I have heard the explanation that Luther and Calvin put the Deutero-canonical books aside (as sacred scripture, that is; I think these books were still included, at first, in Protestant bibles, though in a seperate section) in part because of conflicts with what they believed to be Christian faith.
I think you could say at least in the case of Luther it had more to do with his perceived theological value of the particular books. In Luther’s biblical theology, the Bible is only valuable insofar as it “bears Christ” and he had a kind of ranking system for the biblical material–in other words, (per Luther) some parts of the Bible are more important than others. In his opinion, the Deuterocanonical books were on the very low rung of that ladder.
Also I think that there was the question of whether or not the 7 books could be traced back to Hebrew texts.
Yes, this was a frustration for Jerome as well. Since Luther’s goal was to prepare a translation of the Bible from the original languages he ran into difficulties because he had no access to Hebrew texts for the Deuterocanonicals. But (like Jerome) he translated them anyway based on the Greek texts that were available to him. I’m not sure whether he was or was not aware that certain books (for example 2 Maccabees) likely never had a Hebrew original to begin with.
(I have read that Hebrew portions of Tobit and Judith have been discovered in the Qumran caves, dating possibly to the second century BC.)
Fragments of Sirach and Tobit in Hebrew were discovered at Qumran. A fragment of Baruch was discovered, however it’s in Greek. No Judith.
Can anyone can give me more information about why most Protestants adopted the sixty-six book canon?
As others have noted, over time the deuterocanonicals were dropped from editions of the Bible and the protocanonical version became the standard canonical tradition among Evangelicals in the U.S. Versions appealing to mainline Protestants (the NRSV for example) now typically include the deuterocanonicals and I would say are viewed much as Luther viewed them–valuable to read, but perhaps not the most useful for learning about Christ. As I’ve pointed out on other threads, mainline Protestants who follow the Revised Common Lectionary actually hear a larger proportion of the Deuterocanonicals on Sunday morning than do Catholics. So I’m not sure about your “most Protestants” part of your assertion; one would have to survey Protestantism worldwide and come up with some statistics I guess.
Historically, each Christian group has felt free to adopt their own canon of Scripture, which is why the Evangelical canon differs somewhat from Mainline Protestant, which differs from Catholic, which differs from Greek Orthodox, which differs from Coptic Orthodox, which differs from Armenian Orthodox, etc. etc. You get the idea.
Going back to the Roman Catholic Lectionary, as an outsider it seems very odd that some Catholics make a big fuss about the canon, but then conversely never proclaim some of them as Scripture in the context of the daily and Sunday Mass (e.g., the Book of Judith, since you mentioned it.)
Also, I’ve heard that Luther wanted to eliminate the book of Revelation at one point. As easy as it is to make the antichrist and Babylon (or the whore thereof) stand for the Papacy, I’m a little impressed that he might have been contemplating such a move; his intentions must not have been all that bad.
This and similar assertions are often bandied about here at CAF, but have no historical merit. (They often appear in the form: “Luther wanted to remove X book but
they wouldn’t let him.”) As if Luther would have ever kowtowed to pressure from some mysterious “they”
The truth of the matter is that Luther didn’t have much use for certain books and was not shy about expression his opinion. But he never “tried” to remove them–that’s pure calumny. He found Revelation extremely difficult to understand and said as much. Interestingly though, Luther also commissioned Lucas Cranach to do woodcuts to illustrate the Book of Revelation in the first two editions of his New Testament, so Luther must have given it some weight.
My only problem with bringing up varying opinions on ECFs (just as I did the other day when I spoke of Origen’s doubt of 2nd Peter