Jon, thank you for your responses to my concerns about Luther and the Bible. You’re a patient and kind man. I’ve read the Lutheran defense of Luther’s actions several times. This is from a Lutheran website:
sothl.com/2011/01/13/the-apocrypha-early-church-councils-and-martin-luther/
QUOTE
Luther (1480-1546)
During his lifetime, Luther translated the Bible into German. His translation did include the Apocrypha; so Luther did not reject the Apocrypha. What Luther did that was novel was his placement of the Apocrypha: he placed them between the two testaments. This tradition of placing the Apocrypha between the two testaments helped set in place two views of thought:
[Luther was the first to start this “tradition.”]
Positive: The Apocrypha was a secondary category of books within the Bible. This was nothing new, and may, in truth, have helped better understand the Apocrypha as deuterocanon and/or anagignoskomena.
[Deuterocanon was a word employed for the first time in the 16th century, which simply means ‘accepted later than other writings’. There are not “two canons” – all biblical writings were canonized at the same time, in the same councils, and affirmed by the reigning popes. There has never been a different canon. The NT has a “deuterocanon” also.]
Negative: By putting all the Apocrypha together instead of interspersing them as before, Luther helped set up a churchly culture that could later more-easily remove the Apocrypha altogether from the Bible. And this largely took place in the Bibles Protestant used in the 1800s (1900s for German Lutherans who were transitioning to English).
Luther’s most-famous quotation about the Apocrypha comes from his preface to the Apocrypha in his German translation of the Bible:** “These books are not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read.”**
END QUOTE (emphasis mine)
Luther took the writings from their rightful places among the Scriptures, where they had been for centuries, and put them in an appendix betweeen the OT and the NT in his German translation of the Bible (1534). He left the pages unnumbered so it would be clear to readers that these writings were not Scripture. He also wrote prefaces for these books. His summary statement is indicated above in red.
Scriptures are the inspired Word of God. Writings that are “not held equal to the Scriptures” are not the inspired Word of God. To me, it couldn’t be clearer. Writings that are “useful and good to read” are not essential and not Scripture. Luther declared it so.
I have never said Luther removed these so-called “apocryphal” writings from the Bible. I do say he removed them from the canon. The KJV also placed them in an appendix in imitation of Luther. The books were removed completely from the Protestant Bible in 1827 by the British and Foreign Bible Society. There were no complaints from the Protestant world which, having been taught by Luther, didn’t consider them Scripture anyway.
Thanks for reading this.
Jim Dandy
I hate that.
