The Canon is defined as "a collection of books that are divinely inspired." The point was not that there were no other inspired writings, but that all the writings in the canon were guaranteed to be divinely inspired.

In the Beginning God commanded Moses to write what would be called the Pentateuch or Torah. This consisted of the books Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Later Joshua wrote the book of Joshua. Then during the time of the judges in Israel, scribes wrote the history of that time in the book of Judges. During the period of the kings of Israel, the chronology was written in the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. At this same time scribes wrote for the prophets that God had raised up. During the time of the Babylonian exile the prophets Daniel and Ezekiel wrote their books.

After the exile Ezra led in the organization of a "Canon." For those who read Aramaic, he also wrote the Tagums. (a targum is an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew) See 2 Esdras 14:45

The Greek Septuagint
The Septuagint is the oldest of the Greek translations of the Hebrew Old Testament. Tradition says that it was translated by 72 (Septuagint means 70) scholarly Jews of Alexandria Egypt. It contains many variations from the Hebrew, but it is the version that Jesus and the Apostles used.
Some copies had more or less than it's Hebrew counterpart.

The Hebrew canon was finally fixed by the Jews at the council of Yavneh, 90 AD. Earlier other books were considered part of the Hebrew canon, but now it takes its final form.
The council rejected the Septuagint, all the new testament writings, and any other writings that would lend support to Christians. Justin Martyr in his 'Dialogue with Trypho' chapters 71-72 stated that they even tried to remove verses form Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezra to try to stop the spread of Christianity. The prophecy in Ezra is still lost. At the end of this council, only what the Protestants will call the 39 books of the Old Testament would be hailed as scripture. Many of the other writings were burned. However, the Essennes preserved some of these in what is now known as 'the Dead Sea Scrolls.'
Later the Oral Torah and Yavnehan commentary would be written down in the form of the Mishna.

The Old Testament is numbered 39 by most Protestants, 24 by the Yavnehan council, and 22 by others (combining Joshua and Ruth, then Jere. and lam.). The Yavnehan (Jewish) Canon follows this form:
The Law 5 - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
The Prophets 8 - Joshua, Judges,1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Twelve
The Writings 11 - Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra/Nehemiah, 1 & 2 Chronicles

Some Old Testament books that were doubted or removed were:

Books mentioned in the Old Testament but never included in any canon are: Wars (Num. 21:14), Jasher (Josh. 10:13), Chronicles of David (1 Chron. 27:24), Gad and Nathan (1 Chron. 29:29), Iddo (2 Chron. 13:22), Jehu (2 Chron. 20:34), 2 Ezekiel (Josephus Ant. 10.5.1)

The Latin Vulgate
The old Latin manuscripts became so filled with errors (even today one can see at least 8 different renderings of Deuteronomy 31:17 and 27 of Luke 24:4-5) that Pope Damasus in 382 AD selected the best biblical scholar of his day to create an official Latin text. Eusebius Hieronymus, now known as St. Jerome, completed the Gospels in 384 AD, the New Testament in by the end of 385 AD, and the entire Bible was completed in 404 AD.

Some New Testament books that were doubted or removed for a time were:

During the 3^rd council of Carthage, in 397 AD, the New Testament canon was fixed at its present form of 27 books in the following order:
Gospels 4 - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
History 1 - Acts
Pauline Epistles 14 - Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews
General Epistles 7 - James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude
Prophecy 1 - Revelation

The six oldest Codices (Bibles) are:

Barnabas is quoted by Origin (Cont. Cels., 1:63) and by Clement of Alexandria (Strom., 3:6 &7). The Sonnini Manuscript (Acts 29) was discovered in the archives in Constantinople in the 1780's.

