The Apocrypha consists of 14 "books" that were part of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible together with Greek works on biblical themes. They were part of the canon for all Christians from the fifth century on, but fell into disrepute with Protestants because they weren't part of the original Hebrew scripture--yet they were part of the original King James Version of the Bible and was only dropped later. And they're still considered canonical by Catholics and Greek Orthodox.

So that means whatever your beliefs, they were a huge part of Western culture for well over a millennium. That's why I think anyone of whatever faith (or no faith) should have a copy--just as they should have the Hebrew Bible, The New Testament, the Koran, the Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching, etc. I'm not sure how Jews view the Apocrypha. I understand they're not included in Jewish Bibles, but you won't find the basis for Chanukah in the Hebrew Bible, but in The Books of the Maccabees that are in the Apocrypha. It's funny, I was raised a Catholic, but these stories weren't really familiar to me before reading this. Maybe because American culture is of a Protestant stamp and they disfavor them. My copy is subtitled "An American Translation" and reads as colloquial and flowing rather than some attempt to be archaic. On that regard I found a fascinating and very useful review of this book on Amazon that gives a lot of the context of this translation of the book you can't find within it. Link below:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R152944Q9DY6VO/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0... ( )