Protestant churches, on the other hand, unanimously adhered to the Hebrew canon, separating from this the apocryphal books as useful for reading, but of no authority in matters of faith. 4. Although the Protestant churches rightly reject the apocryphal books as not belonging to the inspired word, the knowledge of their contents is nevertheless a matter of deep interest to the biblical scholar. The first book of Maccabees is in the main authentic, and it covers an important crisis of Jewish history. All of the apocryphal books, moreover, throw much light on the progress of Jewish thought, especially in the two directions of Grecian culture and a rigid adherence to the forms of the Mosaic law. Keil divides the apocryphal books into _historical_, _didactic_, and _prophetic_, but with the remark that this division cannot be rigidly carried out. In the following brief notice of the several books the arrangement of the English Bible is followed. I. THE TWO BOOKS OF ESDRAS. 5. The first two in order of the apocryphal books in the English version bear the title of _Esdras_, that is, _Ezra_. The Greek Bible has only the first, which stands sometimes before our canonical book of Ezra, and sometimes after Nehemiah. In the former case it is called the _first_ book of Esdras, that is, Ezra; in the latter the _third_, Nehemiah being reckoned as the continuation of Ezra, and called the _second_ book of Ezra. It gives the history of the temple and its service from Josiah to Ezra--its restoration by Josiah, destruction by the Chaldees, rebuilding and reestablishment through Zerubbabel and Ezra. Its original and central part is a legend from an unknown source respecting a trial of wisdom between Zerubbabel and two other young men, made in the presence of Darius, king of Persia, which resulted in Zerubbabel's favor, and so pleased the king that he issued letters for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and conferred many other favors on the Jews. Chaps. 3, 4. The preceding and following parts are made up of extracts from 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, in which the compiler has made a free use of his biblical sources, at one time abridging the narrative, at another making explanatory additions, and again transposing the order of events contrary to historical truth. Some, as Keil, think that the writer made use of the Alexandrine version; others, that he drew from the original Hebrew. His design was to exhibit the liberality of Cyrus and Darius towards the Jews as a pattern for the heathen rulers of Judea in his own day. (Keil.) Neither the author nor the date of the book is known, but it cannot be placed earlier than the second century before Christ.