Question about Catholic Bible

[Anna_Scott]

. . .Another question…if you know…when did the KJV come out without the DC boooks? Was this after the decision by the British bible society not to print their bibles with the DC books?

 

[Lincoln7]

Hi Pablope, good to dialogue again,

Well, I am surprised you have not mentioned Jerome at all yet?

The reason I would most likely bring up Jerome in this, as indeed Catejan himself did, is that its simple evidence to demonstrate that the idea that prior to Luther everyone held exactly the same thing is unfounded…

Why can’t you let Luther rise and fall on his actions by himself…let Luther judge Luther, not what some other catholic did or did not do.

If you mean I should take Luther out of his context then I can’t, it goes against everything history is about…

As for all your questions regarding Catejan, it’s there in the link I provided, his views were simply representative of a number of Catholic scholars of his day… Until Trent there was no set Canon in the CC, debate regarding the apocrypha/deuterocanon was simply not an issue… And of course, I don’t see Luther as splitting the church, as a Protestant I naturally see him as calrifying the gospel of justification by faith alone, and bringing much needed reform to the church.

Kind regards

Lincs.

 

[ChrisRedfield47]

Is it true that there are several other books of the Bible in the Catholic Bible? Why do Protestants claim the other books not included are not “spirit-breathed?” That’s what they told me. The books that were not included were not “God-breathed.”
I guess that is what I am wondering. The person who told me this had other ideas that seemed to go against Christ’s teachings. I was pretty much laughed out of that church. And forced out by nasty gossip and slander.
And is it okay if a Protestant chooses the Catholic Bible over the Protestant one? A lot of people I know wouldn’t like it if I started reading the Catholic Bible. But I want to know for myself what is true.

Here are two great videos which can explain to you your doubts concerning both the Catholic and Protestant bibles:

youtube.com/watch?v=PjvXbotd9Lw
youtube.com/watch?v=Q9p5s8b04dI

 

[johnnyjones]

Some Protestant churches use the same bible and some individuals do too…

When the bible was compiled at the Council of Nicea the seven books (Apocrypha) were included. They were also assumed to be inspired by God. Then came Martin Luther. He decided that they were not inspired by God (I guess Luther’s opinion was infallible). He gave some reasons which as I recall were inaccurate. He also tried to remove several books from the New Testament (including James and Revelation). Some of the NT books put an emphasis on works which were opposed to Luther’s beliefs.

My knowledge on this issue is of course incomplete. Some others will probably do a better job. Also it would be fair to hear someone from the Protestant side as they probably have an excellent argument.

There is no apocrypha in the Catholic bible. The books you refer to in the Catholic bible are called the Deuterocanonical. Protestants call the “extra” books in a Catholic bible the apocrypha.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Sorry…I meant…he did put them as part of his Bible…but he placed them between the OT and NT as sort of an appendix…without page numbers…making it hard to locate them.

I’m not sure what you mean there, so maybe you could expand on your comment. Most people, particularly Catholics and Evangelical/fundamentalists really don’t understand what Luther meant by “sola scriptura.”

I know there’s a CA article on this topic somewhere, but I can’t make it come up in the search engine for some reason, otherwise I would post the link.

He may not have literally removed them…but he was the catalyst…in the DCs eventual treatment by Reformers after him…and the reason the CC reacted with Trent to close the canon…don’t you think so?

Since he didn’t literally remove them, then IMO I think people should stop saying that because it’s not true. Certainly you could argue that he was a catalyst, especially in regards to Trent, but Luther wasn’t the only one challenging the DC in his day–for that matter, you could argue that Jerome was a catalyst. I think it’s difficult to say that “X” person caused “Y” event, especially when the dropping of the DCs wouldn’t happen for another one hundred years or so later. Had Luther never lived, the same issues would have eventually surfaced when someone would have tried to translate the Bible from the original languages to the vernacular. Who knows how events would have turned out.

