The OT canon of scripture

http://www.salvationhistory.com/blog/thoughts_on_the_churchs_old_testament_canon/

Good article on the canon of Scripture --OT

also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Old_Testament_canon

for example: Following Jerome's Veritas Hebraica (truth of the Hebrew) doctrine, the Protestant Old Testament consists of the same books as the Hebrew Bible, but the order and numbering of the books are different. Protestants number the Old Testament books at 39, while Judaism numbers the same books as 24. This is because Judaism considers Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles to form one book each, groups the 12 minor prophets into one book, and also considers Ezra and Nehemiah asingle book. Also, the Bible for Judaism is specifically the Masoretic Text. Protestant translations of the Hebrew Bible often include other texts, such as the Septuagint. There is also a dispute as to whether the Canon of Trent is exactly the same as that of Carthage and Hippo.^[3]

see also http://www.scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanon.html  This one gives a lot of quotes from the Early Church Fathers from the deutero

see also http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/deut.html  very long article--here is part of the conclusion:

We examined statements of Protestant apologists who argued that the Fathers denied the inspiration of the Deuterocanonicals. Although as JND Kelly indicated, the majority of Fathers cited the Deuterocanonicals without much differentiation between those and the Protocanonicals, there were some Church Fathers who gave lists of canons that did exclude the Deuterocanonicals that at first glance seemed to deny them as Scripture. Now the most common argument used by Protestants is that when those Fathers gave those lists, the Fathers meant to give the whole list of that which is inspired, and that which was left off those lists were considered uninspired. The Protestant apologists claimed that those Fathers considered them edifying, but not Scripture. We saw, though that even the answer to the solution was hinted at by Protestant apologist William Webster, who did argue that when those Fathers gave lists of canons, the term canon did not necessarily mean ‘This is all of inspired Scripture.’ The term ‘canon’ had various possible meanings, as he admits. Thus, just giving the list of the canon did not necessarily mean that if the books were not in that list, the books were uninspired. We examined one possible explanation: That in many cases the list of the canon only meant those books that are read in the Liturgy. It did not mean that those books left off the list were uninspired.

In fact, the supposition taken by Protestants that when these lists are given by the varying Fathers, (i.e. Webster, Rhodes, and Geisler), is proven false when we look at the writings of the very Fathers who supposedly deny the Deuterocanonicals. We saw quotes from the predominant Fathers who are cited against the Deuterocanonicals, including the one who is often considered the most avid anti-Deuterocanonical Father of them all, St. Jerome. He is the only one who said that those books were not Scripture, although he nowhere denied their inspiration. He later does term them Scripture, unambiguously through his own words. He applied the phrase “It is written” , which is only used of Scriptural books by both Scripture and the Fathers, to the Deuterocanonicals. He applied the term ‘prophet’ to a Deuterocanonical book. In addition, all the other Fathers quoted directly from the Deuterocanonicals and treated them just as the rest of Scripture. They used it for proof for doctrine. Geisler in his book had written:

Although some individuals in the early church had a high regard for the Apocrypha, there were many who vehemently opposed it. For example Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Origen, and the great Roman Catholic biblical scholar and translator of the Latin Vulgate, Jerome, all opposed the Apocrypha. Norman Geisler and Ralph E. MacKenzie, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences, 1995, p. 162.

Geisler even uses the phrase ‘vehemently opposing it’, in reference to these Fathers supposed treatment of the Deuterocanonicals. However, just in the index of the Schaff edition, which has just some of the writings of the Fathers, we saw that each of the Fathers quoted these books they supposedly rejected dozens of times and more often than not, more than 20 times in support of whatever they were teaching. We saw St. Athanasius, one of the ones who supposedly ‘vehemently opposed’ the Deuterocanonicals, call these very books ‘The fearless words of Holy Scripture’, and had the ‘Spirit commanding’ through the Deuterocanonical books. St. Jerome himself referred to or directly quoted the Deuterocanonicals approximately 55 times!!! They quoted them in proof of doctrine and did not make the distinctions that ‘while I am quoting them to you, these are not Scriptures’. These ‘vehemently opposing Fathers’ applied “Scripture says’ to the Deuterocanonical books. “The prophet says” applied to the Deuterocanonicals. “It is written” applied to the Deuterocanonicals. Those are tell-tale signs of unmistakingly referring to these books as Scripture that no one who is objective will ignore. I did not quote the numerous other times where each of these Father quoted and referred to the Deuterocanonicals in the same manner that they referred to the other Scriptural passages. And these are written by the ones who vehemently oppose the Deuterocanonicals???? Not quite. They saw them as Scripture and they saw them as inspired. You will never see the Fathers deny the Deuterocanicals’ inspirational status. I in fact even provided the quote at the beginning of each of the Fathers (except St. Basil, because that citation could not be found), which that are used by Protestant apologists to say they denied them as Scripture. I showed that when they actually wrote about the Deuterocanonical books, they only affirmed their equal status to the rest of the books.


the conclusion continues and then there is an appendix Appendix: Did Inspiration Cease for 400 years?: 
An Examination of Norman Geisler's Attack
on the Deuterocanonicals  

also here

from comment 110 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/09/scripture-and-tradition/

If I may add a few thoughts to your exchange. Firstly, I agree with David that the Jews did not, in fact, have anything like an agreed upon canon; and in that situation they certainly were not making the sort of claims respecting some delimited set of writings (inspiration and inerrancy of “the” 39 books for example) which Reformed theology makes for the 66 books in the WCF.

