I suggest there are several reasons why these writings should be read.

Firstly, these texts were very important for many people in early Judaism and the early church so they should be for us, whether a Jew or Christian. In several communities, many of these works were authoritative and even considered scripture on par with the books that we now consider Scripture. The Dead Sea Scroll community (almost certainly Essenes) had more copies (and often luxurious ones) of 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Temple Scroll than most books of scripture. In fact, as mentioned previously, books like 4 Ezra, Jubilees, and 1 Enoch are still considered scripture by various churches and Jewish groups today.

Secondly, the Pseudepigrapha is saturated with examples of early Jewish biblical interpretation. If one wants to know how Jews and early Christians understood scripture they should study the exegetical practices employed in these writings. They contain some of the earliest examples of biblical hermeneutics, commentary, and theological reasoning. These texts record developing and competing theologies of determinism, free-will, messianism, resurrection, and the origins of evil.

Thirdly, related to this, reading these texts are important for correcting false ideas about early Judaism. In Protestant scholarship since the days of Martin Luther, later ideas of legalism, often inspired by narrow readings of Rabbinical Judaism were assumed to reflect the scene in Second Temple Judaism. However, reading these writings, and the Dead Sea Scrolls shows this not to be exactly the case.

Fourthly, for Christians the New Testament itself quotes and depends upon these writings. Here are three examples. Jude 14 cites 1 Enoch 1.9 with the same formula the synoptic gospels use to cite Isaiah.^[1] Likewise, Paul makes a typological reference of Jesus being a rock that followed the Israelities in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10.4). Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (sometimes labelled Pseudo-Philo) describes a well of water following the Israelites to miraculously water them in the Exodus (LAB 10.7). This – by extension – implies the rock Moses struck to supply water (Exodus 17.6) is supposed to have miraculously followed them – a theme developed further in Rabbinic literature. Finally, the magicians who assist Pharoah during the plagues of Egypt are never named in Exodus. However, 2 Timothy 3.8 supplies the names Jamnes and Mambres. Origen notes these names are found in a secret (pseudepigraphical) work titled ‘the book of Jamnes and Mambres’ (Commentariorum Series 117)^[2]