70 Books to be kept for the Wise
World renowned Bible scholar, author and Methodist preacher, Margaret Barker had this to say:
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The traditions of the original temple survived intact, but not in those texts chosen, after the advent of Christianity, to become the Hebrew Scriptures [Masoretic Text]. The details of how the Hebrew canon was determined are not known, but...one name...an “Ezra” is the one responsible for dividing the 94 holy books into two collections: 24 to be made public, and the remaining 70 to be kept only for the wise [sacred Temple Texts]:“For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of Wisdom and the river of knowledge.”(2 Esdras 14.19-48).
The imagery suggests that these were books from temple tradition, and there is good reason to believe that the books reserved for the wise — and in fact preserved only by Christian scribes — included what we now call the Pseudepigrapha, texts such as 1 and 2 Enoch, which are repositories of ancient temple tradition.
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(Margaret Barker, The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God)
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