Concerning the Old Testament, I would add to those references allready given another by Bruce Metzger, an
Introduction to the Apocrypha
A lot of the problems with understanding canon seems to me to come down to those who have written motivated histories and a bit the Western Modern mindset.
You will for instance hear repeatedly how Luther rejected the books of the Apocrypha. How amazing, there they are right in his bible, and Lutheran Churches have continued to read from them right until modern times. Rejection is too strong a word. Not used for doctrine would be correct.
And Luther did not innovate a single thing concerning the Apocrypha in his bible. The name, came from Jerome in the Latin Vulgate. The Glossa ordinaria, the standard textbook used to teach all theologians the interpretation of the bible for hundreds of years by the Roman Catholic Church. It specifically spelled out that each one of those books was not scripture. You even have the Apocrypha set off in a separate section in a Latin translation made with the clear approval of Rome right about the time Luther published his New Testament. Luther was very much mainstream in his understanding of scripture at the time. That is if you did not turn to the uneducated who were often controlled by folk theology, superstitions, and a desire for earthly kingdoms.
The books of the Apocrypha were used for a long time as an Ecclesiatical canon. Matter of fact, if you look at the lists of the regional councils used to try and say the canon was set by the year 400, what exactly do they say? They say here is the list to use for reading in the church and other books shouldn't be read in the church. So it makes sense when you see what question they really answered that there is really no conflict with people like Bishop Athanasius and Jerome who held that they were not scripture really just a couple of years later.
Jerome, even when he capitulated and included them, did not remove or change the prefaces that they were not authoritative. Why would the Roman Catholic Church continue to print that for 1500 years if it was believed to be a serious error in conflict with the teachings of the Church. It become much easier to understand if you realize it wasn't in conflict. The Church taught that very thing in it's centers of learning. However, relatively few people were ever educated in those centers. Most priest and even Bishops had very little education. Many simply memorized the Mass. Though based on the complaints, many did not memorize the Mass well. Becoming a Bishop unfortunately was often a matter of buying it rather than earning it.
And so you have that the word scripture was being used in both a narrow sense, as those books with doctrinal authority, and in a wider sense as those books to be read in the churches.
Apocrypha was sometimes used for any book not authoritative, at other times for any book not to be read in the church.
You also see references to the Ecclesiatical canon. Those read in the church.
People approach like the questions are the same, but they were not treated the same by the church.
Come up to present, and outside of words they really aren't treated too differently. The Catholics call them the deuterocanonical books and while some try to use them for doctrine there isn't much of it. The Orthodox don't really get doctrine from them either.
The mainline Protestants all pretty much accept them for reading, indeed those that use a lectionary still often use one that includes Apocryphal readings. They were not rejected in the sense it is often used.
The groups that are shall we say almost anti-historical stand by themselves in their total rejection of them. That probably harkens more to the Bible societies that quite including them in the bibles they printed than anything else. Now they seem to think that bibles were always that way or it was some big decision by some group of leaders or something. If you ask, you can get a hundred different ideas.
There was a time when some of those groups objected to anything that was not the scripture itself in the bible. It would seem a strange arguement today when often people stand with a study bible full of nonscriptural writings in their hand. Commentary, maps, concordances, and so on are a standard part of most bibles today, all aids in understanding. The Apocryphal books with the knowledge they give to the history immediately preceeding Jesus' incarnation are a help too.
Marv