What I do think is that later Protestants (and certainly many or most modern-day Protestants) really didn’t/don’t have a good grasp on Luther’s theology of the Bible and the canon and, misunderstanding what he was doing, used his work as an impetus or even excuse to no longer include the DCs in later Bibles.

Another question…if you know…when did the KJV come out without the DC boooks? Was this after the decision by the British bible society not to print their bibles with the DC books?

I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that the DCs were part of the original King James translation.

 

[Lincoln7]

Here are two great videos which can explain to you your doubts concerning both the Catholic and Protestant bibles:

youtube.com/watch?v=PjvXbotd9Lw
youtube.com/watch?v=Q9p5s8b04dI

I have not had time as yet to watch the second video here, but the first one appears to be standard objections to both the reformation and Luther as a character…

On the ‘Luther added the word ‘alone’ to the bible’ segment, see here: beggarsallreformation.blogspot.co.uk/2006/02/luther-added-word-alone-to-romans-328.html Putting him in context here and engaging with him is essential…

On the idea of no knowledge of canon until Rome, Hippo or Carthage, again a broad statement… I’d recommend “The Heresy of Orthodoxy” for some serious, yet very easily grasped new testament scholarship on this question: crossway.org/product/9781433501432/

The video also seems to pre suppose that until Luther, no Catholic disagreed with the modern catholic canon… Again a broad statement, one need simply look to Jerome for differences, or as I’ve linked above, Cardinal Catejan… Scholarly debate on the apocrypha/deuterocanon was no issue in Luthers day, nor was he the first…

The video then makes mention of Luther apparently regretting the reformation and uses a form of the argument which often quotes his “there are as many heads now…” remark… There are numerous rebuttals of this argument here: beggarsallreformation.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/did-luther-regret-reformation.html

It then gives the standard 38,000 or however many denominations number… This is discussed in detail here: aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=2218

Regards

Lincs.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I am aware of the fact that there is no “Eastern Orthodox canon.” I showed you a Greek one because it is fairly mainstream. I noticed that you cited the Ethiopian one on another post. Probably the only example of one with one missing from it. That is a very unusual and isolated example. In general, Eastern Orthodox add, not subtract.

So then would you agree then that the Latinate biblical canon was never universally accepted? That is the statement I was objecting to.

The point here is that one could just as easily accuse Catholics of “removing” texts from the Bible. For example, why don’t Catholics have Psalm 151 in their Bibles? All of the other ancient churches include it; it’s in the Septuagint; it’s in Martin Luther’s Bible.

A distinction without a difference. The point was that it is separated from the rest of the New Testament. Like the kid standing in the corner in the fifth grade.

How are these books separated if they are listed as part of the New Testament?

 

[Jesusismyfriend]

Your mother also has no understanding of purgatory. Purgatory IS NOT a second chance, let me repeat purgatory IS NOT a second chance. What purgatory IS is where you are cleansed of sins that you did not make adequate penance for. So in layman terms it is like taking a shower and becoming pure before you enter into the all powerful and holy presence of God.

Yeah. I think mom thinks the purfication all happens on earth and if you haven’t been purified fully you might go to Hell. I don’t know what church that is in line with.

 

[hockeyfan]

So then would you agree then that the Latinate biblical canon was never universally accepted? That is the statement I was objecting to.

Yes, and I am sure I can find people who believe Elvis is still alive today and works at a gas station in Reno. My point was that the Ethiopian Church was very different and isolated situation with a lot of matters.

The point here is that one could just as easily accuse Catholics of “removing” texts from the Bible. For example, why don’t Catholics have Psalm 151 in their Bibles? All of the other ancient churches include it; it’s in the Septuagint; it’s in Martin Luther’s Bible.

Catholics did remove books. At the Councils of Carthage, Hippo and Rome they did. The difference is that they had the authority to do it. [BIBLEDRB]Matthew 16:18-19[/BIBLEDRB]

The Protestant Reformers 1500 years later did not have such authority.

How are these books separated if they are listed as part of the New Testament?

I am not sure what you mean by that question. I was not aware that the Deutrocanon was listed in the New Testament? I suspect that we are speaking on different pages on this comment.

