That’s the generic answer I generally get (books that were written in prophecy or with divine inspiration). I’m looking for more analytical/pragmatic answers, but from the point of view of a believing person. The issue is that I have no way to challenge or examine the things you mentioned. It’s also likely that there were other books whose contents included words of prophecy or divine inspiration, and they also didn’t get in. In short, the matter still isn’t fully clear to me. Did this question never interest you at all? I thought the Rabbi had dealt with it, since from his words it seems he believes less in divine providence, spectacular miracles, prophecy, and divine inspirations. (And the Hebrew Bible is full of them.)

How does the answer the Rabbi gave fit with his worldview?

To Ido — what is not analytical about the answer that what was written with divine inspiration was included?
Besides that, the Talmud itself says that only what was needed for future generations was written down.

You can’t examine that empirically.
How would you prove that they were written with divine inspiration?
In addition, there are probably many other books that belong to the category of books that were “written with divine inspiration.”
If so, why are they not part of the Hebrew Bible?

When you show me analytically how you identify the books that were included as being written with divine inspiration and as being needed, I assume I’ll answer you about the Book of Maccabees.
If you want an answer that is an empirical test, I recommend that you study the natural sciences.

I can’t show you analytically; I was simply continuing along the same line of reasoning to show that this characteristic can’t really be examined, and in addition, even if it could be examined, it still wouldn’t be satisfying. Alternatively, one could define after the fact some generic set of properties that the books have to meet, prove that they do meet those properties, and accordingly show that the books in the Hebrew Bible are consistent with those requirements. It disappoints me that micro-issues such as “an ox that gored a cow” are studied analytically, but important macro-issues like these, on the basis of which generations of people are taught, have no real satisfying answers.

I don’t understand what the problem is at all. There are prophetic books that were said with divine inspiration, and they were included in the Hebrew Bible. Books that were not written with divine inspiration were not included. How do we know what was written with divine inspiration? Not by some analytical calculation, but by tradition. That’s all. It’s neither complicated nor especially problematic. Do you want the content itself to testify clearly that it was written with divine inspiration? It doesn’t testify to that.
There is also no analytical calculation that proves that what I see actually exists. I simply know that this is so, and that’s it. There is no analytical calculation that proves that if I asked someone what time it is and he answered 14:13, he isn’t lying. But it seems reasonable to me that he isn’t lying.
This just seems like stubbornness.

In the Books of the Maccabees the miracle of the cruse of oil is not mentioned, and the whole holiday is about the victory. In 1 Maccabees it speaks of the glory of the fighters, as in the other books of the Hebrew Bible. Maybe that is the reason. Or simply because the course of the war and the whole story were far less impressive than people think, and it wasn’t some crushing victory.

Rabbi, even if I adopt the approach and acknowledge the fact that these books were written with “divine inspiration” or in “prophecy,” that still doesn’t explain why other books that were apparently written before the time of the Men of the Great Assembly with “divine inspiration” or in “prophecy” were not included in the Hebrew Bible.
For example, as far as I know there was a debate about the Scroll of Esther, whether to include it in the Hebrew Bible or not, which would imply there was no doubt that this book was written with “divine inspiration,” because otherwise that discussion would not have taken place. Even so, the Sages deliberated.

This issue leads me to conclude that there were probably additional considerations, and not only the simple fact that a book was written with “divine inspiration” or in “prophecy” as the sole reason for its inclusion in the Hebrew Bible. I assume the Men of the Great Assembly did not flip a coin when they made a decision about each book, so presumably they had other considerations as well.

If so, what are they???

The question of why this interests me and why it matters is another question. But I’m willing to open that up too, though it will cause the discussion to drift into other topics.
Do you want me to answer that? (It’s a completely different discussion, but if it would help, I’m willing to open it up.)

Correction: “For example, as far as I know there was a debate about the Scroll of Esther, whether to include it in the Hebrew Bible or not, which would imply there was no doubt that this book was written with ‘divine inspiration,’ because otherwise that discussion would not have taken place. Even so, the Sages deliberated.”
It could be that there was doubt, but since in the end they reached a decision, that is a sign that it was possible to determine whether a book was written with divine inspiration or not. So the provisional conclusion is either that there is a way to examine whether a book was written with “divine inspiration” or in “prophecy,” or that the Sages had additional considerations.
One of those two questions has answers.

I am not familiar with other books that were written with divine inspiration and were not included. There was a discussion about Esther and Ecclesiastes, and it was decided to include them. There the reasons were not divine inspiration but various concerns. But those are considerations for why not to include a book that is fit to be included. I am not familiar with considerations for including something that is unfit (that is, not written with divine inspiration). The discussion about Ecclesiastes, and apparently also about Esther, was not over whether it was written with divine inspiration or not.
In short, the discussion is baseless and also not interesting in my view.

As is well known, the Book of Esther is perhaps the only book in the Hebrew Bible in which God is not mentioned at all — just as the Passover Haggadah does not mention Moses our teacher.
Rabbinic Judaism was “burned” by the failed revolts against Rome, and therefore after the destruction it tended to encourage a pacifist Judaism that did not deal with what is called “forcing the end,” for example “Yavneh and its sages.” Therefore the rabbis emphasized the miraculous element (the miracle of the cruse of oil) and not the political aspect — especially since the Hasmonean kings were not from the seed of David, and later many of them became Hellenized. Only with the arrival of Zionism was the proper balance restored (in my opinion) between the religious and the national-political aspects of the holiday of Hanukkah.

Sorry, I didn’t spell my name correctly. It should be “Shahar Ben-Menachem.”