This book is intended as a student beginner's guide to the history of Judaism and Christianity in the period 200 bc to ad 200, and to the literature associated with both the Jews and Christians which falls outside the list of accepted books of the Old Testament, Apocrypha and New Testament.

The book is divided into two parts. The first is concerned with the history of the peoples where Jews lived, and of the Jews themselves in those places, covering the Mediterranean world, Mesopotamia and Egypt and part of Europe and North Africa. This has involved an outline history of Rome from 264 bc to ad 284, necessary also because of its importance for the history of so many other peoples.

The second part deals with the literature which arose from Judaism. It discusses the Jewish scriptures – the Law, the Prophets and the Writings – and the New Testament, almost wholly as formed collections, and mentions only briefly individual books among them. For information about these the reader is referred to the Cambridge Bible Commentary Series based on the New English Bible. The literature discussed here is the non-canonical writings of both Judaism and Christianity, of which most students of the Bible are perhaps only dimly aware, while conscious of their importance. Besides ⋆Jewish writers in the hellenistic world, these are the ⋆Pseudepigrapha (for the term see p. 158), the ⋆Qumran writings, ⋆early rabbinic Judaism, and ⋆non-canonical Christian writings.