their ancient functions and socio-cultural and religious context. The texts treated include the Oxyrhynchus papyri, the Enochic library of the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, the Coptic, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions of the Testament of Abraham, and the Testaments of Isaac and Jacob. It is argued that these texts show the fluidity of the notion of Scripture in the early centuries of the Church and in the Judaism of late antiquity. These studies demonstrate the value of examining the ancient religious texts that weren’t included in the Jewish or Christian biblical canons. Because ancient texts were not created in a vacuum, these non-canonical writings aid in our interpretation not only of many canonical writings, but also shed considerable light on the context of early Judaism and Christianity.