Questions about the Deuterocanon

[inkaneer]

The two oldest are Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Would you like to modify your statement that it contains “all” the deutero writings? Because Sinaiticus does not.
Next, additional writings speak to the fluid nature of the canon. We cannot say that those things they (oldest copies of the LXX) currently hold in common with your canon speak to the ancient and apostolic nature of it and those that do not…do not matter. Perhaps that is not what your intent was but additional books do matter.

Lets specifically address Clement and its mention of Judith. Absolutely canonical and noncanonical writings make allusion to other books. That does not mean they are considered of equal value…does it?

Thanks for any clarification.

The only clarification we need is that the Council of Trent fixed the canon at 73 books as were present in the Vulgate of Jerome. The issue is thus settled. We can always bring out this codex or that codex but that doesn’t make them correct. These early attempts at arriving at an inspired listing only point out that it was not an easy task to determine which writings were indeed inspired as some protestants claim. The canon was never fixed until the synods of Rome, Hippo and Carthage in 382-397 AD. Some would say 348 AD with the listing of Athanasius as his listing was the same as Rome, Hippo and Carhtage. But it was these listings which Jerome used in the Vulgate. Formal definition of the canon did not come about until 1547 at Trent .

 

[BrianH]

The only clarification we need is that the Council of Trent fixed the canon at 73 books as were present in the Vulgate of Jerome. The issue is thus settled. We can always bring out this codex or that codex but that doesn’t make them correct. These early attempts at arriving at an inspired listing only point out that it was not an easy task to determine which writings were indeed inspired as some protestants claim. The canon was never fixed until the synods of Rome, Hippo and Carthage in 382-397 AD. Some would say 348 AD with the listing of Athanasius as his listing was the same as Rome, Hippo and Carhtage. But it was these listings which Jerome used in the Vulgate. Formal definition of the canon did not come about until 1547 at Trent .

The OP is dealing with *50 AD *and not 300 years later

 

[Randy_Carson]

You cannot prove this. The canon of the LXX at the time of Christ is not known. In fact the term canon is anachronistic as it relates to 1st century Judaism. We do not have any lists from that time that include these books in the LXX. The earliest patristic writers do not help much. The earliest copies have diffferent books. Please present any evidence and then I can do likewise to prove my point.

Brian-

I think the weight of scholarship is against you on this one, and I would refer you to Gary Michuta’s book, Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger for the evidence you seek.

It’s available here at CA or from Amazon. Give that a read and decide for yourself.

The Jews did ultimately reject the Septuagint after the destruction of the temple - they got really JEWISH at that point since the center of Jewish life, the temple worship, had ended. Consequently, they moved away from the Septuagint which was written in Greek instead of Hebrew.

However, since the torch had been passed from the Jews (who rejected the messiah) to the Church, it makes little difference to Christians what the Jews did later.

The early Church accepted the Deuterocanonicals and multiple church councils affirmed the canon as we have it today. Trent merely formalized what the Church had taught for 1,000 years.

 

[inkaneer]

The OP is dealing with *50 AD *and not 300 years later

??? Please clarify.

 

[Chris_S_1]

The OP is dealing with *50 AD *and not 300 years later

Yes, the question is whether the Septuagint contained the Deuterocanonicals during the writing of 2 Timothy.

Brian-

I think the weight of scholarship is against you on this one, and I would refer you to Gary Michuta’s book, Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger for the evidence you seek.

It’s available here at CA or from Amazon. Give that a read and decide for yourself.

Are there any online sources I can check out?

 

[diggerdomer]

Yes, the question is whether the Septuagint contained the Deuterocanonicals during the writing of 2 Timothy.

Are there any online sources I can check out?

catholic-resources.org/Bible/Glossary.htm

 

[inkaneer]

Yes, the question is whether the Septuagint contained the Deuterocanonicals during the writing of 2 Timothy.

Not really, 2 Timothy has nothing to do with the deuteros. Rather the question is this: If the Septuagint did not obtain the deuteros from the Jewish scriptures at the time they were translated into Greek then where did they come from and when? Let those who deny the canonicity provide the proof of their allegation. The fact is that the Jews never had a closed canon until sometime after the second century AD. This is well after the New Covenant replaced the old. Also the Apostles were instructed to preach the good news to the Jews first then to go out into the world. This happened during the first 50 years of the first century so those Jews who closed their canon later were those who rejected christianity. Why then are they held up as an authority and why is their decisions worth any merit? Protestants reject the deuteros for one reason and one reason alone. The deuteros contradict sole fide.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Are there any online sources I can check out?

