The Bible's Cutting Room Floor

As almost everyone knows that this point, the bible went through a fairly intense series of parings down and editings into the book that we use today (which is slightly different depending on your religion and/or denomination). Hoffman's book is a fun bit of pop history, giving a surprisingly decent overview of the history of the Judean province area during the time periods that the Bible, as we know it, was compiled and some in-depth discussion of three specific books that were left out of the Bible but were probably well-known during the time period. I wish that he'd given a broader discussion of some of the other books we know were left out, but the specific discussion about the philosophies proposed in the apocryphal texts and the questions that they raise about the transition period as Judaism turned into two different religions (Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity) isn't bad. I'd probably use this as an introduction text to more in-depth works on “lost” scriptures and the pre-Rabbinic Judaism/Christian period.