I like to think the 'Bible scholar' is a mode any spiritual seeker could access. One is learning to read a text for what it is. The status of being 'canonical' is just what some European Christian men at some point thought seemed like texts that read as 'historical' and that serviced clerical goals.

The "canonical" designation seems malign, certainly, in discouraging readership of texts as critical as "Susanna," "Tobit" or "The Wisdom of Solomon." I can't help but suspect that omitting them was done in view of minimizing female narratives and fracturing biblical narrative.