E. Earl Ellis, “The Old Testament Canon in the Early Church,” Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Martin Jan Mulder (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004) 678.
There is no evidence that elements of Diaspora or Palestinian Judaism had an expanded Septuagint canon distinct from the twenty-two book Hebrew canon, and the historical probabilities weigh heavily against such a supposition.
If even Greek-speaking Diaspora Judaism did not recognize the deutero-canonical writings as Scripture, then what was the basis for early Christians viewing them as inspired? I remember attending a debate between James White and a Catholic apologist on “Is the Apocrypha Scripture?” I vaguely recall that the Catholic said Judaism actually embraced the apocrypha–until the Council of Jamnia in 70 C.E., when Jewish leaders excluded it from the canon because the Christians accepted it. That sort of conspiracy theory probably wouldn’t sit well with Nick Norelli, who says that there was no ‘Council’ of Jamnia!
James' Ramblings 