The five monophysite churches broke form the rest of the church in the 5^th century, thus having larger cannons.
Syria - 2 Esdras, 2 Baruch,
Egypt - Apocalypse of Elias,
Armenia - 3^rd Corinthians, Twelve Patriarchs, Life of Adam and Eve
Ethiopia - Enoch, Jubilees, Martyrdom of Isaiah, Jos. War VII

The introduction of vowel points into the Hebrew test between the 6^th and 8^th centuries became know as the 'Masoretic text,' which is still the official Hebrew text in use today.
The Jewish Masoretes, in the 9^th century were the first to write the Hebrew scripture in verse form. Both Cardinal Hugo de Saint-Cher in France and Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury in England, have been credited in creating chapter divisions in the 13^th century. The first Latin bible to be divided into verse form was by Paginus in 1528. Its versification differs from today's Latin version. The first English New Testament to be printed in verses was in 1557 followed by the complete Geneva Bible in 1560.

Eastern Orthodox
In 1054 the church split into the Eastern Orthodox in the east and the Roman Catholic in the west.
The eastern church holds 75 Books to be "sacred and canonical."

Roman Catholic
After the schism of 1054 the Roman Catholic Church removed 3^rd and 4^th Maccabees, 2 Esdras, and Psalm 151. During the Council of Trent (April 7, 1546 session 4) 45 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New, totaling 72, were declared to be "sacred and canonical."

Protestant
After the Reformation of 1517 some Protestant groups began to notice that there seemed to be no Hebrew versions of some of the Old Testament Books that were in the Greek and Latin. These are called Apocrypha. Thus in 1534 began a movement to remove these from the Old Testament to the center of the bible. They were first completely removed from the Geneva Bible in 1599, then starting in 1629 other Bibles began appearing with only the 66 books. The British and American Bible Societies decided in 1827 to omit the Apocrypha from most copies of the KJV and the Bibles they printed in other languages. Today they print over 80% of the Bibles sent out to other countries.

Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, Irenaeus, Muratorian Canon, Eusebius, Sinaiaticus, Vaticanitus, Vulgate, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Geneva Bible, King James Version, New Revised Version, the Johnson Index
Canonical, Disputed, Spurious, Not canonical, Recommended reading, Partial, ? uncertain * not extant.

Martin Luther stated that II Maccabees and Esther judaized to much and contained too much heathenism and so he wished they did not exist. He denied II Maccabees 12:43 taught Purgatory but said "the book is not one of the books of Holy Writ." Luther also wanted to take James out of the New Testament. In his 'Table Talks' he stated that James is a "right strawy epistle with out one ounce of Gospel in it."

History of the English Bible

The Wyclif Bible 1384
John Wyclif, known as the morning star of the Reformation, stated "The scriptures are the property of the people and no one should be allowed to wrest it from them." The first Wiclif Bible was a literal translation from the Latin Vulgate. Purvey revised it in 1395. The Council of Constance in 1415 ordered all Wyclif Bibles to be burned and his bones dug up and burned. This was done in 1428.

The Tyndale Bible 1525
William Tyndale produced the first printed scriptures in English. To a high religious leader of his time he stated "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the scripture than thou dost." After trying to gain support for about a year in London he went to Germany where Luther was translating the scripture in to German. Skilled in seven languages he used what he had in Greek and Hebrew to translate. Of the first 3000 shipped to England only a portion of one still exists. It is said that nine-tenths of the Authorized Version is still Tyndale. Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1535 for wanting to give the scriptures to the people.

The Coverdale Bible 1535
Myles Coverdale was the first to print the complete Bible in English. He followed the example of Martin Luther by placing the Apocrypha in the center of the Bible. He also added 1^st and 2^nd Esdras but omitted the prayer of Manasseh.

Matthew's Bible 1537
The work of John Rogers. He combined the Tyndale and Coverdale in to the Matthew's Bible, putting the prayer of Manasseh back in. He was the first martyr to be burned at the stake by Queen Mary in her efforts to rid England of any traces of the Reformation.

The Great Bible 1539
Many groups disliked the marginal notes in the Matthew's Bible and in Coverdale's bible. King Henry VIII set Myles Coverdale to work on this Bible which would be free from any interpretation. This was the first to translate part of the Apocrypha from the Greek. After two years of debate, in 1541, it was set up in the churches. It was the first "Authorized Version."