Moreover, even if first century Jews had made the claim: “this, and only this collection of 39 writings is inspired, inerrant and functions as the sole rule of faith binding upon on all Jews”; in order to avoid a legitimate charge of fideism, they too would have needed to provide a rational justification for that assertion. At a basic level, and from what I can tell, there are only three broad means by which a first century Jew might have attempted a rational justification for the conclusion that only “these 39 wittings are inspired, inerrant, and the sole rule of faith”.

1.) By affirming that some person or group of persons, other than God, had conveyed this doctrine concerning the nature of the 39 books to the first century Jew, or . . .
2.) If the first century Jew were to appeal to some motive(s) of credibility whose direct object was to accredit the 39 book codex per se as bearing a divine message, or . . .
3.) By asserting that God had privately and directly conveyed this doctrine concerning the nature of the 39 books to the first century Jew

(1) The (non-divine) person or persons involved in settling upon the 39 books as the inspired, inerrant and sole rule of faith, were either known to be providentially protected from error while coming to that identification, or they were not known to be protected from error while coming to that identification. If they were thought to have been providentially protected from error, then the first century Jew would have to admit that the 39 books are not the “sole” inerrant and binding rule of faith, since embrace of the inspiration, inerrancy, and authority of “the” 39 books would logically require a concomitant embrace of the inerrant and authoritative (extra-canonical) human decisions by which the 39 books were identified. That admission would require – at a minimum – a reformulation of the first century Jew’s rule of faith. If, however, the person or persons involved in settling upon the 39 books as inspired, inerrant and the sole rule of faith, were acknowledged as not having been providentially protected from error, then there seems to be no rational justification for the claim that “these, and only these, 39 books are inspired, inerrant and authoritative”. For not only might some inspired and inerrant writing(s) have been left out of the collection, the possibility of error entails that some non-inspired, non-inerrant book(s), might have been included as well. The strong claim to inspiration and inerrancy of the 39 books would have no adequate rational foundation. The claim would have to be downgraded to a probable claim at best.

(2) Suppose the first century Jew did not wish to acknowledge any inerrancy or authority in the persons or decisions tied up with the identification or veneration of the 39 books within the historical Jewish community because he wished – at all costs – to preserve his OT version of sola scriptura. Rather than appeal to any historical person(s) or process by which the 39 writings might have been identified, he appeals instead to some motive(s) of credibility unrelated to that process. Firstly, it should be noted that nowhere within the 39 books can one find a reference to the list of 39 books per se as being inspired and inerrant. And even if there were such a written statement within the codex, such statement would provide no rational justification for assent to the claim, since accepting the inerrant and inspired status of a codex based solely on a textual claim internal to that codex is to embrace a conclusion which does not follow from the premise. Otherwise, any group of writings containing a statement attesting its own inspiration or inerrancy would have to be regarded as inspired or inerrant on that basis alone – which is absurd.

But that means, in order to secure rational justification for the original claim, the first century Jew will have to point to some motive(s) of credibility over and above any mere statement(s) found within the text. Now a motive of credibility, by very definition, must be a motive which is open to public inspection, otherwise it serves as a motive only for the one making the assertion (which would entail fideism). Moreover, as I’m sure you both already know, a motive of credibility is primarily ordered to making credible the claim that some agent speaks on God’s behalf. It is not directly intended to make the content of the agent’s message credible (though it does so indirectly); but rather, its principle function is to provide reasons for thinking that the agent in question is authorized by God’s to speak on His behalf. Once one has reasons for thinking that some agent speaks for God, then it follows that the message is to be received as God’s message, even if the content of the message is not directly open to reason’s vision. Hence, if an apostle after Christi’s ascension performs a miracle before an on looking crowd, that miracle serves as a motive of credibility for thinking that the apostle’s message is a message from God. Accordingly, if the apostle asks the crowd to believe in Christ’s divinity or the Trinitarian nature of the Godhead (realities which human reason cannot discover on is own), the crowd has justifiable reason to believe those revealed truths, not because the crowd can see the intrinsic truth of those revelations in themselves, but because the crowd has a justifiable reason for taking the apostle’s word for it; namely, the miracle that was performed. The miracle accredits the messenger directly, and the message indirectly, by giving a third party reason to think that the messenger speaks for God.

