Does it matter to you that your Deuterocanonical Books were not included among the collection Holy Scrolls in God's Holy Temple while the Holy One stood in its courtyard?
I think that you are bringing up an important issue. Good job,
Thess.
Some of the Deuterocanonical texts may have been among those Temple scrolls at some point, it seems to me. I am open minded on that topic. Here are some factors to consider.
First, one of the main theories about the Dead Sea Scrolls is that they are from the archives of the Temple priests of Onias' dynasty who represent the rightful priestly line that fled into exile when the Maccabean line took over. The DSS Great Psalter has Psalm 151 on the end of it, and Psalm 151 is in the LXX. One or more of the canon list sources approved by the Council of Trullo, and hence the 7th Ecumenical Council, includes Psalm 151 as canonical. However, the rabbis do not include Psalm 151 as canon.
Second, how do we know exactly which books were among those in the Temple? Josephus gives a cumulative number like 22, but the 22 books include other books among their number. That is, those 22 books include more than what you and I would normally number as 22 literal books. I have seen canonical lists by the Eastern Fathers like in Laodicea that tend to exclude the Deuterocanon but still include one or two Deuterocanonical books as canon.
Third, could more of those Deuterocanonical books, like the Maccabean series, been in the Temple in the Maccabean period, but then removed from the Temple when the Maccabean line became downcast? As I recall, the Maccabees were seen as heroes in Jewish tradition, but their status is somewhat ambivalent in the eyes of the rabbis, and the rabbis didn't preserve the Maccabean books, even among their noncanonical records like the Mishnahs.
Further, whether some Scrolls were in the Temple is not really the decisive issue for the Christian canon. Rather, the Christian canon is what the Christian Assembly considers to be its official list of Scripture. To give an analogy, the rabbis considered that the line of prophets and prophetic books ended with Malachi. Jesus in the NT noted that the rabbis didn't consider John the Baptist among the ancient prophets. However, in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus counts John the Baptist as among the ancient line of the prophets. Thus, whether Christianity numbers someone or their book as prophetic does not rest decisively on specifically the rabbinnical decisionmaking of the pre-Christian period. Rather, their status in Christianity is addressed by the Christian Church.
Personally, I am open minded on the topic of the Deuterocanon's status. The
earliest apparently
official Christian canon list of which I am aware is the Muratorian fragment, apparently from the mid to late 2nd century AD. Its OT section is missing, but it does include the Wisdom of Solomon among the canon. The most
official answer for the
worldwide Christian community seems to be in the 7th Ecumenical Council, which I personally take as treating the Deuterocanon's canonicity as optional, rather than as mandatory (Catholic view) or as denied (Protestant view). Similarly, worldwide, there are Christians who consider the Deuterocanon to be canon, and others who deny its canonicity. Both views can be found among Christians (including modern EOs), and it seems correct to say that both views can be legitimately argued either way.
Peace.