 

[pablope]

Hi Pablope, good to dialogue again,

The reason I would most likely bring up Jerome in this, as indeed Catejan himself did, is that its simple evidence to demonstrate that the idea that prior to Luther everyone held exactly the same thing is unfounded…

There were reformers prior to Luther, Linc…maybe you should study how they went about reforming the Church…in contrast to the actions of Luther.

Look into Catherine of Sienna, Teresa of Avila, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic.

calrifying the gospel of justification by faith alone, and bringing much needed reform to the church

Then how come there is still much confusion within the protestant circles? And the continuous splitting? Do you call this reform?

Kind regards

Lincs.

Kind regards too…

[/QUOTE]

 

[Dave_Noonan]

1. Pre-Luther (certainly close to his time, but, I would argue, dating to antiquity with a couple disagreements popping up now and again), these texts were considered to be scripture in the same way as other scripture and in (at least pretty close to) the same way we consider things scripture now - inerrant sources of truth.
2. Luther thought that some scripture was authoritative in (at least pretty near) the same sense we do now.
3. Luther did not think the books he called “Apocrypha” were authoritative in the same sense we do now, nor in any other real sense.

So, what you are left with is Luther running into a faith that considered books full, authoritative Scripture, then making his own version that did not.

No he did not “remove them from the bible” in the sense that he still included those words in there, and if you insist that his conception of apocrypha counts as scripture, then he did not consider them un-scriptural…

As a side note, St. Jerrome’s argument (which I believe Luther used, and which relates to which books were originally in Hebrew) has been dealt with already. I highly suggest listening to the Catholic radio thing linked by a previous poster.

I would disagree with a number of your points because in my view they retroject modern notions of the Bible back to the Reformation and antiquity. For better or worse, people just thought differently back then.

1. Scriptural inerrancy, at least in the way we think of it today, really doesn’t become an issue until after the Enlightenment with movement away from allegorical interpretation.
2. Luther’s ideas about the authority of scripture are really very different from the way most Catholics and Evangelical/Fundamentalists think about the authority of Scripture now. Basically, Luther’s idea is that Scripture is a “bearer” of Christ and that Christians should worship Christ, not a book—he compares the Bible to the manger than bore the baby Jesus. In his view—drawing on some Augustinian principles of interpretation—parts of the Bible are much more important that others. In general, he applies this principle to books of the Bible, which certainly includes the Deuterocanonicals, and sort of evaluates and “ranks” the books.

Here, maybe thinking about the RC Lectionary could be helpful as a parallel. When the Catholic Church complied the revised three-year lectionary after Vatican II, the committee (Coetus XI) was instructed to choose the praestantior pars—sort of the “best” parts or “more excellent” parts—of the Bible for inclusion in the lectionary. So why do Catholics never hear readings from, say, Judith at Mass? Because the committee, rightly or wrongly, didn’t think Judith was really all that relevant to the on-going life and worship of the Church. Did they “demote” Judith? I don’t know, but I don’t think I would say that. They didn’t didn’t remove Judith from the Bible, but I think they would say that there are more important things on which to focus attention.

In somewhat the same way, Luther is translating a Bible into the vernacular that he hopes will reach those who do not have a formal education in Latin. Rightly or wrongly, he guides his readers to what he thinks are the more important parts of the Bible and steers them away from parts that he doesn’t like or thinks conflict with what he views as the more important parts of the Bible, particularly the Gospels, Romans and Galatians.

1. I guess I would have to agree that he doesn’t think that Maccabees is authoritative in the way that people think of the Bible being authoritative today–Luther really has a very different view of biblical authority altogether.

