The term "apocrypha" refers to texts that were not included in the biblical canon, often for content-related or religious-political reasons. The term "apocryphal," coined by Christian theologians in the 2nd century, initially also meant "heretical" and devalued the excluded writings as false teachings. Emil Kautzsch, one of the founders of the interdenominational German Society for the Exploration of Palestine and a prominent Protestant theologian, delves into the question of the apocrypha of the Old Testament in this first volume of his foundational work. It was considered a standard work well into the 20th century. The second volume on the pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament is also available from Literaricon Verlag. This is a reprint of the original edition from 1900.