The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, edited by R.H. Charles (1913 edition), is a collection of Jewish religious writings, mainly from the centuries leading up to the New Testament events. They are arguably the most important non-biblical documents for the historical and cultural background studies of popular religion in New Testament times. The early church writers made use of these documents, and the New Testament even quotes or alludes to a few of them. The Epistle of Jude, for example, contains allusions to the Assumption of Moses (Jude 9) and the 1st Book of Enoch (Jude 14-16).

Exegetes have long stressed the importance of genre study, the study of documents that share similar literary characteristics to the work being analyzed, in the work of the interpreter of scripture. Grant Osborne, in his work, The Hermeneutical Spiral states, "We must determine the genre or type of literature before interpretation can begin. The pastor will preach apocalyptic quite differently than poetry or narrative. ...we must study and proclaim each biblical genre differently, according to its own purposes and rules, lest we proclaim a message alien to the divine intention in the text" (p. 354).

Exegetes have long stressed the importance of genre study, the study of documents that share similar literary characteristics to the work being analyzed, in the work of the interpreter of scripture. Grant Osborne, in his work, The Hermeneutical Spiral states, "We must determine the genre or type of literature before interpretation can begin. The pastor will preach apocalyptic quite differently than poetry or narrative. ...we must study and proclaim each biblical genre differently, according to its own purposes and rules, lest we proclaim a message alien to the divine intention in the text" (p. 354).

The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are key documents for genre study; interpreters and commentators of Revelation and Daniel, for example, make much use of the apocalypses in this collection: 1 and 2 Enoch, The Testament of the 12 Patriarchs, 2 and 3 Baruch, 4 Ezra, The Sibylline Oracles, etc.

A simple search for references to the Books of Enoch, for example, returns over 1,100 hits in the Word Biblical Commentary, and over 440 hits in Anchor Bible Dictionary. That's over 1,500 references in just two sets of books - just for Enoch! In Libronix format, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha has a standard reference scheme encoded, much like a Bible reference. This allows us to start turning references to these important, oft-cited books, into live hyperlinks to the translations themselves.

R.H. Charles' edition of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament is divided into two print volumes. The first volume contains those books which are still considered part of scripture by the Roman Catholic Church or the Greek Orthodox Church. The second volume contains works like the apocalypses mentioned above that were in popular use, but never canonized as scripture by any mainstream Christian church. In addition to apocalypses, there are histories, books of wisdom literature (in the same genre as Proverbs), psalms, and additions to canonical works.

Each apocryphal and pseudepigraphal text has an extensive introduction covering dates, manuscript variants, and helpful topics such as "Influence on New Testament Doctrine." In fact, these thorough introductions (some running 48 pages and more) are one of the reasons Charles' work is so widely used today.

Each text is presented in English translation, and is accompanied by copious notes and (in many cases) a critical apparatus listing alternate readings in the various ancient language manuscripts that have survived till today—citing Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Latin, Armenian and more.

Some of Charles' editions have been made available online or in other software packages, but none that we know of contain the complete set of notes, introductions and critical apparatuses that make this set the indispensable study tool that it is.

The Logos edition contains some exciting enhancements to make this work even more accessible and useful. Charles's in-depth commentary/notes (appearing in the print edition as footnotes—see page scan below) are broken out into a separate "commentary" volume in the electronic edition. This makes it easy to open the text and commentary side-by-side so they scroll together as you read through the Charles text (or any other text such as the KJV Apocrypha, for example). Where Charles included a critical apparatus (e.g., Fourth Ezra—see screenshot below), it, too, is broken out as a separate volume.

As with every Libronix-compatible resource, all Bible references are hotspots that open your preferred Bible version to the specified passage. Abbreviations and annotation symbols are decoded via pop-ups that appear when you hover the mouse over the abbreviation or symbol. Inter-textual links are also hotspots that jump you to the resource referenced (e.g., clicking a footnote marker in The Assumption of Moses will open the accompanying commentary to that point).

The electronic edition has been broken out into seven volumes, each of which appears in My Library:

Apocrypha of the Old Testament: The actual text of the apocryphal books chosen for this volume by R.H. Charles. This includes all prefatory information and introductions to the books as well.

Apocrypha of the Old Testament (Apparatuses): Some (not all) books have rather technical apparatuses. This resource has them when they're available. Some are incredibly technical and detailed (Tobit is loaded w/Syriac, Greek, and Hebrew variants), others are quite brief (e.g., 4Macc in Pseudepigrapha). This resource can be set to scroll synchronously with the other two Apocrypha-based volumes (and any Bible with Apocrypha in Libronix DLS, e.g., NRSV, RSV, KJV Apocrypha, NAB, NJB, LXX, etc.)

Commentary on the Apocrypha of the Old Testament: Bottom-of-the-page notes from Charles' edition.

Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament: The actual text of the apocryphal books chosen for this volume by R.H. Charles. This includes all prefatory information and introductions to the books as well.

Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Apparatuses): Some (not all) books have rather technical apparatuses. This resource has them when they're available.

Commentary on the Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament: Bottom-of-the-page notes from Charles' edition.

Index to the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament: An index to both the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. It is in the last 30-40 pages of volume 2. All references are hotspots, and it is topically indexed. So you can search this resource topically to find out what the Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha have to say on a particular topic.