Heidegger's Bible Handbook: OT Apocrypha: Argument

4.  Their general argument is set forth.

The argument of these Apocryphal books in general is this, that they attempt to inform the manners and life of man, whether by salutary aphorism and practical rules, or by the trappings of types, parables, and dramas:  or to illustrate in some degree faith in and the worship of the one true God; or to relate the matters conducted in the Church, especially in the times of Judas Maccabæus.  But how the individual books furnish that, we shall open more fully in its place.