I am genuinely interested in your definition of inspiration. Would you mind elaborating on your views of inspiration? I take a cookie-cutter approach (from what I was taught in college) about the inspiration of the scriptures and the canon in general - 66 books. The Council of Trent pretty much sealed the canon as we know it today in western Christianity for both Catholics (72 books) and Protestants (66 books).
Given the discrepancy that exists between Protestant / Catholic / Eastern churches, which books do you believe should have been included?
Also, what about other writings such as found in the pseudepigrapha? What knowledge and/or doctrines do you think the church is missing today by not including them?
Even though the subject of inspiration is not identical with canon, it is difficult to speak of one without the other so forgive me if my reply bleeds between these two themes.
Inspiration was present from the time when the inspired book was written. Inspired books moved from their early status emerging from the pen of an author into a canon of Scripture over a passage of time. During the passage of time, there were reasons why a concensus devopled and it was recognized that "yes, this book is not ordinary, it is inspired", and eventually the body of such books were compiled and finally canonized.
In this order:
Inspiration > Recognition > Compilation > Canonization
It is tempting to look back and come up with a list of "hows" that this concensus developed, but truthfully, no one has left us a list of the criteria they used, at least not in the case of the Old Testament. Many people have attempted to guess at this, but the fact is, no records were left describing how a concensus came to be.
The bottom line for me is not that a book was deemed Scripture by a Council, Synod or other official meeting of the Church. In fact, I would argue that formal canonical lists of books were issued by councils AFTER the Church had already established an informal canon over time through the corporate usage of the Church.
When an effort was made to compare what the various communions used a authoritative Scripture, an extraordinary degree of agreement could be discerned. Gnostic books were not in use in any of the orhtodox communions, for instance. With very little difference between them the Churches already used almost all the same books with some diversity here and there.
The canon is closed. The canon was established before the councils tried to make it happen. The broad concensus of what was "inspired" was established by the long-term usage of the Church.
A few books in the O.T. were accepted with less than universal endorsement, and so, we have a small body of disputed books of the Old Testament.
How does one determine inspiration? Which books has the Church borne witness to over the centuries to their helpfulness, and edifying qualities? There you will see the hand of the Holy Spirit in guiding his people. How does one deal with those books which have less than universal acceptance? Some of us cut them out, some others of us, myself included, leave them in.
Sorry, my OCD was showing.