I realize that Martin Luther went with the Old Testament canon ratified by a jewish council while the Church has always kept the complete canon as used by the early Christians. Correct so far? I'm shakey on all of this.

Anyway, I had heard (not read; have no documentation) that the jews in authority at the time of the council that decided their official canon were the equivalent, if not still called, Saducees.  The saducees were, of course, the jews who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead and challeged Jesus on that issue. If this is accurate, that means people who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead were then able to successfully throw out any scripture (esp. Maccabees) that mention prayer for the dead, etc.

That's what I heard, but can not verify.

Does anyone know is there is any truth to this? In any case, why did Martin Luther change the Bible by going with a council of those not under the guidance of the Holy Spirit?

If anyone can clear this up for me (perhaps with documentation or online links, etc. I would be very grateful).

Thank you.

Praise Jesus!

For way more information that you probably wanted, take a look at the Encyclopedic entry at New Advent.  The key is "which Jews" made their decision for the canon, and when.

The question the protestants have to answer is WHY they went with the canon that was decided upon AFTER the destruction of the temple (and hence, after these Christians were spreading about), and WHY they went with the canon that does not include the "books" that many many of the early Church figures clearly cited and used. 

When the Dead Sea scrolls were found, they presented proof that the Jews in Alexandria used the 7 Deutero-Canonical books. It was the Palestinian Jews that rejected these books. As I understand the history, it was the Palestinian Jews that rejected Jesus as the Messiah (not the Jews in ALexandria).  It is, therefore, rather perplexing that this is the Old Testament the protestants chose to use. Hm-m-m.  Oddly enough, the original King James Version included the 7 Deutero-Canonical books.

"The Catholic Church frames the Christian life as one in which you must exercise virtue—not because virtue saves you, but because that's the way God's grace gets manifested." Dr. Francis J. Beckwith

Thank you all for your input. It has been very helpful. I think wljewell sums it up so well with:

"Why did Luther reject the full, long-standing canon of Old Testament Scripture for a canon mainly derived from post-Christ and counter-Christian Jews?"

I thought it was worth repeating.

Praise Jesus!