by Kira » Sun Sep 02, 2012 6:04 am
There was a great deal of controversy regarding which books should be in the "canon" and which should be left out.
It had to do with the level of Divine inspiration among other criteria.
Some of the ones that were controversial are Song of Songs (content), Kohelet / Ecclesiastes (too depressing), Ezekiel (sometimes appears to contradict Halacha).
Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus?), a book similar to Proverbs, is quoted a number of times in the Talmud even though it didn't make it in.
Books like Maccabis, Enoch, the Will of Reuven, and so on, were judged to be just plain writing, and not divinely inspired or particularly valuable.
I've seen some of them, they're ... meh. Interesting, but it's not the real thing. There was a trend back then to write "pseudepigrapha", - books written by a contemporary author as if he were a Biblical character - not too different from historical novels in our days, and with similar accuracy and effect.
-Kira