Now here is the main point I want to add to the discussion. In the Church’s traditional apologetic method – say as systematically articulated within the neo-scholastic tradition by writers such as Lagrange and incorporated within the teaching of Vatican Council I – what makes a motive of credibility capable of sustaining an inference to divine sanction of an agent’s message, is that the motive itself be explicable only on the supposition of direct divine action. In other words, the motive in question must be what the neo-scholastics termed “modally” supernatural in order to warrant the inference that the motive was produced by God. For unless we have good reason to think that some given motive of credibility could only have been produced by the direct intervention of God, we have no inferential warrant for thinking that the motive in question provides any divine accreditation of the agent with whom the motive is associated. That is why both prophecy and miracles have always held a privileged place within the Church’s apologetic methodology. The fulfilling of prophecy is a modally supernatural motive of credibility because it involves foreknowledge of nondeterministic future events which depend upon multiple intersecting lines of free will agency. Successful prediction of such events is a feat which no known secondary cause, or aggregation of secondary causes, can accomplish. Hence, it must be the work of God’s primary causality – its “mode” of occurrence entails the super-natural. Likewise miracles, whether miraculous by their very nature (such as a bodily resurrection), or miraculous through the manner in which they are accomplished (instantaneous, rather than gradual, healing) are, in either case, happenings which no known secondary cause, or aggregation of secondary causes, can accomplish – miracles too are modally supernatural. The supernatural modality of the motives of credibility is what provides the inferential warrant for thinking that the agents with whom such motives are associated have been sealed with God’s approval to speak a message in His name.

Now when I look at the motives of credibility for the inspired, inerrant, and authoritative status of the 66 books which are put forward within the WCF (such as the “heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole . . ., the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies . . .”), it seems that none of them require an appeal to God’s primary causality to explain. Every one of them – as far as I can see – could be equally predicated of the Summa – which no one takes to be inspired or inerrant (even if Thomas came close to the latter :>)). Given as much, they provide no rational warrant for the strong claim which the Reformed theologian wishes to make. I am not even sure what a modally supernatural motive of credibility underwriting a collected codex of writings as a bearer of God’s message would look like. Perhaps if every sick, lame, or blind person that ever touched a Protestant bible was immediately healed of their infirmity? I don’t know, but I doubt anyone has ever offered an account of a modally supernatural motive of credibility whose object was the affirmation of a 66 book canonical codex as such. In any case, as the matter stands, and under close inspection, the WCF appeal to motives seems unable to escape the charge of fideism.

(3) God could have privately and directly revealed the inspiration, inerrancy, and authority of the 39 book OT codex to a first century Jew. In such a case, that Jew would, himself, certainly know the truth concerning the 39 books. But as I have been arguing, if that personal experience alone was the sole ground for his assertions concerning the 39 books, that Jew’s argument could not possibly be recognized by a third party as anything other than a fideistic appeal. To avoid the charge of fideism, the first century Jew would have to either advert back to the historical process by which the 39 books were identified and communicated to him, or else offer some other motive(s) of credibility for his claim (options 1 & 2 already explored).

I deeply appreciate Jonathan’s attempt to think in Reformed terms and try and find a way to present the strongest possible Protestant argument by which an appeal to fideism might be avoided. I tried very hard to do that myself prior to conversion, and I have tried to work it out as a matter of logic several times thereafter. I surely do not want to criticize a straw man. But given the argument above, I don’t see how anything about the development of the OT Hebrews scriptures or the situation of a first century Jew provides an analogy which saves the Reformed position. From the standpoint of reason, and without any willingness to modify sola scriptura, I see no way in which the Reformed position avoids the charge of fideism. I realize that is a serious charge and I am happy to have my conclusion proved wrong. Obviously, even if the Reformed position were not ultimately fideistic, that would not resolve the question concerning the truth of the Protestant paradigm. Also, as David has been pointing out, the power of natural reason is a contested issue within Reformed theology. It may be that some are perfectly happy to bite the fideistic bullet. Nevertheless, as far as I can tell, from a third party perspective, the Reformed position is ultimately fideistic. (once the details have been unpacked and explanations exhausted through circumlocution).

{and then in the next comment he answers a question or statement:}

I’m not sure how this is much different from Protestantism. I, for one, don’t deny that God works supernaturally through the church to lead us into all truth. The question is how we recognize when that has happened. For Rome, it has happened whenever Rome says it has happened. Even then, however, it isn’t clear WHEN this has happened, as our continual request for that infallible list of infallible statements keeps getting ignored or shunted aside.

I addressed the objection you raise in this article which I wrote for CTC in 2012, and especially within the comment thread following. It may be worth a read (if you have not read it already) if for no other reason than to get a good feel for the Catholic response to the infinite interpretive regress objection.