Why aren't the Deuterocanonical books or the Apocrypha in the Bible?

[redleghunter]

Millions (technically over a billion Christians) regard "The Wisdom of Ben Sira" as inspired holy scripture.

McDonald's boasts over billions served. Their burgers are horrible for one's health.

 

[redleghunter]

That Christ never quoted the Deuterocanons or that the Apostles did not refer to them cannot be taken as evidence for their exclusion from the canon of scripture, lest we throw out books we all agree should be in there. Song of Solomon or Esther for instance. Nor does Christ's saying give us any reference to the canon, rather only the blood that those he was speaking to would be charged with. You seem to be reading into the text Christ talking about canon rather than about the persecution of Prophets (and one need not be a prophet to write scripture, nor need they be known).

I will note the Eastern Orthodox position is different than Rome. Trent made all the deuterocanon books protocanonical.

 

[Standing Up]

-snip-
My central question still remains. How is it we can know from history, which is not divinely inspired the contents of scripture? You are appealing to sources which are less authoritative than the word of God in order to assert that the word of God is truly what it is. I find this a strange method for (what I assume to be) a believer in Protestantism or some sort or another.

Within the books of scripture, we have the defined plumb line of the prophetic voice of God. God said ... What happened? If it didn't come to pass, if it led you to a strange god, then it wasn't God. But if it came to pass, then yeah, it's God.

We agree the prophesies were fulfilled in Christ.

That's the criteria. Moreover, we find this same criteria in history, from Josephus and ironically in 1 Macc wherein it dismisses itself as God breathed! (You are correct that it didn't need to be written by a prophet, only during the time of a valid prophet. It's the same with the NT--during apostolic time.)

Then in the NT, Christ also delineated the God-breathed from James to John the first and last apostles to die who were renamed sons of thunder (thunder being a metaphor for God's voice). Thus we are built on the foundation of OT prophets and NT apostles. We are not built on Tradition, deterocanon, pseudograph, and whatever else man can dream up.