Unfortunately, none that I have been able to find.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Yes, the question is whether the Septuagint contained the Deuterocanonicals during the writing of 2 Timothy.

Here’s my take:

2 Timothy 3:14-17 – Tradition + Scripture + Magisterium

When non-Catholics are asked to provide biblical support or their belief that the Bible Alone is the sole rule of faith for the believer, they usually cite 2 Timothy 3:16-17 which states that “all scripture is God-breathed and is useful”. However, they somehow miss the fact that the two verses immediately prior stress the importance of oral teaching and the teaching authority of the Church. Here is the entire passage with context added:

2 Timothy 3:14-17
14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of (Timothy had learned the Gospel and become convinced that it was true by Paul’s ORAL preaching and teaching. This oral preaching and teaching is known to Catholics as Sacred Tradition.), because you know those from whom you learned it (Timothy had learned the gospel from Paul, an Apostle (and Bishop) of the Church, and possibly from other Church leaders whom Timothy had heard preaching and teaching. The teaching authority of the Church is known to Catholics as the Magisterium.) , 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures (Timothy would have known only the Old Testament scriptures from his infancy since the New Testament had not been written or completed at the time Paul’s letter to Timothy was composed. However, the New Testament is recognized as part of the Bible, the written Word of God. This is known to Catholics as Sacred Scripture.), which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (Only after commending the Tradition “handed on” from the Magisterium does Paul go on to discuss the nature of Sacred Scripture in the following verses.)16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Viewed this way, we can see that 2 Timothy 3:14-17 does not support the doctrine of sola scriptura at all. In fact, the opposite is true.

Another point to consider is that Paul’s disciple, Timothy, was a Greek, and the Old Testament that Timothy would have been most familiar with from the time of his youth was the Greek Septuagint. Because of his travels outside of Israel, Paul, too, would have been familiar with and would have used the Greek version of the Old Testament writings. Therefore, in this passage of scripture, Paul encouraged Timothy to continue in what he had learned from the Septuagint.

This has important implications for a controversy concerning seven books of the Old Testament now known collectively to Catholics as the “Deuterocanonicals” and to Protestants as the “Apocrypha”. Catholics consider the Deuterocanonicals to be inspired scripture while Protestants reject them. The Greek Septuagint contains these seven books while the Hebrew version of the Old Testament does not.

There is no doubt that the Septuagint was known to and used by Jesus, Paul and Timothy and yet, in the 16th century, Martin Luther removed these seven books from the Bible because they contain passages that support distinctly Catholic doctrines like praying for the dead and purgatory—doctrines which he rejected. Luther justified his action in part upon the fact that the Jews themselves rejected the Deuterocanonicals as part of their canon.

This development in the history of the Jewish canon is interesting in itself. Beginning as early as 90 A.D. at the so-called “Council of Jamnia”, Jewish leaders began to re-think which books of the Bible should and should not be considered scripture. In the second century, the Jews finally removed the Deuterocanonical books from their canon of scripture, and this was due in large part to the fact that the early Christian Church was using the Deuterocanonicals to support the Christian belief in the resurrection from the dead. The Jewish scriptures were being used to win converts to the Christian faith! Consequently, the Jews ultimately rejected the Deuterocanonical books some two centuries after Christ’s death and resurrection. Martin Luther used their decision to justify his own.

This leads to a couple of obvious questions: “Why would the Holy Spirit guide a group of rabbis on matters related to the Old Testament canon when there was already a Christian Church in existence that was under His infallible guidance as Jesus had promised? And why should Luther accept the revised Hebrew canon instead of the canon of the Septuagint that had been in continuous use in the Church for over fifteen centuries?

Luther picked that truncated canon for the same reason the rabbis did: in order to undermine the teachings of the Catholic Church which did not fit his new theology.

 

[BrianH]

Brian-

I think the weight of scholarship is against you on this one, and I would refer you to Gary Michuta’s book, Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger for the evidence you seek.

It’s available here at CA or from Amazon. Give that a read and decide for yourself.

The Jews did ultimately reject the Septuagint after the destruction of the temple - they got really JEWISH at that point since the center of Jewish life, the temple worship, had ended. Consequently, they moved away from the Septuagint which was written in Greek instead of Hebrew.

