Since I intended to spend the summer reviewing the apocalyptic literature in the Pseudepigrapha, this would be a good to time think about some of the challenges reading this material. I will be using the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited James Charlesworth (originally Doubleday, 1983; not Yale University Press). The 
abbreviation OTP throughout this series refers to the 1983 print edition of these two volumes. It is important to point out the obvious: there was no collection of “Old Testament Pseudepigrapha” in the ancient world. Although a few were considered sacred by some elements of the early church, these books were never collected as an alternate canon nor were they suppressed by orthodox Christians. There was no grand conspiracy of women-hating priests who systematically suppressed the free-thinking writers of this material. That sort of wild-eyed story telling makes for a good Hollywood movie or a wacky conspiracy theory blog, but it is simply not the…
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