The Geneva Bible 1560
Geneva Switzerland was a neutral city. Home to John Calvin and Theodore Beza. It becomes the most loved Bible among Protestants until it was finally replaced in popularity by the KJV in 1644. The thousands of Calvinistic notes enflamed the Church of England and the Church of Rome alike.

The Bishops Bible 1568
After seeing the popularity of the Geneva grow the Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, led a group of Anglican Bishops in a translation of the Bible. It was uneven in quality but by 1602 it became the second "Authorized Version."

The Rheims-Doui Bible 1608
An Catholic version with anti-Protestant notes to counter the Geneva Bible.

The King James Version 1611
King James VI, king of Scotland for 36 years, succeeded Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 and became king James of England. While the Great Bible and the Bishop's Bible were the Authorized Versions, the masses were using the Geneva Bible. King James ordered "best learned from both universities," to make a neutral translation of the Bible with no notes, Calvinistic or Catholic, to be used instead of the Rheims-Doui and the Geneva. "and so the whole church to be bound unto it, and none other." It became the most loved Bible of the English language. 54 of the best Protestant and Catholic scholars were chosen on June 30, 1604; but only 47 names appear on the list of those who actually did the work. The translation was based on the Greek and Hebrew not on the Latin.

New International Version 1982
When Desiderius Erasmus published the first printed Greek New Testament text, thereafter known as the "Textus Receptus" or received text, the bulk of the work was based on two inferior Greek texts from the 12^th century. To fill in the gaps Erasmus used the Latin Vulgate. For instance the last 6 verses of Revelation were non-extant in Greek so he used the Latin Vulgate. Theodore Beza added the phrase "and is to come" to Rev. 4:8 which has never been found in any manuscript before he added it. When taking the oldest texts from many different places, you can reproduce a document that much more closely resembles the original. Today, instead of the 12 or so manuscripts that the Textus Receptus is based on, we have over 5000 New Testament Manuscripts. Based on these most scholars agree the "Critical Text," as it is called, best represents the first century New Testament text.

In light of this new evidence over 100 scholars from the Anglican, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Brethren, Christian Reformed, Church of Christ, Evangelical Free, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Nazarene, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, and other churches, came together to translate the N.I.V. based on the Critical Text with marginal notes containing additions from other texts. In this authors opinion the N.I.V. Study Bible is the best text and note combination available today! It was the first translation to replace the KJV in popularity. By 1992 34% of Bible sales in the U.S. were NIV, 25% were KJV, 9.6% were NKJV, 7.3% were LB, 5.1% were NAB and all others totaled 19%.

New Revised Standard 1991
The goal of this translation was to make a bible that Protestants, Roman Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox alike could use. Containing everything each group considered scripture plus additions from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Canonical, Recommended reading, Omitted, Spurious, Hebrew, Textus receptus, Critical text, Latin.

The finding of the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' in 1948, which contained the Hebrew old testament except for Esther, proved most of the old testament books had the same identical wording in the 1^st century as they do now in 1997 AD. Since the onset of modern Archeology we have found over 5300 fragmented manuscripts of the new testament. It is possible from these fragments to reconstruct 97% of the new Testament thus proving the critical text to be substantially the same in the first century as it is in 1997AD.

References:
See Irenaeus 2:28, 4:5,16,20,26,35 Eusebius 3:3,16,25,31,36,38, 4:14, 5:8, 6:8,12,13,14,25,31, 7:25,32, 9:5 Josephus Apion 1:8

It is this author's opinion that the 66 books that all hold sacred should be considered divinely inspired. All other books should be considered on there own merits, one at a time not in groups like the Apocrypha, or psudeopigrapha.

For more information see:
The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible and The Illustrated Bible Dictionary
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume I, Eerdmans Publishing
Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius Pamphilius, Baker Book House
A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce M. Metzger, United Bible Societies