However, since the torch had been passed from the Jews (who rejected the messiah) to the Church, it makes little difference to Christians what the Jews did later.

The early Church accepted the Deuterocanonicals and multiple church councils affirmed the canon as we have it today. Trent merely formalized what the Church had taught for 1,000 years.

Randy I quoted the book you told me to look up in post number 17! The book you asked me to look up supports my view. I will give the quote again and we can use it to reference the state of the canon so to speak in 50 AD. The weight of scholarship is that there was not a set canon in 50 AD and that different groups supported different books and that the LXX was in “flux”. Like I said earlier, I am only using Catholic sources on this and if need be we can also look at some more contemporary scholarship on the issue.

---

Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger
Gary Michuta

“Finally the idea that the Jews possessed a canon identical to modern day Protestantism is entirely gratuitious; there is simply no contemporary evidence to support such a claim. For one thing, bibles were not bound together beteween covers…they existed as loose collections of scrolls stored in individual synagogues and the precise collection varied from place to place. Most students of the New Testament already know that the party of the Sadducess had the narrowest views in this regard, accepting only the Pentateuch as indisputably sacred. The borders were equally indistinct on the other end of the spectrum, with some Jewish groups willing to use a canon larger than that received by today’s Catholics. So, even if some Jewish listing from Paul’s era were to be discovered in the future, it would still represent only a canon-a canon of the Pharisees, a canon of the Essenes, and so forth -and never the Jewish canon, for no one at that time spoke for all Jews and the precise mix of scrolls in each synagogue varied widely.”

 

[BrianH]

The Jewish Canon of the Bible was in flux at the time of Christ and remained so into the mid 4th Century.

catholic-legate.com/dialogues/canonsept.html

I think this article is helpful and is one of the few available online.

 

[inkaneer]

Randy I quoted the book you told me to look up in post number 17! The book you asked me to look up supports my view. I will give the quote again and we can use it to reference the state of the canon so to speak in 50 AD. The weight of scholarship is that there was not a set canon in 50 AD and that different groups supported different books and that the LXX was in “flux”. Like I said earlier, I am only using Catholic sources on this and if need be we can also look at some more contemporary scholarship on the issue.

Quote:​

Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger
Gary Michuta

“Finally the idea that the Jews possessed a canon identical to modern day Protestantism is entirely gratuitious; there is simply no contemporary evidence to support such a claim. For one thing, bibles were not bound together beteween covers…they existed as loose collections of scrolls stored in individual synagogues and the precise collection varied from place to place. Most students of the New Testament already know that the party of the Sadducess had the narrowest views in this regard, accepting only the Pentateuch as indisputably sacred. The borders were equally indistinct on the other end of the spectrum, with some Jewish groups willing to use a canon larger than that received by today’s Catholics. So, even if some Jewish listing from Paul’s era were to be discovered in the future, it would still represent only a canon-a canon of the Pharisees, a canon of the Essenes, and so forth -and never the Jewish canon, for no one at that time spoke for all Jews and the precise mix of scrolls in each synagogue varied widely.”

Still this does not support the protestant viewpoint. Gary Michuta only states what I had said earlier that the Jews never had a fixed canon until some time in the 2nd century, if indeed, they had it then. Yet that does not explain the presence of the deuteros in the Septuagint. If they did not come from the jewish scriptures at the time they were translated into Greek then will someone please post the evidence as to where they did come from? I have asked this before and no one wants to respond. WHY??? I submit that until such evidence is posted the current evidence that they were translated from the Jewish scriptures must be accepted. Failing that then the fact that they were accepted by the early church [who had no dog in the fight over sole fide, purgatory or prayers for the dead] has to be accepted over some sixteenth century johnny come lately. Lastly is the decision on which books comprise the canon as made by the Catholic Church. If we can’t accept the claim of authority by the Catholic Church in matters of faith and morals and their decision on the deuteros then how can we accept the Catholic Church decision on the 27 books of the New Testament? If the decision on the deuteros was not authoritative then the decision on the 27 books of the NT was likewise not authoritative and our claim of those books being “God breathed” is mere folly. Where does that leave protestantism? Here’s a hint: mythology.

