Hi Jimmy,
I have wondered why Maccabees, Judith, and these other “histories” are ignored by the “Protestant Bible”, but I think it’s probably for the same reasoning later “histories” are also suppressed; see Foxes book of Martyrs.  It seems regardless of how close to God’s standard a generation comes, our arch enemy outlives them to corrupt their children. Today public education in the US(along with television) has shortened that time gap considerably.

The Jews did not consider these books inspired-inerrant and they were not written by a prophet of God.

They were accepted but not by all Jewish groups, who developed different traditions in exile from those who stayed at home. See the different strands in Genesis, humans made from mud and rib versus direct creation. The disputed ” protestant” texts were accepted as Biblical revelation in the Church Council which threw out the “Dan Brown” genre of books.  That meeting, guided by the promised Holy Spirit does it for me.

Neither do the Jews consider the New Testament inspired, nor do they consider some books from there canon written by a prophet.

Tell me, are they the ones binding you to what is and isn’t Scripture? If so you are Jewish, if not you follow an incomplete canon.

The reason several books of the Old Testament are ignored by Protestants is because 500 years ago Martin Luther deleted them because they were too “Catholic” for his tastes. Of course he also would have deleted several New Testament books but the majority of Christians (both Catholic and Protestant) ruled.

The reason those books are excluded from the Old Testament goes back to about 100-110 A.D.  (See Palestinian vs. Alexandrian Canon) Jewish leaders decided then to exclude these books from the Torah, because they only had copies written in Greek, and no original Hebrew copies could be found.  Martin Luther used this same logic when he decided to remove them from “his” version of the bible.  That said, Christ and the Apostles would have been using these 7 books, like we still do today!  When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1940s, they also found original Hebrew copies of the disputed books, rendering Martin Luther’s argument baseless.

The Epistle of James was deleted from the New Testament for a time.  Why?  Because the Epistle of James says that faith without works is fruitless.  In other words sola fides is bunk.

I have never understood how anyone can, on one hand, say the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and, on the other hand, edit it.  It has always struck me as the height of arrogance.  I do think Judith was cut because she scared the liver out of males of Luther’s time.

Well said, Cubby and Gina.

These books were considered deuterocanonical i.e. “second canon” because they were disputed by the church for centuries. It was not until Trent that these books were “elevated” to full canon status. Keep in mind that Paul quotes from ancient secular sources but that does not mean they are inspired.

This is one of the issues that keep the CHURCH divided. The Denominations must come together NOW, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to identify and resolve such issues in a move to truly uniting the CHURCH. We are closer to the end of this age and the coming of the Kingdom age than we imagine.

The Jews in Jerusalem who rejected Christ, whereas the Jews and Gentiles abroad were mroe accepting of Him. What they had in common was the Grek Septaugint which contained these Greek texts. The authorities in Jerusalem, seeing the Greek speaking community accepting Christ, took measures to separate themselves from their other breathren, and one of those measures was to deny the Greek collection of the Scriptures.

In any case, the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit has preserved the inerrant Scriptures and infalliably declared them. To reject the Church’s declaration about the accepted texts also brings uncertainty and casts about the remaining books contained in the Protestant’s altered canon. How else, apart from the Catholic Church can they truly know that any of the Scriptures they have are inerrant?

@Jane…....this idea that it wasn’t until Trent that these books were exceed is bunk.  The Eastern churches (Orthodox) accept them and they were not at Trent and have never accepted Trent.  These books were part of Scripture from long before the schism of East and West.

The Pope asked St. Jerome to translate the bible into Latin 1000 years before Martin Luther. The books contained in it were accepted by all the Christians for 1000 years until Luther disagreed. The circumstances that led to the Jewish rejection of some of the Old Testament were not known at that time, so Martin Luther could use that as an excuse, but why should we feel bound by the Jews when obviously early Christians did not?