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For Orthodox Jews?
Among the fragments found among the Dead Sea Scrolls was an almost complete edition of Tobit in Hebrew. As a Catholic I accept this as canonical, but I'm wondering why the Jewish Community does not include this text among the Sacred Writings, seeing as a Hebrew Edition (which the Greek was translated from) did at one point exist.
Also, what exactly is the authority given to the canonical decision made? Is the canon still hypothetically open? Or is the decision made about the current Hebrew Canon considered to have had divine protection from error?
The books in the Tanach were decided on by Anshei Knesset Hagadol (The Men of the Great Assembly AKA the Sanhedrin Hagadol that sat in the Temple courtyard).
Aside from the Torah, they had to decide which books were included into the Tanach and thus should be studied extensively. Their basis for this decision was based on the following:
1) The books had to be written by prophets or by people under prophetic influence
2) The books had to have a message beyond the era they were written in
3) The books had to be clear and not lead people into heresy (The exception to this was Koheles (Ecclesiastes), where it was deemed too impotant, and thus it was decided to include it even though a surface reading of it, without deeper insights, could deem it heretical).
As such, many books were not included because they did not fit this profile. The book of the Maccabees, The Book of Kuzari and some other later books were deemed to be written after the period in which prophecy was in the world, and thus were not included. "Tobit" I have no knowledge on, so I cannot comment on why it was not included- but it would have been excluded for one of the above reasons.
In theory, a book could be inculded nowadays, practicly, it would not happen for a number of reasons:
1) There is no Sanhedrin
2) There is no longer prophecy
In terms of divine protection from error- no. Jowever, there is a general principle that goes "God is in heaven, the Torah is on earth" The nmeaning behind this? God gave his law to us, and the oral law to guide us in expounding it. God trusted in Moshe to teach the law and for it to be passed onwards, with the sages of each generation understanding and teaching the law, making it relevant to each generation. Since God gave us the law, it is in our hands- thus we have the duty, and the privelege, to understand it and fulfill as best we can- if we err by mistake, God will rule as the Rabbis ruled since it was given into their hands on earth- thus even an error, if accepted by the Rabbis as correct, is deemed as correct by God.
In the messianic era, prophecy will return to the world and the Sanhedrin will be re-established, thus in the time of mashiach we may well see additions to the Tanach, yet another thing to look forward to!
A note on the "Aklef Bet of Ben Sira"- this book was universally deemed as false by the Rabbis and is NOT quoted in the Talmud! How could it be? It only surfaced in the 10th century- and the Talmud was sealed in the 8th century!