Meanwhile, regarding the book of Daniel, yes it was the historical-critical position of the liberal theologians that Daniel could not have been written before 150 B.C. That position was largely based from the outset on the content, since they deemed it impossible for a man to write accurately about events of the 4th to 2nd centuries B.C. before they had happened. That position has fallen on hard times since a copy of Daniel among the Dead Sea Scrolls has been confidently dated to 150 B.C. I remember at the Dead Sea Scrolls Seminar sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society in San Francisco, November 1992, a discussion by two of the leading experts on the scrolls in our time, professors Lawrence Schiffman and James Vanderkam (neither of them creationsists or fundamentalists, if that matters), that they agreed (with definite approval) the 2nd century B.C. copy of Daniel was a critical blow to the old historical-critical analysis of its origin (The copy of Samuel dated to 250 B.C. was also hard on those theories). There is no doubt, at least based on evidence, that the book of Daniel precedes the Maccabees, and does not procede from their time. And, the latest Psalms are from the time frame of the return from Babylon, and are not later than Ezra-Nehemiah. There is strong evidence, both internal and external, that the canon of the Hebrew Bible, including Daniel and Psalms, was closed in the days of Ezra-Nehemiah, and the books we have in the Hebrew Bible were accepted as such by succeeding generations.

In various posts now we've seen several assaults, some of them rather insulting, that seem to be efforts to derail the discussion from facts to innuendo and insult....

We've had hasty generalization about the presumed authorship of the Law. I have not said that Moses wrote the total, in the sense that he just sat down and started writing from nothing. In fact I have previously mentioned evident sources within the book of Genesis. No disharmony, no mythological sources, no Babylonian or Sumerian precursors, no J, P, E and so forth, and no historical-critical parsing of words, but straightforward acknowledgment within the book itself that accounts had been gathered together (Genesis 2:4, 5:1, 6:9, 10:1, 11:27, etc.). The universal testimony of scripture, from Exodus to Romans, which I do accept, is that Moses hand brought it together, and he wrote down the law that God gave to him. For that, again, there was no J source, no late insertions by P, etc., no competing religious or political agendas. I also do believe that prophets later supplemented the whole and updated place names and other references that became unclear over time (see Joshua 24:26, 2 Chron. 12:15, 13:22), culminating in the work of Ezra and Nehemiah, all under the guidance of God's Holy Spirit. There is good evidence for these conclusions, but they are not all written in stone.

We've also had attacking a straw man, with assertions about what fundamentalists believe and do, and even their inability to reason. Who are these fundamentalists? Or when did rational thinking become the sole domain of theological liberals and skeptics? Narrowness and bias are clearly not the privelege of adherents of one particular belief system. Particularly when the opinions of those who might be considered liberals and skeptics, in relation to scripture, continue to be found wanting when weighed in the balance. But who are the fundamentalists you want to argue against, or what are they? If you mean the American religious movement called Fundamentalism that arose in the 19th century, we don't qualify here. If you mean people who believe the Bible is inspired and true, yes, we do qualify for that, but that isn't fundamentalism. The characterization of "anti-intellectual" in that particular post was a dandy too. As was the presumed right to determine what is "'mainline' Christianity." Is that all the choices there are, what you would define as "mainline Christianity" or else what you would define as "fundamentalism"?

Now we see an effort to poison the well. Zondervan is part of the Murdoch media empire. Perhaps so, I'm not sure. And the point is? You think Murdoch is Jewish... and the point is? Perhaps a little character assassination goes a long way when we don't like facts? You are confident that Doubleday, publishers of the Anchor Bible, subsidiary of Bertelsmann, AG, a privately held European media giant with various worldwide divisions including several publishing houses, newspapers, radio and TV stations, etc (much like Murdoch) doesn't publish any junk for profit? This is absurd and insulting, but it goes back to the original accusation against "creationists" starting this exchange, that supposedly, they were just trying to sell junk and had neither evidence nor rational thought nor even clean motives. Did you know that Doubleday - Bertelsmann sells the Anchor Bible and related products for profit? Are you incensed by that? The "creationists" incensed you by selling products. Murdoch apparently does too, and Zondervan. If we rule out mega-corporate ownership and sales for profits, we're going to have a hard time finding a source for printed Bibles, let alone other reference materials. But about Zondervan, they are a division of HarperColllins since 1988, and sorry about that, but the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary from which I quoted was printed in 1975, when the company was controlled by the Zondervan family, before they were acquired by a larger publisher. Whatever innuendo you care to level against the current company, there is no touch of the current corporate empire on the volume quoted from. I wouldn't be interested in defending Rupert Murdoch or vilifying him either for that matter, but what has that to do with any of this? I wouldn't be interested in using or defending many things that Zondervan publishes or markets, but how is that relevant? Why would you resort to such methods of attack?

Regarding the outline of evidence cited before in the quote I posted, it seemed improper to post an entire copyrighted article, nor have I seen any sign that evidence previously cited made much difference in this discussion. The article is entitled "Canonicity" and is found on pp144-146. The dictionary is widely available, though apparently not in the German library you utilize. An overview of the sources he cited includes the following: the Talmud (about 400 A.D.); Josephus (about 90 A.D.); Origen (250 A.D.; Origen listed 22 books, as did Josephus, and arrives at that count by combining Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah, ending up with the same books as are divided into 39 in the English Bible); the Dead Sea Scrolls (both as to the books found there, and the quotations found in the sectarian documents); quotations in Philo (another first century Jew) from many of the same books referenced by Josephus and Origen, but no others (apocryphal books) quoted as authoritative; the fact, as I've seen in many sources (including my own reading of the books in question) that there are New Testament quotations from most of the OT books, and none of the apocryphal books (Enoch of course was not one of the apocryphal books, but you know that, and it is not clear at all that Jude quotes from "the Book of Enoch"). Jesus used the same sort of description of the contents of the Old Testament as Josephus (the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms), but usually it is summarized as the Law and the Prophets (12 times), which is the same description found four times in the sectarian documents of the Dead Sea scrolls, and again the sectarian documents quote from most of the Old Testament books. And it is noteworthy that in the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach) written about 180 B.C. we have, in the prologue, reference to the "many great teachings... given us through the Law and the Prophets and the others that followed them" suggesting again that, as at Qumran, and among Jesus and his disciples, the Hebrew Bible was known and revered as authoritative, and there were other writings (read the whole prologue) including Ecclesiasticus itself useful for learning and understanding the Law.

"Not received" by Christ and the apostles did not mean that they were ignorant of them, but that they did not receive them as inspired scripture. Not hard to understand. They did not use them as scripture. They did not quote them for authority, interpret them for example, cite them for fulfillment.

Whether or not the apocrypha was appended to the Septuagint in the years after the New Testament, when the Bible began to be utilized in book form, isn't the question. The claim that there has been a malleable canon, and no certainty of what is authoritative was what was formerly brought forward. The canon was not flexible, it hasn't been a mystery since New Testament times, nor for that matter was it ever a mystery in Old Testament times, and it never depended on human opinion. If someone a thousand years from now should see that many editions of the Bible printed today have notes and commentary on the pages with the text, or appended to the text, will they conclude that the commentary must have been part of the sacred canon? The appendices may change over time, but they are still appendices.