[boatbums]

I agree 100%! It's curious to me that, when some want to claim that a book's inclusion in the Septuagint confers automatic canonicity and divine inspiration, they leave out the fact that there were several extra books in the Septuagint than just the seven in contention and which were omitted from the Catholic canon.

[Cronos]

Let's go through what is in the Septuagint first:

• Genesis
• Exodus
• Leviticus
• Numbers
• Deuteronomy
• Joshua
• Judges
• Ruth
• 1 Samuel
• 2 Samuel
• 1 Kings
• 2 Kings
• I Chronicles
• II Chronicles
• 1 Esdras
• Ezra-Nehemiah
• Tobit or Tobias
• Judith
• Esther with additions
• 1 Maccabees
• 2 Maccabees
• 3 Maccabees
• Psalms
• Psalm 151
• Prayer of Manasseh
• Job
• Proverbs
• Ecclesiastes
• Song of Songs or Song of Solomon or Canticle of Canticles
• Wisdom or Wisdom of Solomon
• Sirach or Ecclesiasticus
• Psalms of Solomon[53]
• Minor Prophets
• Hosea
• Amos
• Micah
• Joel
• Obadiah
• Jonah
• Nahum
• Habakkuk
• Zephaniah
• Haggai
• Zachariah
• Malachi
• Isaiah
• Jeremiah
• Baruch
• Lamentations
• Letter of Jeremiah
• Ezekiel
• Daniel with additions
• 4 Maccabees[g]

All are included in the bible with some exceptions:

• Those included in the Bible under different names:
  • 1 Esrdas - called Ezra
  • 2 Erdas - called Nehemiah
  • Prayer of Manasseh - put in the Appendix

  The ones not included in the Bible are :

  • 3 Maccabees
  • 4 Maccabees -- the Catholic Encylopedia says this about these two

    III Mach. is the story of a persecution of the Jews in Egypt under Ptolemy IV Philopator (222-205 B. C.), and therefore has no right to its title. Though the work contains much that is historical, the story is a fiction. IV Mach. is a Jewish-Stoic philosophical treatise on the supremacy of pious reason, that is religious principles, over the passions. The martyrdom of Eleazar and of the seven brothers (2 Maccabees 6:18-7) is introduced to illustrate the author's thesis. Neither book has any claim to canonicity, though the first for a while received favourable consideration in some Churches.

  • Psalm 151 - Jews as well as Christians reject this, considering it to be written after the rest of Psalms

  When St. Jerome first compiled the Vulgate in the 5th century, he compared the Septuagint to other Hebrew translations and found the Hebrew translations to be more accurate. As far as I understand, in the intervening years, the Jews came to the same conclusion independently.

  So when the first Vulgate in 405 was compiled, decisions were made as to what was accurate and what wasn't. Works that had some basis in the Hebrew translations available at the time were kept, and others that were called into doubt were dropped.