Replies

What change to the Hebrew Canon? Is there a Septuagint that excludes these books to which I was unaware?

There is no Hebrew canon that contains those Apocryphal books. Saying that the Septuagint (a GREEK translation) supposedly contained them is no proof that the Jews EVER accepted those books as equal to the commonly recognized inspired Old Testament ones. What Boogieman stated is accurate. You presume to rebuke non-Catholic Christians for "changing" the Catholic canon which you say existed before Protestantism, yet Catholicism did the same thing to the Hebrew Old Testament, which existed well before Christianity came about. Why did Catholicism have to impose those books into the Old Testament? If they believed they were Divinely-inspired and belonged to the Church, why couldn't they have kept them separated or as a prelude to the New Testament? Paul said that unto the Jews were given the "oracles of God". If these extra books were NEVER recognized by them as inspired, then what gives Christians the right to impose them upon the Jews?

JFTR..."Protestantism" was not the one to change anything. The Old Testament is the same and so is the New Testament of what ALL Christians have recognized as coming from Almighty God. Though there may not have been an "official" Jewish canon until the first century A.D., it is indisputable that those books that make up the OT were widely recognized as being a closed canon (rule or standard). Some of the arguments that demonstrate the canon was closed after Malachi (425 B.C.) are:

2. Jesus also referred to the 3-part division of Hebrew scripture in Luke 24:44, referring to the, “Law of Moses.. the prophets …the Psalms”. This reference confirms the current division of Hebrew canon, which excludes the books known as the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonicals.

3. Josephus (37-100 A.D), the Jewish historian also affirmed in his arguments in Contra Apion 1:7-8 the number of books in the Hebrew canon was numbered at 22, which according to Jewish numbering is the same as the 39 in the Protestant Old Testament. (See Chapter 5, Old Testament Canon).

"Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty and contain the record of all time." Contra Apion 1:7-8

4. Jewish tradition also taught in the Babylonian Talmud, the books in the Hebrew “Canon” are the identical 39 books, which are in both the Protestant and Catholic Bibles, to the exclusion of the Apocrypha. (See Talmud Babylon Baba Batra 14b) (http://www.truthnet.org/Bible-Origins/6_The_Apocrypha_The_Septugint/index.htm)

I believe the Jews have every right to reject the Apocryphal books as equal to the inspired ones and they do so for good reasons. Far better ones, I'm afraid, than those who insist on keeping them. The standard for the rule of faith MUST be based on the revealed word of God as He inspired the writers to commit to the written form - a form GOD has preserved for us all.