Well, according to the history, the canon was set by 150 bc. That gives us a timeframe sufficient to the task.
The answer is that at the time of Jesus there was no CLOSED Canon.
You haven't established that. You've posited it; but, as a matter of logic, you cannot use your proposition as support for itself. There was a set of longstanding works that had been used as canon for ages - that is incontestable. And as time went on, individual works or groups of works were considered and added. That does not mean their was no canon. And whether the Israelites closed the canon by the time of Christ or not, it was closed by Christ at the sealing of the new covenant. So, your task then is to show what that canon was. In absence of evidence to the contrary, given that Jamnia did *not* set canon, we can conclude from Jamnia what the canon was as it matches what existed before Christ arrived. We don't need Columbo for that. If you contend other than what the facts show, we need Columbo because there is nothing there to support it.
Was the Septuagint a CLOSED Canon? If it was, we don't have a piece of paper from the ancient world that tells us so.
You're a bit premature with that question. You must first establish that it even constituted canon. I can have a collection of books for consideration in one work, all that makes it is a collection of books. Until assent is given that it is more than that, nothing more is established. And to the extent that you fail to show the Septuigent ever had that status specifically, then anything you say further is speculation at best. There is your problem with it. And it doesnt' even bare on Jamnia.. no linkage. Before you can ask if it was a closed canon, you first must establish that it ever was canon. Whether Jesus and the Apostles quoted it or something else is immaterial. I can Cite George S. Patton to make a point, it doesn't make his writings scripture - just useful to make a point. This is why I noted earlier that the concept of citation in this regard is immaterial. To say they were quoted as scripture, you'd have to establish that they ever were scripture. Given that no such assent is attributed, you must establish it externally - which has led us here and to a failure to so do.
One would thing that this would be self-evident, but Luther dealt you a bad hand, which forces you to use sophistry to try and get around it.
Ah, not so fast. As I noted, I am not a protestant. And I did not rely on Protestants for my side of this discussion. You are being disingenuous.
The very ancient texts that I point to to show the canonicity of Maccabees are the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament. THEY treat these documents as Scripture
That's begging the question. We already know the claim is made that the apocryphals were canon. You haven't established that. And just because someone cites something, doesn't mean they considered it scripture, much less that they werer right in so doing if they did. The larger point is that the very reason we're in this discussion is because the claim is made based on what you are saying now. Essentially, you are again attempting to support your supposition with itself - in a more backhanded way perhaps; but, nonetheless..
"Well, according to the history, the canon was set by 150 bc."
This is where the argument fails.
According to "the history".
WHAT history?
WHOSE history?
Based on what specific ancient source?
You are postulating that a canon existed, and everyone knew what it was.
Cite to an ancient list during or before Jesus' life and times.
You can't. One doesn't exist.
The first lists start appearing long after Jesus died.
And in them, you have Christians citing to some books, Alexandrian Jews using Septuagint Greek texts, and Palestinian Jews like Josephus writing a different text.
Saying "The history says" doesn't work.
The "history" only "says" that if there is a piece of paper dating from the period that says it. If there isn't, then a history book that goes further is not writing "the history". It is engaging in conjecture.
You keep returning the idea that I need to prove that the Septuagint was a canon, and that the books Jesus and the Apostles cited to, which are not in the Hebrew Canon, were considered canonical.
But you're missing something crucial: I am not the Sola Scripturalist. YOU are. YOU are asserting that there is one canon, and that everything we need to know about God is right there, that the Church does not have special authority to interpret that, and that the Church has added to the Canon, etc.
The very proof that you demand of me, that I establish that books were in the Canon, is really incumbent on YOU. Because I and people like me think that the authority reposes in the CHURCH to interpret these things, and that Scripture Alone, without the guidance of the Church, will lead a man straight into error and contradiction.
The place I started was the Canon itself, because if I am to play at Sola Scriptura, I want to at least make sure that we are using the complete Scripture.
But YOU assert, "the history says", without providing any ancient source that backs YOUR limited canon, which YOU say contains everything anyone needs to know about religion.
When I read the Bible, even if I limit it to your abridged canon, I do not see any words in there that remotely approach "Sola Scriptura". I see "all Scripture is God-breathed", which is true enough. But that is saying "Scrpture is Good", not "ONLY Scripture has authority." Indeed, I don't see Jesus leaving ANY Scripture, but leaving a Church and insisting that the Spirit will be with the Church, also imbuing the men of the CHURCH with "the power of the keys", to forgive sins, etc. I see Paul referring to how to make new clergy. What I don't see any of them doing is focusing on the Bible and saying "This is IT! THIS is the most important thing, not the Church, not us."
You say that the Bible IS the nec plus ultra.
The Bible doesn't say that, as far as I can see.
Really it doesn't say anything like that.
And what's worse, even if we allow it for the sake of argument, you are not able to produce any credible evidence of why we should pick YOUR limited canon of the Bible as the true one.
Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, James: THEY all cited to books you say are not the Bible.
You say "the history says", but you won't provide any history that actually says that.
(Hint: the closest you will get is Josephus' "Against Apion", written at the end of the 1st Century, in which he says there are 22 books in the Hebrew Canon. But, of course, Josephus is a Palestinian Jew of priestly origin who is a player in the Jewish world that results in the Hebrew Canon, and is writing at that time. His 22 books do not quite match the Hebrew canon as we usually see it, but with inferences one can make it jibe. WE make those inferences. What that proves is that circa 90 AD an educated former Jewish priest had a strong opinion about what the Jewish Scriptures were, and that the Jews who produced the Massoretic Text agree with him. This tells us nothing of Judaism circa 30 AD, two generations prior, before the massive upheavals of the Jewish world.)
If you are going to stipulate to Bible Alone, YOU are the one who has to prove what the Bible IS in the first place, and YOU have to prove that it says Bible Alone.
The second thing is easy: the Bible doesn't say Bible Alone.
The first part is hard, because the Bible doesn't say what's in the Bible.
For that, we have to turn to history.
There is no list of canon before about 90 AD.
Therefore, we have to go on inference for 30 AD.
Circa 30 AD we have Jesus and his Apostles quoting from Septuagint scripture. THEY evidently thought this was Scripture.
I think it is extraordinary to assert, as you did, that "Maybe they were wrong."
Umm, no. By definition Jesus can NEVER be wrong about ANY aspect of religion, including Scripture, because he was GOD. If HE cites something as a precept, that precent is Holy, again by definition. Clearly nobody has the authority to overrule Jesus' choice of Scripture. One can quibble with the Apostles. Jude refers to 1 Enoch, which only the Ethopian Church considers Scripture. But if you are arguing with Jesus, you've lost the forest for the trees.
Since you are not, by your own definition, Protestant, then what is the big deal anyway. Jesus and the Apostles clearly used the Deuterocanonical works: they use passages from them all the time. Presumably you want to get it right with Jesus. Why not, then, use the same books that HE did? Why are you even arguing that those books are not in the canon, if you're not a Protestant?