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coolio :-). Thank you Salvation for the post. I can’t wait to read this.

Even for a non-Catholic, the “extra” books are well worth reading.

The book of Wisdom, for example, compares quite favorably to Proverbs.

I'll present a reaction in an argument vs. counter-argument format. First, I'll start with the arguments in the post, then toss in a couple more later.

ARGUMENT:Precisely because the Septuagint was the version most used and accepted by Jesus and the Apostles, the Catholic Church uses the Septuagint's canon of Old Testament books in the Roman Catholic Bible.

Note: This may be the reason, but it's not completely factual.

COUNTER-ARGUMENT: There are 15 books of the Apocrypha (14 if you combine the Letter of Jeremiah into Baruch [Baruch Ch.6]). All 15 are contained in the earliest known version of the Septuagint (LXX), which was used to help translate the Vulgate. They are: The Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Tobit (Tobias), Judith, 3 Esdras, 1&2 Maccabees, Baruch (CH 1-5), The Letter of Jeremiah (Baruch Ch 6), 4 Edras, Esther 10:4-16:24, Prayer of Azariah (in other mss listed as "Song of Three Young Men" is Daniel 3:24-90), Susanna (Daniel 13), Bel and the Dragon (Daniel 14), and Prayer of Manassah.

Even though all of these books are contained in the earliest known complete LXX (4th century AD) as well as post 4th century Greek Bibles, the Council of Trent rejected 3&4 Edras and the Prayer of Manassah.

ARGUMENT: Jesus and his Apostles knew and used the Septuagint most heavily. The authors of the New Testament's books also quoted directly from the Septuagint most of the time, since this version was the most commonly used in the early Church.

COUNTER-ARGUMENT: The writers of the New Testament did use the LXX most heavily. However, there are a couple points of contention to using this as a reason to canonize 12 of the 15 Apocryphal books.

First, Palestine was the home of the Jewish canonization process at the time of Christ, not the Greek learning center at Alexandria, Egypt. The fact that the LXX contains the Apocrypha only proves that the LXX translators translated the other religious writings from the intertestamental period. Philo, the Alexandrian Jew and philosopher recognized by Josephus, flatly rejected the Apocrypha as canon. Eventually, Judaism as a whole did, also.

Second, the earliest Greek manuscripts of the Bible (also 4th century) contain ALL the books of the Apocrypha, however, this does not indicate canonization, nor does it indicate that Jesus or His apostles would have accepted the Apocryphal books as canon. There is no evidence that all the Apocryphal books were present in earlier versions of the LXX. There is no indication that 1st - 3rd century Jews accepted these books either(they did not, in fact, rejecting the LXX for Aquila's Greek version sometime in the 2nd century).

ARGUMENT: The books of the Catholic Bible are the books that all Christians traditionally accepted.

COUNTER-ARGUMENT: This is incorrect. Many of the great, early church fathers rejected the Apocrypha, including Melito, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Athanasius. There is no evidence that any important leader of the church before the time of Augustine accepted all of the books canonized at Trent.

In fact, an important Catholic contemporary of Augustine rejected the Apocrypha as canon. Augustine was able to easily influence the councils of Hippo and Carthage. One reason for that is probably due to the fact that there was no Hebrew scholar present at those councils and the LXX versions were exclusively used to determine canonicity. However, Augustine met resistance later in the person of Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus (St. Jerome), the leading Hebrew scholar of the time. Jerome so rejected the Apocrypha that he refused to translate it into Latin or add it to the Vulgate. At the end of his life he translated, at the request of the Church, Judith, Tobias, portions of Daniel, and the disputed chapters of Esther. He still would not add these hasty translations into the Vulgate. These books and the rest of the Apocrypha accepted at Trent were added to the Vulgate “over Jerome’s dead body.”

I’ve touched most of the points in the article. I’ll get back to address other arguments soon, but time constrains me.

The second article describes this history in more detail, including Luther's use of the term Apocrypha to cast a bad light on the Old Testament deuterocanon.

I've heard this before, but a millenia or so before Martin Luther was born, Jerome said:

"This prologue to the Scriptures may be appropriate as a helmeted introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so we may be able to know whatever is outside of these is set aside among the Apocrypha. Therefore, Wisdom, which is commonly ascribed to Solomon, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobias, and The Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the First Book of the Maccabees (is) Hebrew, the Second is Greek, which may also be proven by their styles."
- St. Jerome, Prologus Galeatus

Reading the article again, it seems almost a veiled attack instead of an exposition on the canonicity of the Catholic Bible.

