Second Temple Literature Jewish literature written during the Second Temple Period.

During the Second Temple Period, from the dedication of Zerubbabel’s Temple in 516 bc to ad 70 when Herod’s Temple was destroyed, a wide range of Jewish literary works were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. These technically include the later books of the Protestant Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), such as Ezra and Nehemiah, but the term “Second Temple literature” is more often applied to Jewish literature outside the Hebrew Bible. These works are relevant to biblical scholarship because they provide contextual information for study of the New Testament and early Christianity. Second Temple Literature includes:

• The Apocrypha, books that are not part of the Hebrew Bible as represented by the Masoretic Text but are included in the Greek Septuagint or Latin Vulgate translations of the Old Testament. They are not considered canonical by Protestants, but most of them are by Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians. For further details, see this article: Apocrypha, Old Testament.

• The earlier texts among the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. These are generally works pseudonymously attributed to Old Testament figures and written from around 200 bc onward. For further details, see this article: Pseudepigrapha, Old Testament.

• The nonbiblical texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls. These include portions of some of the Apocrypha and Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in Hebrew and Aramaic, but also many other texts. For further details, see this article: Dead Sea Scrolls, Nonbiblical.

• The philosophical writings in Greek of Philo of Alexandria. For further details, see this article: Philo Judaeus.

The writings of Josephus are closely associated with the Second Temple Period, but technically do not belong to it, since they were written after the destruction of the temple. For further details, see these articles: Josephus, Flavius; Jewish War, The.

Rachel Klippenstein