The simple fact is the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) does not include the deuterocanonical books. Protestants do not include them as scripture because:
1) their authorship is unknown and none of the books claim to be inspired works.
2) there are doctrines in the deuterocanonical books that are at odds with the New Testament, such as salvation by works (Ecclesiasticus 3:30) and magic (Tobit 6:5-8)
3) Jesus never quoted from the Apocrypha
4) further, none of the Apocryphal books are quoted in the New Testament at all (yet the Tanakh is quoted from in many places.
The apocrypha are books like Enoch, the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs, 4th Maccabees, etc., not 1&2 Maccabees, Judith, etc.
So, Jesus never quoted from Esther. I guess Protestants should toss it from their canon. The Hebrew version doesn’t even mention God.
There are numerous allusions or references to the deuterocanonicals: http://www.scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanon.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/767812/posts
2) there are doctrines in the deuterocanonical books that are at odds with the New Testament, such as salvation by works (Ecclesiasticus 3:30) and magic (Tobit 6:5-8)
You mean they are at variance with Protestant theology. Your attack there is kind of like the gay theologians who reject St. Paul’s comments about homosexuality because Jesus was silent on the issue in the gospels.
1) their authorship is unknown and none of the books claim to be inspired works.
Response: Plenty of the “canonical” books of the Bible do not claim to be inspired works. If this is a prerequisite for being recognized as canonical, we should throw out a lot more than 7 Old Testament books.
2) there are doctrines in the deuterocanonical books that are at odds with the New Testament, such as salvation by works (Ecclesiasticus 3:30) and magic (Tobit 6:5-8)
Response: Ecclesiasticus (aka Sirach) 3:30 in no way teaches “salvation by works.” Don’t understand that reference at all. And Tobit 6:5-8 in no way teaches magic. The Archangel Raphael teaches the young man to keep parts of the fish for medicinal purposes. To say that he was teaching magic is an extreme stretch in logic.
3) Jesus never quoted from the Apocrypha
Response: First of all, Jesus never quoted from many of the 39 OT books that you do consider canonical, so this argument is irrelevant. I mean, what about the Book of Ruth or the Song of Songs? Jesus didn’t quote from these, so are they not canonical? Secondly, we don’t really know if Jesus quoted from the “Apocrypha” because, as John 21:25 says, everything he said and did was not recorded.
4) further, none of the Apocryphal books are quoted in the New Testament at all (yet the Tanakh is quoted from in many places.
Response: I (and many biblical scholars) disagree. The writer of James almost certainly quotes Sirach 5:13-14 in James 1:19. Matthew 27:41-43 matches Wisdom 2:12-20, and John 10:22-36 matches both 1 Maccabees 4:36-59 and 2 Maccabees 10:1-8.
All in all, the Protestant Reformers unwisely threw out part of Sacred Scripture that had been used by Christians since the earliest days of the Church. What’s more mind-blowing in my mind, is that Protestants unhesitatingly accept the 27 books of the New Testament that were canonized by Church councils such as those at Rome, Carthage, Hippo, Florence and Trent. But the reject the some of the 46 Old Testament books defined by those same councils.
And for nearly 500 years, the heirs of the Reformation have been scrambling to defend this incoherent inconsistency and (amazingly) insist that THEY are right, but the REST of Christendom is wrong on this issue. Amazing.