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I have been trying to learn about the Septuagint and there are a few things that aren't very clear to me.

1. I have seen quite a few lists of the extra books in the Septuagint and they seem to differ from one another in that some lists have more books than others, is there only one Septuagint version with a certain amount of extra books or is there a few versions differing in the amount of books?
   
   According to this page in your site: http://www.suscopts.org/evangelism/frames/know your_bible.html. These are the extra books in the Septuagint: 1- Tobias;  2- Judith; 3- Sequel of Esther; 4- The wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon); 5- Wisdom of Joshua son of Sirach; 6- Baroukh; 7- Sequel of the Book of Daniel; 8- Macabees first and second; 9- (and Psalm 151, following Psalm 150 in the Greek Bible).
   
   Where as according to www.lxx.org (an Antiohian Orthodox website), the above books plus the following are in the Septuagint: III Maccabees; IV Maccabees; Wisdom of Solomon; Psalms of Solomon; Epistle of Jeremiah; Song of the Three Children;  Susanna;  Bel and the Dragon. And sometimes in other sites or article/books I see 3 and 4 Esdras as part of it?
   
   Again according to the Council of Hippo: http://www.catholic.com/library/old_testament_canon.asp it seems that the other extra books mentioned in www.lxx.org are not mentioned?
   
   "[It has been decided] that besides the canonical scriptures nothing be read in church under the name of divine Scripture. But the canonical scriptures are as follows: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua the Son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, the Kings, four books, the Chronicles, two books, Job, the Psalter, the five books of Solomon [Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, and a portion of the Psalms], the twelve books of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Ezra, two books, Maccabees, two books . . ." (Canon 36 [A.D. 393]).
   
   So is there more than one Septuagint version with different amounts of extra books in it or is there just one version? And if there is only one how come there are different lists? Also, do you agree that the extra books mentioned in www.lxx.org and 3 and 4 Esdras are in the Septuagint?




2. It seems like there were a few extra books in the Septuagint but not all were accepted as canonical (i.e more books rejected than only 3 and 4 Esdras e.g 3 4 Maccabees, epistle of Jeremiah, Psalms of Solomon etc (i.e the other books mentioned in www.lxx.org)




3. Why don't we accept 2 and 4 Esdras as canonical?

There is a difference between the Septuagint and the books rejected by the Protestants, also called the 'Apocrypha' or the 'Deuterocanonical Books'. Our Church does not accept all the books in the Septuagint. The article you referred to in our website talks about the Deuterocanonical books and list the books accepted by the Coptic Church based on the Council of Hippo.

Note that the books called 'Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon.' in the Septuagint are included in the so-called Deuterocanonical books under the name the 'Sequel to Daniel'. Also please note that the epistle of Jeremiah is the last chapter of the book of Baroukh (chapter 6); 1st and 2nd Esdras are the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The 3rd and 4th Esdras are non canonicals; also 3rd and 4th Macabees are non canonical.

As for why one book is included and not the other our Church adopted the ones canonized in the Council of Hippo.