Is there any tangible proof of Martin Luther removing books from the bible?

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Hello…I’m a catholic in need of help. I have sited books, authors, etc & there is this one person that isnt convinced, so I’m trying to find hard evidence that martin luther did in fact remove books form the bible and put them in an appendix. ANY help would be appreciated.
 
Well historically I think it is said that he wanted to remove 11 books, maybe even more. The reason that we have 7 books Protestants dont, is because those books are written in Greek, where the other ones are written in Hebrew. That was his reasoning I guess behind that, I dont know if maybe you search that you will get more evidence. However, Paul spoke or wrote in Greek (I’m not sure which one) so its ironic that they accept Pauls books, but do not accept the others. (Even though I think his books were written in Hebrew, it must have been Greek he spoke?)

Hope this helps!
 
Martin Luther did not remove books from the bible but was opposed to including certain NT epistles in the German language and other bibles. He did not like the Epistles of James and Jude, the letter to the Hebrews, or the Book of Revelation. One reason was that the early Church WAS not orginally in agreement about whether these books should be in the Canon, and he was favoring the side that favored excluding them. He also did not think that some, like Revelations and James, had acceptable theology. Which is interesting, since Revelations seems to be THE book for many Protestant TV evangelists today.

He also did not include the Apocrypha in the OT section, since he did not believe these books were part of “official” Jewish scripture (he was correct). Instead, he placed them in a separate section between the OT and NT.

I am not sure if any bibles were actually published without the NT epistles Luther wanted to remove; perhaps someone else knows about that.
 
There’s no question that Martin Luther decided to remove the books that catholics call Deuterocanonicals from the bible. These are OLD Testament books that were in the Greek Septuagint (sp?), but not found in records of older Hebrew scrolls. Judaism of Jesus’ era mostly used the Septuagint, IIRC.

Luther cited St. Jerome’s opinion that they should never have been included in the bible and tossed 'em. (Never mind that they’d been considered Scritpture by virtually all christians for the 1,200 years prior to his decision/declaration, nor that St. Jerome never went so far as to proclaim his judgement to be authoritative on the matter!)

Luther reportedly spoke disparagingly about the epistle of James, but I’ve never seen real evidence that he made a decisive attempt to remove it. Protestant New Testaments have the same Table of Contents as Catholic New Testaments.

Protestants call the Deuterocanonicals “Apocrypha” (sp?) and lump them with other non-inspired ancient writings (i.e. “Gospel” of Thomas) which catholics define as apocryphal.

Confused yet? 😉
 
Martin Luther did not remove any books from the bible. He was very frustrated with some of the theology presented in some epistles, such as James, because they conflicted with his “sola fide” theology, but he did not remove them.

We don’t see the 7 “deuterocanonical” books being removed until the King James version of the Bible was released.
 
Whitacre_Girl said:
Martin Luther did not remove any books from the bible. He was very frustrated with some of the theology presented in some epistles, such as James, because they conflicted with his “sola fide” theology, but he did not remove them.

We don’t see the 7 “deuterocanonical” books being removed until the King James version of the Bible was released.
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Actually for many years, well into the 1800s, the KJV still included the intertestimental writings.
 
Here is Wikipedia’s answer to the OP question:
Initially Luther had a low view of the books of Esther, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. He called the Epistle of James “an epistle of straw,” finding little in it that pointed to Christ and His saving work. He also had harsh words for the book of Revelation, saying that he could “in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it.”[6] He had reason to question the apostolicity of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation because the early church categorized these books as antilegomena, meaning that they were not accepted without reservation as canonical. Luther did not, however, remove them from his editions of the Scriptures. His views on some of these books changed in later years.
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Luther chose to place the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments. These books and addenda to canonical books are found in the Greek Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Masoretic text. Luther left the translating of them largely to Philipp Melanchthon and Justus Jonas.[7] They were not listed in the table of contents of his 1523 Old Testament, and they were given the well-known title: “Apocrypha: These Books Are Not Held Equal to the Scriptures, but Are Useful and Good to Read” in the 1534 Bible.[8]
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Whitacre_Girl said:
Martin Luther did not remove any books from the bible. He was very frustrated with some of the theology presented in some epistles, such as James, because they conflicted with his “sola fide” theology, but he did not remove them.

We don’t see the 7 “deuterocanonical” books being removed until the King James version of the Bible was released.
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They may still be in the pulished BOOK, but he classified them as apocryphal. There is nothing but semantics between that reclassification and complete removal from the canon of Scripture.
 
manualman said:
They may still be in the pulished BOOK, but he classified them as apocryphal. There is nothing but semantics between that reclassification and complete removal from the canon of Scripture.
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No, I don’t believe he did. He used them and quaoted them right along with everything else when he did his writing.

Okaym so maybe not KJV. Which was the first one it was removed from then?
 
Whitacre_Girl said:
No, I don’t believe he did. He used them and quaoted them right along with everything else when he did his writing.

Okaym so maybe not KJV. Which was the first one it was removed from then?
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Not that Wikipedia is the final word, but the wiki quote in the above post indicates he already considered them “apochryphal” in his vernacular translation, 1534. It doesn’t GET much earlier than that…
 
Whitacre_Girl said:
No, I don’t believe he did. He used them and quaoted them right along with everything else when he did his writing.

Okaym so maybe not KJV. Which was the first one it was removed from then?
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Later versions of the KJV did not have them.
 
Jason_1977 said:
OK, so maybe REMOVED is the wrong word. Would it be safe to say he REARRANGED the bible to his liking?
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No. It’s probably more accurate to say that he chose to use the Hebrew Masoretic Canon of the OT rather than the Septuagint. You Bible scholars out there can correct me if I’m wrong.
 
CB_Catholic said:
No. It’s probably more accurate to say that he chose to use the Hebrew Masoretic Canon of the OT rather than the Septuagint. You Bible scholars out there can correct me if I’m wrong.
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A Hebrew Masoretic Canon would not be a Christian canon at all. Relative to the established Christian canon this is essentially the same as "removing.:
 
drforjc said:
A Hebrew Masoretic Canon would not be a Christian canon at all. Relative to the established Christian canon this is essentially the same as "removing.:
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You may be right on the point that it is the Jewish Canon, not the Christian Canon, but it was not Martin Luther who removed the books, which is what the poster was asking and which is a common belief among Catholics. He chose to use the Hebrew Canon instead of the Septuagint, and rejected the authority of the Church to establish the Canon of Scripture, acting as his own authority, and disregarded 1500 years of Church Tradition concerning the Inspiration of certain books of the OT. People are under the impression that he just went through the OT and picked out certain books he didn’t like and “threw them out.” That is not what happened. And he didn’t “rearrange” the OT, either, as the OP was asking.
 
<<Well historically I think it is said that he wanted to remove 11 books, maybe even more. The reason that we have 7 books Protestants dont, is because those books are written in Greek, where the other ones are written in Hebrew.>>

Actually, large portions or complete copies of various of the Dueterocanonical/Apocryphal books contained in the Septuagint have been found in Hebrew versions, contrary to what you wrote here.
 
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