I did listen to the Catholic radio program (Gary Machuta) and found a lot of problems and some out-and-out errors. Just a few that I happened to jot down, if I understood them correctly:

1. Machuta says that the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) contains fragments of all of the proto-canonical books of the Bible except for Nehemiah and Esther. Actually, Esther is the only book from the prot0-canon for which we have no fragment within the DSS.
2. Machuta claims that among the DSS that only fragments from Sirach and Tobit were found from the deutero-canon. Actually, fragments of Baruch were also found among the DSS.
3. The issue about “the appendix” I’ve discussed in other posts. It was interesting to me that even the host pointed out Machuta’s non sequitur on this topic.
4. His story about Akiva choosing the Massoretic text over the Septuagint struck me as pure speculation. While there are Hebrew texts that one could term proto-Massoretic at Akiva’s time, there was neither a “the Septuagint” or “the Massoretic text” since, for one thing, the bound codex hadn’t been invented yet. The Massoretes themselves didn’t come along for another 500 years after Akiva. Jews would have had scrolls of various books of varying quality from varying textual traditions.

As is the case with many CA shows, the guest and host tend to conflate “Protestant Views” with Evangelicalism and “non-Catholic Bibles” with Evangelical Bibles. Machuta mentions that some “smaller Churches” have extra books in their canon, but quickly glosses over the fact that this is true of ALL of the Eastern Churches, which, until the advent of Islam, would have probably been the majority of Christians.

I thought his logic of the New Testament alluding to a passage from Maccabees, and thus showing Maccabees to be canonical, to be faulty. You could make the same argument then that the Book of Enoch should be in the Bible as well, since it’s quoted in Jude–which of course would please the Ethiopian Orthodox since they include it in their canon

That was all I jotted down. Maybe he was just nervous, I don’t know. I have not read his book though–maybe it is more accurate.

 

[pablope]

Greetings, Dave…

So honestly, I’ve never paid the slightest attention to the page numbering (or lack thereof) and would have to verify that.

I have read about it. Luther left the DC location un-numbered, making them hard to locate. But please do verify it.

About 1/2 through the second volume there is another table of contents with the New Testament, with the “questionable” books listed, but as we’ve discussed, put at the end of the New Testament.

Please clarify “questionable”…are you referring to the DC books or the NT books he disputed (Hebrews, Revelation and two or three of the epistles).

I don’t think the deuterocanonical books would be particularly hard to locate, page numbers or no. They are listed in the table of contents; personally, I rarely look at or refer to page numbers in Bibles I use.

Yeah…but if one was looking a the table of contents, how could one locate it if the page had no page number?

I’m not sure whether there was ever an official order to the books of the New Testament, or Old for that matter. Maybe you know the answer to that.

The NT has an official order…Gospels, Epistles and Revelation is last. Luther wanted to rearrange them according to earliest date of writing…this would have made John’s gospel last.

The OT, not so much.

Because there is SO much erroneous information published about Luther and Luther’s translations of the Bible,

And we catholics get dinged, and called unbiblical for having a Magisterium. If Lutherans had a magisterium, I do not think this would have happened.

the way I would get an answer to your question about the page numbers would be to go to the library and look at a facsimile edition of Luther’s 1534 Bible for myself. I can’t do that this week, but I will try to next week.

I do not have access to old books…I am not sure if this is available on the internet…but then, which site to trust?

You could do the same if you are interested in this topic.

What I do know is that there is no appendix or separate section; the deuterocanonicals are listed as part of the Old Testament.

Well, in Catholic Bible, the DCs are in no such appendix.

I’m not sure what you mean there, so maybe you could expand on your comment. Most people, particularly Catholics and Evangelical/fundamentalists really don’t understand what Luther meant by “sola scriptura.”

From what I learned, Luther never defined it…he just asserted it…so there is really no definition, as far as I know, from Luther, unless you can post his definition of it.

Since he didn’t literally remove them, then IMO I think people should stop saying that because it’s not true. Certainly you could argue that he was a catalyst, especially in regards to Trent, but Luther wasn’t the only one challenging the DC in his day–for that matter, you could argue that Jerome was a catalyst.

But Jerome did not publish his own version of the Bible…nor did he teach the pope is wrong after the Council of Rome.

There were reformers within the Church prior to Luther. Catherine of Sienna reformed the Church without splitting it.

