393 AD: Council of Hippo (North Africa): approved list of OT and NT canon, the same as the Council of Trent list.
397 AD: Council of Carthage (North Africa): approved list of OT and NT canon, the same as the Council of Trent list.
These were LOCAL counsels not ecumenical and carried no weight with the headship of the church.
The books remained optional and not canonical and they were continued to be held as “spiritual readings” as opposed to inspired in Jerome’s translation
At no time did God remove the care and authority over the OT from the Jews , to whom the books were given, and give it to the Christian church
Two things:
First they are Councils, not counsels
Secondly, more information will be forthcoming through this series on your thoughts as to the validity of The Council of Hippo and the Council of Carthage.
The Council of Trent will also be covered.
This is not quite right. The seventh ecumenical council adopted all of the anathemas of Hippo and Carthage. Carthage, in particular, anathematized anyone who didn't accept the deuterocanonical books in the following statement:
But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.
The seventh ecumenical council adopted that anathema via the following comment:
"For all these, being illumined by the same Spirit, defined such things as were expedient. Accordingly those whom they placed under anathema, we likewise anathematize; those whom they deposed, we also depose; those whom they excommunicated, we also excommunicate; and those whom they delivered over to punishment, we subject to the same penalty. (In canon I of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of II Nicaea II)."
Trent, therefore, merely dogmatised the anathema that was given at Carthage and subsequently adopted by the seventh ecumenical council.