With the Holy Spirit's power and the authority from Jesus Christ, The councils of the Catholic Church assembled a series of meetings to discuss the Canon of the Christian Bible. In other words, they organized meetings to determine what books were deemed sacred to compile into the Christian Bible.

 

Throughout the Council of Rome in 382 A.D., the Church decided upon a Canon of 46 books of the Old Testament. They also agreed to 27 books in the New Testament. This decision was approved by the Council of Hippo (393), Carthage (397, 419), II Nicea (787), Florence 1442, and later on after the Protestant Reformation during the Council of Trent (1546).

 

"That besides the canonical Scripture nothing be read in Church under the name of divine Scripture. But the canonical Scriptures are as follows: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, the son of Nun, the Judges, Ruth, The Kings, four books, the Chronicles, two books, Job, the Psalter, the five books of Solomon (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Songs of Songs, Wisdom, Sirach) the Twelve Books of the (minor) Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Ezra, two books (Ezra and Nehemiah) Maccabees, two books, the Gospels, four books, the Acts of the Apostles, one book, the Letters of Paul, fourteen, the Letters of Peter the Apostle, two, three, the Letters of John the Apostle, three, the Letters of James the apostle, one, the Letters of Jude the apostle, one, The Revelation of John, one book. Let this be sent to our brother and fellow bishop, Boniface (Pope St Boniface I), and to the other bishops of those parts that they may confirm this Canon, for these are the things that we have received from our fathers to be read in Church" (Canon 24 (27), (A.D. 419)"

 

To understand why Catholics have the Deuterocanonical books in the first place, we must understand the history of the writings that we now know as Sacred Scripture. Despite there being inspired writings that we find in the Old Testament, there was no official canon of Scripture up to 100AD. The Old Testament took over one thousand years (before Christ) to compile; the list of inspired books grew progressively as the Word of God was revealed.

 

Around the fourth century B.C., there was a massive increase of Greek culture and civilization that was spreading around the ancient world (the middle-East through to North-west India) started by Alexander the Great. This culture spread is known as Hellenization. Hellenization affected many Jews, which forced them adapt into the culture. This soon resulted in two different versions of Jewish religious texts, as Greek Jews began to translate many of the Hebrew writings into Greek.

 

The Greek version, now known as the Greek Bible (or the Septuagint) included the Deuterocanonical books, and the Hebrew writings now known as the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible lacks Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees as after these books were translated into Greek, the original Hebrew versions were lost or just never existed. In the case of the book of Wisdom which was written a century before Christ, it was written in Greek in the first place, so there was no Hebrew original version to begin with.

 

During the beginnings of early Christianity, Christians used the Greek Scriptures to spread Christianity. Around 100 A.D., The Jewish religious leaders met at the Council of Jamnia to determine which writings would be included in the Jewish Canon of Scripture. We must note that there was no authority by Jesus Christ given to these Jewish leaders who did not follow Christ. The Council of Jamnia rejected these Deuterocanonical books as they could not provide the Hebrew copies. As the Council did not believe Jesus was the Messiah, and His teachings, they were fearful of the Greek Scriptures being used to spread Christianity. So it was also for this reason that the Deuterocanonical books were rejected. However, at least three Early Church Fathers quoted the Deuterocanonical books (Wisdom and Sirach) in their writings before 100 A.D.

 

All the New Testaments are said to have been written in Greek, which was later translated into Hebrew.

 

A few Centuries later, the Catholic Church councils, accepted the Deuterocanonical books with their Hebrew counterparts. The Catholic Church did not have rules of what language the scriptures were written in at that time, unlike the Jewish authorities. So in simple terms, The Catholic Church accepted both the Greek and Hebrew text, whereas the Jews only accepted the Hebrew. We must also note the authority to determine what is sacred Scripture and what is not, was given to the Church through Jesus Christ in Matthew 16. 

 

During the first few centuries of Christianity, there were many writings regarding various topics in Christianity. However, only a certain amount was deemed sacred and was added into the New Testament writings of the Bible. When it was time for the Catholic Church councils to determine what were sacred and what were not, many of the writings were not included in the final Canon. However, this is not implying that the writings we do not see in the Bible are useless or non-inspirational. They are very helpful in knowing what the Early Christians believed and what Christ meant with what He said.

 

The earliest Christians did not have the New Testament written, even later on the only time that everyday Christians could read the Bible was on Sundays at Church, as the Bible was not published for personal use as it is now. The Scriptures were most of the time shared orally.

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When Martin Luther started the Protestant reformation, he wanted to make the Hebrew Bible (The Jewish Canon) the stand alone Bible for Christians. However, Luther kept the deuterocanonical books in his first version of the German translation, but in a seperate part of the Bible, so neither in the Old or New Testament, as he felt some of the deuterocanonical books were a lower class to the rest. It wasn't until later on in the 1800's that Protestant churches started to translate versions of the Bible disregarding the  deuterocanonical books all together.

 

Whether you believe in the inspiration of the Deuterocanonical books, or not, they are informative for understanding the historical context and teachings before the time of Christ. For example, the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees shed light on what life was like for the Jews during Hellenization. But apart from that, the Deuterocanonical books assist us with uncovering some more secret mysteries. One example, regarding the ark of the covenant, and what happened to it; 2 Maccabees 2 says where they could have placed it. So, even though many would not consider the Deuterocanonical Scriptures as being divinely inspired, it does not mean that we should disregard all of the information.