From my reply:
"Jerome so rejected the Apocrypha that he refused to translate it into Latin or add it to the Vulgate. At the end of his life he translated, at the request of the Church, Judith, Tobias, portions of Daniel, and the disputed chapters of Esther. He still would not add these hasty translations into the Vulgate. These books and the rest of the Apocrypha accepted at Trent were added to the Vulgate “over Jerome’s dead body.”

Because I was challenged on this statement in on another thread, proof:

Among the Hebrews the Book of Judith is found among the Hagiographa, the authority of which toward confirming those which have come into contention is judged less appropriate. Yet having been written in Chaldean words, it is counted among the histories. But because this book is found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures, I have acquiesced to your request, indeed a demand, and works having been set aside from which I was forcibly curtailed, I have given to this (book) one short night’s work translating more sense from sense than word from word. I have removed the extremely faulty variety of the many books; only those which I was able to find in the Chaldean words with understanding intact did I express in Latin ones.
- St.Jerome, Prologue of Jerome to Judith

This prologue to the Scriptures may be appropriate as a helmeted introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so we may be able to know whatever is outside of these is set aside among the apocrypha. Therefore, Wisdom, which is commonly ascribed to Solomon, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobias, and The Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the First Book of the Maccabees (is) Hebrew, the Second is Greek, which may also be proven by their styles.
- St. Jerome, Prologue to the Book of Kings by Jerome (The Helmeted Introduction or Prologus Galeatus)

Neither should it disturb anyone that the book edited by us is one, nor should they be delighted by the dreams of the third and fourth books which are of the apocrypha, both because among the Hebrews the discourses of Ezra and Nehemiah are confined to one scroll, and those things which are not found among them, nor are of the twenty-four elders, are for throwing away.
- St. Jerome, Prologue to Esther

Also included is the book of the model of virtue (παναρετος) Jesus son of Sirach, and another falsely ascribed work (ψευδεπιγραφος) which is titled Wisdom of Solomon. The former of these I have also found in Hebrew, titled not Ecclesiasticus as among the Latins, but Parables, to which were joined Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, as though it made of equal worth the likeness not only of the number of the books of Solomon, but also the kind of subjects. The second was never among the Hebrews, the very style of which reeks of Greek eloquence. And none of the ancient scribes affirm this one is of Philo Judaeus. Therefore, just as the Church also reads the books of Judith, Tobias, and the Maccabees, but does not receive them among the the canonical Scriptures, so also one may read these two scrolls for the strengthening of the people, (but) not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas
- St. Jerome, Prologue of Jerome to the Books of Solomon

Jerome to the Bishops in the Lord Cromatius and Heliodorus, health!

I do not cease to wonder at the constancy of your demanding. For you demand that I bring a book written in Chaldean words into Latin writing, indeed the book of Tobias, which the Hebrews exclude from the catalogue of Divine Scriptures, being mindful of those things which they have titled Hagiographa. I have done enough for your desire, yet not by my study. For the studies of the Hebrews rebuke us and find fault with us, to translate this for the ears of Latins contrary to their canon. But it is better to be judging the opinion of the Pharisees to displease and to be subject to the commands of bishops. I have persisted as I have been able, and because the language of the Chaldeans is close to Hebrew speech, finding a speaker very skilled in both languages, I took to the work of one day, and whatever he expressed to me in Hebrew words, this, with a summoned scribe, I have set forth in Latin words. I will be paid the price of this work by your prayers, when, by your grace, I will have learned what you request to have been completed by me was worthy. - St.Jerome, Prologue of Jerome to Tobias

He wrote more, I'm just not going to take the time to find it online or copy it from books (I type slow). He argued with Augustine over the Apocrypha, too. Their correspondence is available online, as well as other correspondence with other Christians that confirm his position on the apocrypha.

I'm not saying Jerome was right or wrong, nor am I trying to determine why he didn't treat the Apocrypha as canon (the argument has been made that he studied so long with the Hebrews that he was overly influenced by them. However, there were a number of other leaders of his time - Rufinius, Pope Damasus - who held to Jerome's position), I'm expanding on and defending a statement made in my reply.