 

[BrianH]

Still this does not support the protestant viewpoint. Gary Michuta only states what I had said earlier that the Jews never had a fixed canon until some time in the 2nd century, if indeed, they had it then. Yet that does not explain the presence of the deuteros in the Septuagint. If they did not come from the jewish scriptures at the time they were translated into Greek then will someone please post the evidence as to where they did come from? I have asked this before and no one wants to respond. WHY??? I submit that until such evidence is posted the current evidence that they were translated from the Jewish scriptures must be accepted. Failing that then the fact that they were accepted by the early church [who had no dog in the fight over sole fide, purgatory or prayers for the dead] has to be accepted over some sixteenth century johnny come lately. Lastly is the decision on which books comprise the canon as made by the Catholic Church. If we can’t accept the claim of authority by the Catholic Church in matters of faith and morals and their decision on the deuteros then how can we accept the Catholic Church decision on the 27 books of the New Testament? If the decision on the deuteros was not authoritative then the decision on the 27 books of the NT was likewise not authoritative and our claim of those books being “God breathed” is mere folly. Where does that leave protestantism? Here’s a hint: mythology.

I am not trying to support the Protestant viewpoint. I am answering the OP which is the nature of the canon, so to speak, at the time of Paul. It is a historical question. Thus open to examination from the data and sources available. The question about whether they should be in the present canon is a completely different question.

Ok to your question, the Deuterocanonical books as accepted by the Catholic Church, understanding that some of the Oriental Orthodox for example have a much broader canon as it relates to other intertestamental literature, were used by varying degrees with certain groups of Jews. As it relates to the specific contents of the LXX, most scholars I have read simply admit the lack of historical information to determine the contents circa 50 AD. But as the Catholic Legate article points out, the “canon” varied in different groups.
It is helpful to remember the majority of NT quotes DO come from the LXX however not all of them. In fact, there are quotes that do not match the Masoretic or LXX.
The LXX as it relates to the Christian church added and subtracted it appears different books at different times. Take for example the two oldest copies of the Bible that we referenced earlier. It would be a mistake to say that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus were of the exact same text type; they were not. The main thing is the ambuigity of the historical information cannot be oversimplified. *The Why are Catholic Bibles Bigger *is a good jumping off point but it is written for a popular audience. The Legate article reference several books that while maybe more dense in content would help in tracing the historical development of the canon. As far as the dogfight if you will over these books, while Michuta is supportive, he does a fairly good job of at least citing the patristic arguments against their inclusion. I am not going to summarize a book you have read (?) I am assuming you have read it but there was a divergence of opinion that he covers in his book concerning the books in question.

 

[BrianH]

I alluded to what scriptures Jesus used. In the book The Canon Debate, it gives examples of when Jesus agreed with the Proto-Masoretic text, the Septuagint, the Aramaic, and what they label "mixed phenomena. We do not want to oversimplify what the scriptures of the early church were.

Let me quote (page 200 in the above referenced work) Catholic scholar Daniel Harrington who summarizes it as such

In short, the evidence from the early Jewish and early Christian manuscripts and lists of Jewish scriptures shows a tendency among Jews to restrict their canon of sacred scripture to twenty-two or twenty-four books. It also shows a tendency among some early Christians, especially in the East to follow the Jewish practices, whereas in the West (except for Jerome) there is more openess to include some of the books (DC).

In the year 50 AD, the contents of the “canon” are fluid. As such, I believe we have answered the OP’s question as best as we can.

 

[inkaneer]

I am not trying to support the Protestant viewpoint. I am answering the OP which is the nature of the canon, so to speak, at the time of Paul. It is a historical question. Thus open to examination from the data and sources available. The question about whether they should be in the present canon is a completely different question.

But the canon of the scriptures at the time of St. Paul did not contain any of the New Testament. I think th equestion should be did the LXX contain the deuteros at the time of Paul and I haven’t seen anything that says it didn’t.

Ok to your question, the Deuterocanonical books as accepted by the Catholic Church, understanding that some of the Oriental Orthodox for example have a much broader canon as it relates to other intertestamental literature, were used by varying degrees with certain groups of Jews. As it relates to the specific contents of the LXX, most scholars I have read simply admit the lack of historical information to determine the contents circa 50 AD. But as the Catholic Legate article points out, the “canon” varied in different groups.
It is helpful to remember the majority of NT quotes DO come from the LXX however not all of them. In fact, there are quotes that do not match the Masoretic or LXX.
The LXX as it relates to the Christian church added and subtracted it appears different books at different times. Take for example the two oldest copies of the Bible that we referenced earlier. It would be a mistake to say that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus were of the exact same text type; they were not. The main thing is the ambuigity of the historical information cannot be oversimplified. *The Why are Catholic Bibles Bigger *is a good jumping off point but it is written for a popular audience. The Legate article reference several books that while maybe more dense in content would help in tracing the historical development of the canon. As far as the dogfight if you will over these books, while Michuta is supportive, he does a fairly good job of at least citing the patristic arguments against their inclusion. I am not going to summarize a book you have read (?) I am assuming you have read it but there was a divergence of opinion that he covers in his book concerning the books in question.

