=Jim Dandy;9446844]Jon, who wrote the Lutheran confessions? Why is their authority accepted? Why do Lutherans leave the condemnation of the Pope in the confessions? It can only be because that continues to be Lutheran belief.
Who wrote them, Jim, is in the confessions themselves. I have questioned myself in the past why the nature of the condemnations, dated as they are, remain. To be sure, we still don’t accept that he has universal jurisdiction. We still reject the idea of “Vicar of Christ”.
All 73 books of the Bible were universally attested by the first Church, the Church founded by Christ for the salvation of the world. The books called the D-Cs were disputed early on, but were universally accepted before they were canonized.
Jom, it can’t be both. you can’t say they were universally attested, and also say they were disputed. and it depends on what you mean by “early on”. Was Cardinal Cajetan early on? If so, ok. Everything before Trent is early on.
And – as I have noted previously, the term “deuterocanon” was used for the first time in the 16th century. These writings were canonized at the same time as the other books. Judith is just as canonical as Isaiah; Maccabees is just as canonical as Matthew. Further, their acceptance should not be in question, since 88% of the quotes from the OT that are in the NT are from the Septuagint, which contains the so-called D-Cs. If that doesn’t certify their status, what would it take? The Apostles and their disciples who wrote the NT certainly knew what was Scripture and what was not. Would they have quoted from the Greek Septuagint if its status as “Scripture” was questionable? I think not. Only 14% of the OT quotes in the NT are from the Hebrew. If this were common knowledge in the 16th century, Luther could not have gotten away with removing these texts from the original canon of Scripture. Luther did not succeed in removing Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation, which were also relegated to an appendix in his German Bible.
I’m still looking for a reference to Luther
saying he wanted to remove the NT anitlegomena. But assuming for the moment he did, he would have been wrong. If the D-C’s were canonized with all the others in a dogmatic sense, then you must be talking about Trent. In that sense, for Catholics, I agree. And I’m not convinced that they shouldn’t be for Lutherans, too. In fact, in the literal sense of “canon”, meaning “rule”, they are. They are not excluded from scripture for us, and we do use them, though our “rule” or them is different than the CC.
If one wishes to discuss the “removal” of books, you have to go later than Luther. And if one wishes to us Trent as the dogmatic rule, you can’t accuse Luther of breaking it. He was already dead. Luther did nothing different than many Catholics before him - state his opinion regardin the books of the Bible.
Jon
And also with you, my friend.
Jon
