Well, the Jews didn’t accept the apocryphical books so that has to really say something there.
Yes. They’re revised their beliefs because the Christians were too good at proving that Jesus was the Christ.
The books in question all are written by the Hebrews. Sirach, for instance is mentioned and commented on in the Talmud. Sirach was used by the Christians for catechism.
They all were in the Septuagint, the translation of the OT into Greek done by the elders of Israel centuries before Christ. When Theodotion (d. 200) a Jew, made a new translation he included them, which was so good that the Christians used his translation of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the Song of the Thee Youths instead of that of the Septuagint. Point: a Jew, translated the OT, and he included the books the Jews later rejected.
The Hebrew versions of many have been found now.
The Jews got tired of losing the battle, so they banned all the translation.
However, even the Hebrew shows that the Septuagint was the original text (that is the Hebrew vorlage). For instance Masoretic Psalm 9 and 10 is two psalms, the LXX (Septuagint) is one. Since the Hebrew is an acrostic, a poem of each letter of the alphabet, the fact that 9 takes half the alphabet and 10 takes the second half, the Hebrew atttests to the priority of the LXX. Btw, many of the Dead Sea Scroll texts agree with the LXX (including a version of Psalm 151), against the Masoretic text.
The Jews didn’t reject the books until after the rise of the Church, at the Council fo Yavneh, which also OKd a curse against the minim (Jewish Christians) to be said in the synagog service (to get the Christians out). Getting rid of the “extra books” which talked most clearly about the Resurrection, like Wisdom and II and IV Maccabbees, got the favorite topic of the Christians out of discussion.
The Hebrew text used by the Jews, the Masoretic text, was not set until the 7th century, ie. long after the NEW Testament had been settled.
Ask a Jew why he celebrates Hanukkah. The only Scriptural support for it is in I Maccabbees (4:56-9). Ask why he prays kaddush for the dead. The only scriptural support for it is II Maccabbees (12:42-5).
Now that says something.