Whatever ambiguity existed in the early church regarding the bible canon [both NT as well as OT] that ambiguity was eliminated when the church met to consider which books were inspired and therefore suitable for reading during the Divine Liturgy. Just as the Church formally defined the Trinity, the person of Christ and the Theotokos which are universally accepted by Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants alike, it too defined the scriptures. What occurred in 50 AD or 150 AD didn’t matter once the definition was set. So the deuteros are inspired scripture.

 

[BrianH]

But the canon of the scriptures at the time of St. Paul did not contain any of the New Testament. I think th equestion should be did the LXX contain the deuteros at the time of Paul and I haven’t seen anything that says it didn’t.

Whatever ambiguity existed in the early church regarding the bible canon [both NT as well as OT] that ambiguity was eliminated when the church met to consider which books were inspired and therefore suitable for reading during the Divine Liturgy. Just as the Church formally defined the Trinity, the person of Christ and the Theotokos which are universally accepted by Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants alike, it too defined the scriptures. What occurred in 50 AD or 150 AD didn’t matter once the definition was set. So the deuteros are inspired scripture.

The OP deals with 50 AD. So we agree about what the question should be as stated in your last post So when you say it “doesn’t matter”…I wonder why you decided to participate…but participate you did. Lets review what has been stated and see.

You made this statement earlier

No, they were considered scripture first by the Jews before Christ. That is how they were included in the Septuagint which was the Jewish scriptures translated into Greek. Later, after Christ, they were removed from the Jewish scriptures but remained in the Septuagint.

Lets look at this and see what you think.

1. You state they were considered scripture by the Jews before Christ. What adjective do you wish to place in front of that; some Jews or all Jews?
2. You then state the following “Septuagint which was the Jewish scriptures” but you also state “removed from the Jewish scriptures but remained in the Septuagint”. Do you see a problem with that? I am trying to get a handle on your position.
3. There is no proof whatsover that the contents of the LXX at the time of Christ can be proven to contain the DCs or disproven to contain the DCs depending on what copies were available. We cannot speak of the LXX in such a monolithic way. The earliest copies of the LXX had substantial disagreements in many areas; as any scholar would point out and any fundamentalist/KJV onlyite who hates them both will also never fail to remind us
   Here is my position. What part do you specifically disagree with?

Not all Jews used the LXX.
Not all NT quotes support the use of the LXX but a majority do.
We do not know exactly what books were in the LXX in 50 AD.
The earliest exisiting copies of the LXX contain different books which denotes a canon in flux in regards to the Deuteros.
There are several Jewish writers that indicate a canon not including the Deuteros.
Those writers are not a slam dunk for a Protestant OT canon being the norm in 50 AD because every thing I have read indicates different groups used different books.

I do not think you can find a single thing I just said that the book being referenced disagrees with…if so…provide said quote please. Thanks

 

[BrianH]

This link references The Canon Debate, one of my main sources, and here is what it says about it…thesacredpage.com/2006/03/loose-canons-development-of-old.html

Of critical importance to this work is the recent publication of a collection of essays entitled, The Canon Debate, edited by Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders. The essays contained therein present the most up to date opinions regarding the formation of the Christian biblical canon. J. J. Collins has called it, “without a doubt the most comprehensive treatment ever published of canon formation in Judaism and Christianity”

 

[BrianH]

Here is the second article from the same Catholic scholar. I do not believe you will find anything of substance in regards to the historical question we are considering.

thesacredpage.com/2006/03/loose-canons-development-of-old_06.html

First of all, as we saw earlier, it is quite clear that there was no normative canon in Palestinian Judaism in Jesus day—the notion of a universally accepted “Palestinian canon” is a myth and flies in the face of all the historical evidence. Secondly, we have no reason to think that Jews in the diaspora were any more united on the matter than their Palestinian counterparts. There is practically no reason to think that Jews in the diaspora had a uniform opinion regarding which books were to be read. The most famous “Alexandrian Jew” of them all, Philo, never once cites from the apocrypha! Finally, while it is abundantly clear that the apocrypha were included in the LXX of the later centuries, we have very little data about the LXX used in Jesus’ day. As mentioned in Part 1, the Old Testament books were included in the LXX over time—beginning with the Pentateuch.[1] Even if it could be established that Jesus used the LXX, it would not necessarily follow that Jesus accepted the deuterocanonical books.

