re deuterocanonicals esp sirach larry larry l overacker shellgate llo uu psi com writes i not dave davis wrote the deutero canonical books were added much later in the church s history they do not have the same spiritual quality as the rest of scripture i do not believe the church that added these books was guided by the spirit in so doing and that is where this sort of discussion ultimately ends sorry i put my foot in my mouth concerning the church s history it is correct to say that the council of hippo listed the deuterocanonical books among those accepted for use in the church and that this was ratified by the council of carthage and by pope innoent i and gelasius i ad yet eerdman s history of the church says at the end of the fourth century views still differed in regard to the extent of the canon or the number of the books which should be acknowledged as divine and authoritative the jewish canon or the hebrew bible was universally received while the apocrypha added to the greek version of the septuagint were only in a general way accounted as books suitable for church reading and thus as a middle class between canonical and strictly apocryphal pseudonymous writings and justly for those books while they have great historical value and fill the gap between the old testament and the new all originated after the cessation of prophecy and the cannot be therefore regarded as inspired nor are they ever cited by christ or the aposteles in the western church the canon of both testaments was closed at the end of the fourth century through the authority of jerome who wavered however between critical doubts and the principle of tradition and more especially of augustine who firmly followed the alexandrian canon of the septuagint and the preponderant tradition in reference to the catholic epistles and the revelation though he himself in some places inclines to consider the old testament apocrypha as deutero canonical bearing a subordinate authority this history goes on to say that augustine attended both the council of hippo and of carthage it is interesting to note however the following footnote to the fourth session of the council of trent the footnote lists various synods which endorsed lists of canonical books but then says the tridentine list or decree was the first infallible and effectually promulgated declaration on the canon of the holy scriptures which leads one to think that the rc canon was not official until trent thus my previous erroneous statement was not entirely groundless it is also interesting to note that the council of trent went on to uphold the old latin vulgate edition of the scriptures as authentic which i would suppose today s catholic scholars wish the council had never said also the council made no distinction between deutero canonical and canonical books in contrast to eerdman s statement of the fourth century views david wagner a confessional lutheran
