“The Apocrypha itself never claims to be the Word of God.”
What a ridiculous criteria!
How many books of the Bible would be excluded if THAT were the standard?
And what of the fraudulent N.T. editing by Luther?
Protestants certainly have no “unanimous support” for much, considering the 13,000 denominations. Private, yet, conflicting revelation is NOT very convincing.
“The early church showed no unanimous support...”
“Unanimous support” is NOT the criteria!
The Synod of Hippo (393) and the three of Carthage (393, 397, and 419), are quite sufficient!
What these Protestants do not grasp is that the Church is the context of the Bible whereas the Bible is the context of the Protestant churches because the Church gave us the bible. Without the authority of the Church and it's canon the Bible in an errant collection of inerrant works.
Catholic myth.. Luther never removed anything from the bible.. whereas Rome added to it ignoring the warning of God