 

[inkaneer]

The OP deals with 50 AD. So we agree about what the question should be as stated in your last post So when you say it “doesn’t matter”…I wonder why you decided to participate…but participate you did. Lets review what has been stated and see.

You made this statement earlier

Lets look at this and see what you think.

1. You state they were considered scripture by the Jews before Christ. What adjective do you wish to place in front of that; some Jews or all Jews?

Was the septuagint translated from the scriptures of the Jewish people in 200-250 BC or was it from another source? I don’t think it makes any difference as what jewish group accepted what part of the OT. If we go with the Saducees then we only have the Pentateuch. So which Jewish group was correct? Seems to me that those Jews did not have any divine inspiration regarding which books were inspired. Not only that but Jesus, though He cleaned up the Temple did not clean up the scriptures. He did say the scriptures speak of Him. But which ones?

1. You then state the following “Septuagint which was the Jewish scriptures” but you also state “removed from the Jewish scriptures but remained in the Septuagint”. Do you see a problem with that? I am trying to get a handle on your position.

Wouldit help if I said, “Septuagint which was the Jewish scriptures [before Christ]” and “removed from the Jewish scriptures [after Christ] but remained in the Septuagint” to distinguish the changing nature of the Jewish scriptures over the time of 300 BC to 400AD?

1. There is no proof whatsover that the contents of the LXX at the time of Christ can be proven to contain the DCs or disproven to contain the DCs depending on what copies were available. We cannot speak of the LXX in such a monolithic way. The earliest copies of the LXX had substantial disagreements in many areas; as any scholar would point out and any fundamentalist/KJV onlyite who hates them both will also never fail to remind us
   Here is my position. What part do you specifically disagree with?

Not all Jews used the LXX.
Not all NT quotes support the use of the LXX but a majority do.
We do not know exactly what books were in the LXX in 50 AD.
The earliest exisiting copies of the LXX contain different books which denotes a canon in flux in regards to the Deuteros.
There are several Jewish writers that indicate a canon not including the Deuteros.
Those writers are not a slam dunk for a Protestant OT canon being the norm in 50 AD because every thing I have read indicates different groups used different books.

I do not think you can find a single thing I just said that the book being referenced disagrees with…if so…provide said quote please. Thanks

I think you skirt around the real question and that is whether the deuteros were in the LXX before Christ and if not where did they come form? Thus far I have not seen one post that provides any evidence that they were not included in the original Septuagint. So it really matters not what this or that Jewish sect considered as canonical. Rather, the real question for us is what the early Christian Church considered canonical and for the period of over 1100 years from 400 AD to the 16th century the deuteros were canonical for all of Christendom. They continue to be in Catholicism. Remember the Jews had no authority over the canon that is why they differed as to their content. The Christians did have authority by virtue of the promises of Christ to bind and loose. The canon was thus bound by the church at 73 books and that is the bottom line. One more thing and it bears mentioning at this time is what does canonicity really mean. Because sola scriptura has perverted the scriptures into a self guided theological doctinal study guide the term canon does not mean what it did back in the early church. There each locality had it own Divine Liturgy and used writings that were selected locally for use in that Liturgy. The canon of scripture that was developed was used for liturgical purposes for inclusion into the Divine Liturgy so that each locality had an approved list of writings to chose from. This was totally different than the protestant use today which is necessitated by protestantism’s rejection of any authority not capable of being manipulated by one’s own self through private interpretation.

 

[BrianH]

I think you skirt around the real question and that is whether the deuteros were in the LXX before Christ and if not where did they come form? Thus far I have not seen one post that provides any evidence that they were not included in the original Septuagint. So it really matters not what this or that Jewish sect considered as canonical. .

How have I skirted around an issue? I have shown Catholic sources that indicate that the canon was in flux. I have clearly stated that the contents cannot be proven or disproven. As far as “original” LXX, what are you contending exactly about when that occured?