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if you say you have not impeached Beckwith, how can his conclusion be regarded as facially absurd?

I have not impeached him by pointing out his confessional bias, -- I was in agreement with you that it is not enough to point out a confession or a political party to impeach an authority. But I also pointed out two facts:

1. The Catholic Encyclopedia says the same thing Beckwith says in the PDF link that you posted: the extant copies of the Septuagint are of Christian provenance. That is not a proof that the books themselves are written by Christians and not even a discovery by Beckwith. In fact, as I pointed out, it is hard to find a motive for such deception: while the books in question contain many occasional statements that prefigure Christ, their volume and historical thrust does not help a Christian apologist.

2. The references to the Deuterocanon are plentiful among pre-Nicaean fathers such as Sts. Justine Martyr, Hippolytus and Irenaeus, and to Origen. This makes Beckwith's hypothesis absurd on its face. Therefore it is incumbent of Beckwith to somehow deal with this fact. Yet the short article you posted bypasses this issue. Now, giving him a benefit of the doubt, it is possible that he addresses it in his book. But the fact that in the article he makes no such attempt makes me not interested to find out. The article looks like agitprop for the uneducated.

Beckwith does acknowledge a gradual interest in the deuterocanonicals among Christian writers, but this actually supports his conclusion that the "wider Alexandrian canon," as he calls it was a Christian, and not a Jewish development. The evidence drawn from the various canonical debates of the Jewish period do not revolve around the deuterocanonicals, but books we would both regard as securely canonical, namely Ruth, Song of Solomon, and Esther. This is the canon that would be relevant to Timothy's Bible.

As for bias, there could be no testimony at all in this subject matter if every expert witness was required to have no personal affiliation with a religion. Bias in this case must be found, if at all, in the approach the scholar takes to evidence. Not that he must agree with our conclusions to avoid a charge of bias, but that he must demonstrate reasonable consideration of the available evidence and logical, consistent analysis of the data. After that, if he's got valid credentials and a good reputation among his peers as an expert in his field, his opinion can be presented, even if his conclusions are disagreeable to us. At that point, to discredit him would require other expert testimony shown in some way to be superior, better evidence, better analysis, etc. But a decisive expert opinion is not bias, and would not, by itself, discredit his testimony.

Peace,

SR