Again, there is no “Lutheran” position in the Confessions. A canon is not proscribed. It is simply the practice on how we use the books related to norming doctrine.Jon, it is either scripture (part of the canon of the Bible) or it isn’t (not part of the canon of the Bible). The Lutheran position is nothing like pre-Trent for the many reasons I’ve reiterated more than several times, i.e., there were no bibles before the reformation that did not contain the deuterocanonical books as part of the canon of the Bible.
The Catholic church seems to hedge on what you say - it is or it isn’t. Isn’t the Vatican’s position on the books recognized as scripture by Orthodoxy more of “to each his own”?
Perhaps not, but Catholic s here seem more worked up about the Lutheran usage of the DC’s than they are about the “added” books of Orthodoxy.
Curiously, St. Jerome states his opinion in one of his prefaces:
As a result, I’m not sure your claim that no Bible prior to the Reformation did not contain the DC’s as canon is entirely accurate.“This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a “helmeted” introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is not found in our list must be placed amongst the Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the First Book of the Maccabees is Hebrew, the Second is Greek, which may also be proven by their styles.”
But, after all, I consider the DC’s part of the canon of the Bible, because. as Cardinal Cajetan said, *…they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. *
Jon