I think it’s difficult to say that “X” person caused “Y” event, especially when the dropping of the DCs wouldn’t happen for another one hundred years or so later.

From what I read too, after Luther actions, the questioning of the DC came to the fore…and some followed what Luther did…put them in a separate appendix…till the decision to drop them altogether to save on printing costs.

I do not know if you are aware…but the Bible society that made the rule not to print them rescinded that rule sometime in the 60s. But the damage had been done.

What I do think is that later Protestants (and certainly many or most modern-day Protestants) really didn’t/don’t have a good grasp on Luther’s theology of the Bible and the canon and, misunderstanding what he was doing, used his work as an impetus or even excuse to no longer include the DCs in later Bibles.

I will repeat a previous answer…

And we catholics get dinged, and called unbiblical for having a Magisterium. If Lutherans had a magisterium, I do not think this would have happened.

I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that the DCs were part of the original King James translation.

Anna answered it…in 1885.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Here is a good youtube video. (It cites sources) youtube.googleapis.com/v/PjvXbotd9Lw?fs=1&hl=en_US%22%3E%3C%2Fparam%3E%3Cparam&fb_source=message

This video has tons of factual errors, most notably their continuing reference to the Council of Jamnia, which never existed. You can do searches here at CAF on the topic (there have been many discussions), or simply read the Wikipedia article.

I didn’t see where the video cites sources that support its claim that Luther “tried” to remove books from the New Testament but somehow failed in doing so.

 

[PatrickSanDiego]

That’s not correct; Luther includes them as Scripture.

See, the thing is, you’re defending the Protestant Machine with a basic fundemental denial of any fault. Luther marginalized the books, calling them Apocrypha. He did remove them from Canon, he took them out of the sequence, and placed them in the back pages. You imply he left them alone, no, he didn’t leave them alone. Saying he didn’t remove them from Scripture sounds like something a corporate lawyer would say. As time went on, and Protestants saw those books as non-Canon, then they even went missing in “Bible” reprints. Protestants controlled most of the print-presses in Germany, England, and Scandinavia, they simply started leaving out the books, or marginalized to the back and labeled “Apocrypha”. The British Bible Society then formally dropped them altogether in 1820 claiming that they used up paper and ink that was hard to come by. When things got better of course, they never re-included them. This is the truth.

Now, you say Luther didn’t do this, Luther didn’t do that. C’mon, man up, defend your Protestant faith at least. Come out and and say, "My religious ancestors didn’t want those books in there, and now they’re out. We did it all collectively by all of us pushing a little at a time. Even I myself am logging onto Catholic Answers Forum and defending this removal, clouding it, dodging it, painting it as ‘not our fault’ "

Do you really think England, that made Catholicism forbidden to practice, is going to allow the printing of a Catholic Bible? It was a collective effort, and Luther spearheaded it, and you do your part. Admit it.

Protestants claim sola scriptura, that scripture is everything. Yet look at what happened; Luther came along and distorted Scripture based on his fallible beliefs, and altered The Bible. At some point in time, the more serious you take your faith, you will find yourself in alignment with Catholics my friend.

…yeah, God save the Queen.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Please clarify “questionable”…are you referring to the DC books or the NT books he disputed (Hebrews, Revelation and two or three of the epistles).

Yes, I’m referring to the books in the NT that Luther found questionable and put at the end of the NT.

Yeah…but if one was looking a the table of contents, how could one locate it if the page had no page number?

If this is true, and I don’t know whether it is, I guess I don’t really see that as such a problem. I never refer to the table of contents of my Bible or to the page numbers. If I’m looking for something a little obscure I flip through the Bible until I find it.

The NT has an official order…Gospels, Epistles and Revelation is last. Luther wanted to rearrange them according to earliest date of writing…this would have made John’s gospel last.

Luther’s Bible definitely has the Gospels first, in the usual order. Or do you just mean at the end of the Gospels?

So where/when was the order of the NT books officially defined?

And we catholics get dinged, and called unbiblical for having a Magisterium. If Lutherans had a magisterium, I do not think this would have happened.

