an essential work for students of biblical history which provides depth and historical context for many of the events regarding Jesus' life depicted in the New Testament. For what reason these texts were stricken from the official canon by the fathers of the church is not known, however contemporary source material does reliably date many of these texts to at least the 2nd century A.D., if not earlier, thus giving them a provenance that can at the very least assert these documents as important in the development of the biblical canon.