This introduction, by a world leader in the field, provides the perfect guide to the Second Temple Period, its history, literature, and religious setting.

Lester Grabbe magisterially guides the reader through the period providing a careful overview of the most studied sources, the history surrounding them and the various currents within Judaism at the time.

This book will be a core text for courses on the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, as well as Qumran, Intertestamental Literature and Early Judaism.