Luther most certainly recognized the magisterium=teachings/teaching office of the church but didn’t have much use for the magisters of his time. The difference is in how he understood the boundaries of what constituted the magisterium.

I do not have access to old books…I am not sure if this is available on the internet…but then, which site to trust?

I have never come across a copy on the Internet, or I would certainly refer people to it. I have found copies in several libraries.

From what I learned, Luther never defined it…he just asserted it…so there is really no definition, as far as I know, from Luther, unless you can post his definition of it.

I think the best way to understand how Luther thought about sola scriptura is to see how he applied it in principle. For example, Zwingli and others thought that there was no scriptural basis for infant baptism and thus that the church shouldn’t practice it. (That’s solO scriptura, sort of what you would see in modern day Evangelicalism.) Luther’s response was that infant baptism is indeed good and justified because: a) it’s part of the Church’s tradition and b.) it doesn’t CONFLICT with scripture. It’s not that everything must be found in Scripture, it’s that you should test church practices to see whether they CONFLICT with Scripture (in his view).

There were reformers within the Church prior to Luther. Catherine of Sienna reformed the Church without splitting it.

Then why was the Church still so corrupt in Luther’s time? An interesting source showing this, after Catherine of Sienna but before Martin Luther, are the Carmina Burana.

From what I read too, after Luther actions, the questioning of the DC came to the fore…and some followed what Luther did…put them in a separate appendix…till the decision to drop them altogether to save on printing costs.

Again, we disagree on the appendix part.

And we catholics get dinged, and called unbiblical for having a Magisterium. If Lutherans had a magisterium, I do not think this would have happened.

I guess I don’t really understand what you mean here. Everyone has a “magisterium”; and who is dinging the Catholics for having one?

Anna answered it…in 1885.

That’s a very long time after Luther.

 

[Alexander_Roman]

Wow. So it was Luther who changed it? My mom says he saved Christianity when he created the Protestant churches.
It’s crazy how she sticks to the Protestant beliefs. She told me she felt I had an interest in Catholicism because I wanted to believe in purgatory. She said, If I believed in purgatory, I wouldn’t have to worry that I was doing things that would get me sent to Hell. Because at least then I had a chance at Purgatory.
Not true. I just realize there were beliefs in my former church that were questionable. So I need to discover what is right.

I often hear that Catholics believe in confession and purgatory because that is our “way out” when we sin.

But who hasn’t sinned? Can sinners go to heaven? And does every kind of sin earn you a place in hell?

If our Protestant friends can answer those questions . . .

Alex

 

[Alexander_Roman]

Yes, I’m referring to the books in the NT that Luther found questionable and put at the end of the NT.

If this is true, and I don’t know whether it is, I guess I don’t really see that as such a problem. I never refer to the table of contents of my Bible or to the page numbers. If I’m looking for something a little obscure I flip through the Bible until I find it.

Luther’s Bible definitely has the Gospels first, in the usual order. Or do you just mean at the end of the Gospels?

So where/when was the order of the NT books officially defined?

Luther most certainly recognized the magisterium=teachings/teaching office of the church but didn’t have much use for the magisters of his time. The difference is in how he understood the boundaries of what constituted the magisterium.

I have never come across a copy on the Internet, or I would certainly refer people to it. I have found copies in several libraries.

I think the best way to understand how Luther thought about sola scriptura is to see how he applied it in principle. For example, Zwingli and others thought that there was no scriptural basis for infant baptism and thus that the church shouldn’t practice it. (That’s solO scriptura, sort of what you would see in modern day Evangelicalism.) Luther’s response was that infant baptism is indeed good and justified because: a) it’s part of the Church’s tradition and b.) it doesn’t CONFLICT with scripture. It’s not that everything must be found in Scripture, it’s that you should test church practices to see whether they CONFLICT with Scripture (in his view).

Then why was the Church still so corrupt in Luther’s time? An interesting source showing this, after Catherine of Sienna but before Martin Luther, are the Carmina Burana.

Again, we disagree on the appendix part.

