>> There are historical documents from the time of Christ and before that indicates otherwise. <<
Name one.
>> Jerome argued against accepting the Apocryphal books as canon based largely on Jewish rejection of them, although he gave way when outvoted. <<
His actual statement was that those who interpreted his words as denying the scriptural authenticity of the disputed books were “fools and slanderers.” Martin Luther, an inveterate slanderer, labelled those books, “apocrypha,” to confuse them with another category of Christian writings which had been called apocrypha since the dawn of the Church. Thus many Protestants are misled by believing that ancient condemnations of “apocrypha” were leveled at books the same Church fathers quoted as divine relevation.
See: http://bible.org/article/content-and-extent-old-testament-canon
or here: http://department.monm.edu/classics/Speel_Festschrift/sundbergJr.htm
Consider this:
“Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecciesiasticus, as is plain from the Protogus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the Bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage.” (Cardinal Cajetan, “Commentary on all the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament,” cited by William Whitaker in “A Disputation on Holy Scripture,” Cambridge: Parker Society (1849), p. 424)
Also see: http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2006/06/guest-blogdid-jerome-change-his-mind.html
Now, you claim “Martin Luther, an inveterate slanderer, labelled those books, “apocrypha,” to confuse them with another category of Christian writings which had been called apocrypha since the dawn of the Church.”
Were you aware that the term Deutero-Cathonical was coined in the late 1500s? They had been called Apocryphal for a thousand years...was Luther supposed to invent Deuterocanonical for you, so he could call them something else?
Your history is wrong.