John Hobbins has a succinct note on why “To this day, therefore, among Christians an Old Testament canon shared by all does not exist.” His post includes a link to an illustrative PDF on the various Old Testament canons embraced within Christianity (ancient and modern). You may want to compare it to this one, which we published at Bible Study Magazine.
The Old Testament Canon(s)
You know, if we were only to have been given the book of Isaiah, I think we would have had more than enough, when paired with the New Testament, to have gotten the message!
Buddy of mine is a good Catholic and he told me they view the apocrypha as “deutero canonical”. Secondary importance.
I sort of view them almost like that myself.
yes; they don’t like the term “apocryphal” or “non-canonical”
Deuterocanonical for the Catholic Church doesn’t mean these books are of secondary importance, but that their inclusion in the canon wasn’t settled as early as the others. Much like certain books in the NT like 2 Peter or Revelation among others. The whole issue wasn’t settled for Rome until the council of Trent (which is quite late).
agreed, but I think it was settled before Trent. Trent was a re-affirmation vs. Protestantism.