If the apocrypha was written before Christ, then WHY, you know the jews that kept all the OT, why did they NOT concider them inspiried? They NEVER DID! You cannot go to christian history to find out if the jews before Christ upheld the apocrypha as inspired.
Even today Ethiopian Jews still use the Septuagint version, not the shorter Palestinian canon settled upon by the rabbis at Javneh. In other words, the Old Testament canon recognized by Ethiopian Jews is identical to the Catholic Old Testament, including the seven deuterocanonical books (cf. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 6, p. 1147).
There are various theories as to when the Jews closed their Old Testament canon. One is that the Old Testament was closed once and for all by Ezra (400 BC). This is a view that was held by some of the Fathers, a number of more recent Catholics and many Protestants. Such a view, however, runs into a number of difficulties. For example, the second book of Ezra contains genealogies of the High Priests continuing 150 years after the death of Ezra. In the same book is a list of the descendents of King David traced down to the sixth generation after Zerobabel, that is, down to about 300 BC. The existence of these genealogies is proof enough that the Old Testament canon remained open at least 150 years after Ezras death.
In fact, the Old Testament canon was still in a state of flux in the time of Christ with both the Sadducees and Samaritans, for example, accepting only the first five books of Moses as inspired and canonical. The great Jewish historian, Josephus Flavius, provides one important hint as to why uncertainty still surrounded the Old Testament canon so late in its history:
"From the time of Artaxerxes to our own time, our history has been written down very particularly (accurately and in detail), but these books have not been considered worthy of the same credit as the books of earlier date, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets."2
From these last words it is evident that Josephus required a prophet to appear and canonize the Deuterocanon in the same way other prophets in the past had done for the Protocanon. The question at the time of his writing was still held in abeyance. Unbeknown to Josephus this "prophet" was to be Christ and the Apostles.
Nevertheless, Josephus makes it clear that though not canonized the Deuterocanon enjoyed great credit among the Jews as inspired literature:
"But what credence we have given to all those books of our own nation is evident from our conduct; for, though so long a time has passed, no one has ever been so bold as to add anything to them whatsoever. But all Jews are instinctively led, from the moment of their birth, to believe that these books contain divine oracles and to abide by them and, if need be, gladly to die for them."3
As if to emphasize this point further, Josephus says that in the composition of his Jewish Antiquities he had used exclusively "sacred writings," yet he frequently quotes 1 Maccabees and the deutero fragments of Esther. Further, in the Talmud Baruch is referred to as a "prophetic book," Wisdom as "written by Solomon" and the book of Sirach is quoted often.
In addition, excepting the Book of Wisdom and 2 Maccabees all the other parts of the Deuterocanon were previously written in Hebrew. This points to Palestine not only as their place of origin but also where the Alexandrian Jews received their belief in their inspiration and divine character. This is why there are no records of any schism or controversy on the subject between the Palestinian and Alexandrian Jews.
For the Jews no final determination of the Old Testament was to be made until the Council of Jamnia (Javnah) in 90 AD. The Jews in this Council (and again in 118 AD), seeking to build a new focal point for their religious beliefs after the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, and in an attempt to counter the early Christians who quoted the Septuagint in support of the claims of Christ, only accepted those Old Testament books which were (i) written in Hebrew; (ii) conformed to the Torah; (iii) pre-dated the time of Ezra; and (iv) written in Palestine. The Jewish authorities now xenophobically considered the Septuagint "too gentile." Only the Ethiopian Jews retained the Septuagint version and still do so today (Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 6, p. 1147). In any case, for Christians Jamnia is not authoritative, as all legitimate authority had passed to the Catholic Church sixty years earlier at Pentecost. By rejecting the seven additional books of the Septuagint Protestants therefore effectively follow the canon of the Old Testament as determined by the Jews at Jamnia.