I guess I don’t really understand what you mean here. Everyone has a “magisterium”; and who is dinging the Catholics for having one?

That’s a very long time after Luther.

Yes, and I personally have never intended to start a quarrel with Lutherans with my questions about Luther’s views of certain NT books.

Luther was essentially Catholic and I think that were he alive today, he would never have left the RC Church (nor would it have excommunicated him).

Alex

 

[JonNC]

Some Protestant churches use the same bible and some individuals do too…

**When the bible was compiled at the Council of Nicea the seven books (Apocrypha) were included. ** They were also assumed to be inspired by God. Then came Martin Luther. He decided that they were not inspired by God (I guess Luther’s opinion was infallible). He gave some reasons which as I recall were inaccurate. He also tried to remove several books from the New Testament (including James and Revelation). Some of the NT books put an emphasis on works which were opposed to Luther’s beliefs.

My knowledge on this issue is of course incomplete. Some others will probably do a better job. Also it would be fair to hear someone from the Protestant side as they probably have an excellent argument.

Do you have a quote from the Council of Nicea where the books of the bible are listed?

Jon

 

[pablope]

Y

If this is true, and I don’t know whether it is, I guess I don’t really see that as such a problem. I never refer to the table of contents of my Bible or to the page numbers. If I’m looking for something a little obscure I flip through the Bible until I find it.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

See, the thing is, you’re defending the Protestant Machine with a basic fundemental denial of any fault. Luther marginalized the books, calling them Apocrypha. He did remove them from Canon, he took them out of the sequence, and placed them in the back pages. You imply he left them alone, no, he didn’t leave them alone. Saying he didn’t remove them from Scripture sounds like something a corporate lawyer would say. As time went on, and Protestants saw those books as non-Canon, then they even went missing in “Bible” reprints. Protestants controlled most of the print-presses in Germany, England, and Scandinavia, they simply started leaving out the books, or marginalized to the back and labeled “Apocrypha”. The British Bible Society then formally dropped them altogether in 1820 claiming that they used up paper and ink that was hard to come by. When things got better of course, they never re-included them. This is the truth.

Now, you say Luther didn’t do this, Luther didn’t do that. C’mon, man up, defend your Protestant faith at least. Come out and and say, "My religious ancestors didn’t want those books in there, and now they’re out. We did it all collectively by all of us pushing a little at a time. Even I myself am logging onto Catholic Answers Forum and defending this removal, clouding it, dodging it, painting it as ‘not our fault’ "

Do you really think England, that made Catholicism forbidden to practice, is going to allow the printing of a Catholic Bible? It was a collective effort, and Luther spearheaded it, and you do your part. Admit it.

Protestants claim sola scriptura, that scripture is everything. Yet look at what happened; Luther came along and distorted Scripture based on his fallible beliefs, and altered The Bible. At some point in time, the more serious you take your faith, you will find yourself in alignment with Catholics my friend.

…yeah, God save the Queen.

On a personal level I could really care less about Luther because I’m not Lutheran; in many ways I think he was an awful man. I’m not trying to advocate for or defend Protestantism (I don’t see why that’s my responsibility) or Catholicism for that matter; all I’m trying to do is defend the truth and–maybe, in my wildest dreams–help people wake up to the fact that they are deceived by their institutions and apologists.

But I want to challenge Catholics to look at actual history and take a look at what really happened. I often come away with the conclusion that some Catholics must be very insecure in their faith, because I see how the same misstatements and distortions (like the “Council of Jamnia” in my post above—a common example) are just blindly reiterated, as if people aren’t actually all that interested in the truth. I think distortions of the truth hurt society in the long run; they just keep people in bondage. Certainly, some posters here are VERY interested in understanding new data–as am I–for example I’m interested in the discussion here about the page numbers in Luther’s Bible (or lack thereof) and what that means, and will definitely check it out and to see for myself. And I will no doubt learn something. But many (in my experience at least) would rather just cling to what someone, who doesn’t really know either, has told them and not be bothered with having to deal with the truth.