How do we know that Luther made right decision in removing OT books from canon

Mark_Sam · Apr 13, 2018

ViaCrucis said:
I have a tendency to challenge both sides of the debate, because I think both sides overstate their case.

And I think the reasonable conclusion to reach is that the matter isn't settled at all, and the question of the canonical status of the Deuterocanonicals continues to remain, at least technically speaking, open.

Yes, it is very interesting that the Lutheran Confessions in the Book of Concord don't really give a list of the canon of Scripture, unlike the 39 Articles of Religion, the Westminster Confession, the Second Helvetic Confession and many others. In this sense, the Confessio Augustana attitude to the canon is truly ecumenical. We just have to use "the books we have received".(As a Lutheran-turned-Catholic, I still appreciate the Confessio Augustana).

Standing Up said:
PS. The point is the Reformers didn't remove any part of canon (God-breathed scripture). And the RC bible didn't exist from the beginning at Pentecost CE 30.

But from my perspective, the Reformers did remove God-breathed Scripture. So who's right?
Of course the RC Bible didn't exist at Pentecost - no Bible (OT + NT) existed yet. What did exist, was the Hebrew Jewish canon of 24 books (corresponding to the 39 we all know), and the Greek Jewish canon of (at least) 46 books, used by both Greek-speaking Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.

dqhall · Apr 13, 2018

godenver1 said:
What if the reformers made a grave error in changing what was the accepted Christian scriptures during their reformations?

Imagine if a "reformer" did that today, and, for example, removed the book of Genesis or the minor prophets from the Bible, or maybe they included the Gospel of Thomas. We'd label them all sorts of things and ignore them and their theology. How do we know that Luther/reformers made the right decisions?

Errors in Bible text were made long before the reformation.

Standing Up · Apr 13, 2018

Mark_Sam said:
But from my perspective, the Reformers did remove God-breathed Scripture. So who's right?
Of course the RC Bible didn't exist at Pentecost - no Bible (OT + NT) existed yet. What did exist, was the Hebrew Jewish canon of 24 books (corresponding to the 39 we all know), and the Greek Jewish canon of (at least) 46 books, used by both Greek-speaking Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.

But that was the assertion, that the RC Bible did. It didn't. More than that we can be fairly sure based on Josephus what Christ and the apostles were using.

It's widely thought that the Septuagint contained the deuterocanon as on par, but it's far from clear if that was true at that time.
Septuagint - Wikipedia

The tri-fold canon of law, prophets, writings finds its way into Luke. And again, we know why---the valid line of prophets existing until about Artaxerxes. Again even 1 Macc excludes its self as inspired for that same reason (no prophets).

So Luther didn't remove anything. Others had been adding to it.

Root of Jesse · Apr 13, 2018

Daniel9v9 said:
It's a big question with a lengthy answer, but I would perhaps summarize it as:
1. The Reformers did not arbitrarily pull out books of the Bible in order to fit their theology. In fact, the Apocrypha (Deuterocanon) is included in the Luther Bible, but was commonly dropped much later primarily due to (1) politics and extremist Reformers who were against the Apocrypha, and (2) simply to reduce the cost of print. However, the orthodox reformed view is that the Apocrypha are good and useful to read, yet not divinely inspired.

2. Although the Apocrypha was never originally "cut out" as some may think, they were not considered part of the Canon because of their uncertain origin. This was not achieved through modern criticism, for even St Jerome - who translated the Bible into Latin (Vulgate) - didn't consider them part of the Canon; that is, the inspired word of God. What Luther and the other Reformers did was revert to this earlier view.

Yet St. Jerome changed his opinion. The fact is that the Septuagint held all the Deuterocanon books. People can't just cut out books, because when you do that, it's anybody's guess what will get cut out next. Luther didn't like some books of the NT, either, and wanted to remove them, too.

Root of Jesse · Apr 13, 2018

Radagast said:
We have fragmentary Hebrew versions of some of the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books. I'm not aware of any evidence that any were first written in Hebrew, though. Indeed, the fact that they were never part of the Hebrew canon argues against it.

The other fact is that there wasn't a Hebrew canon until there was a Christian canon.

Knee V · Apr 13, 2018

Root of Jesse said:
The other fact is that there wasn't a Hebrew canon until there was a Christian canon.

Indeed. Different Jewish sects had their own standards. There was no single canon.

Root of Jesse · Apr 13, 2018

Knee V said:
Indeed. Different Jewish sects had their own standards. There was no single canon.

Right. The Sadducees only believed in the Torah, and didn't believe in resurrection. That's why they were so sad, u see?

thecolorsblend · Apr 13, 2018

parousia70 said:
I believe the next great reformation will be one of Eschatology. The Church has never, not even once, established a monolithic, creed level stance on the scriptural eschaton.

I believe ours is the final genereration before that reformation takes place, and the Church will soon unite to extinguish the heresy of Premillennial Dispensationalism once and for all.

I beleive it will only take one more generation of failed dispensational predictions before the scales are tipped back to reality.

But I digress....
now back to the thread topic...

Maybe so but there's still fallout from Vatican II to contend with.

Still, you raise a good point. My only reluctance with that is the overall lack of specificity that the Church has to offer. For as comical as I find "premillennial dispensationalism" to be, it does have a fairly systematic teaching underpinning it. A wonky, incoherent, contradictory teaching, yes, but a teaching nevertheless.

And part of me wonders what the point of going nuclear on "premillennial dispensationalism" would even be. It's dying out naturally. Mostly it's just Boomers who buy into it. Gen X less so and Millennials even less than them.

godenver1 · Apr 13, 2018

Ok, so we've established that Luther/reformers removed texts from canon that, for the most part, were accepted as official canon in Christendom. Should he have left the texts as they were, or did he make the right decision in seperating them?

If we can establish who is on "the right side" of history then we can establish whether one should convert to Catholicism/Orthodoxy or Anglican/Lutheran.

thesunisout · Apr 14, 2018

godenver1 said:
What if the reformers made a grave error in changing what was the accepted Christian scriptures during their reformations?

Imagine if a "reformer" did that today, and, for example, removed the book of Genesis or the minor prophets from the Bible, or maybe they included the Gospel of Thomas. We'd label them all sorts of things and ignore them and their theology. How do we know that Luther/reformers made the right decisions?

The Jews did not believe that any of the OT books that were removed were inspired

parousia70 · Apr 14, 2018

thesunisout said:
The Jews did not believe that any of the OT books that were removed were inspired

Appealing to the assertions of Christ Rejectors as authoritative on scriptural inspiration seems counter intuitive to me.

thesunisout · Apr 14, 2018

parousia70 said:
Appealing to the assertions of Christ Rejectors as authoritative on scriptural inspiration seems counter intuitive to me.

The thing is, because we have the ancient manuscripts, we know what was in the bible that Jesus used. It's exactly the same as the one we have today, concerning the Old Testament. When Jesus talked about the scripture, that is what He was referring to. So, I feel very confident that we have the complete copy that our Lord Himself validated.

Just a side note; the scripture doesn't mock or defame the Jews, and neither should we. Calling a race of people Christ rejectors is not kosher! Read Romans 11 to see what kind of attitude we should have towards the Jews, who God promised to save in the end times.

parousia70 · Apr 16, 2018

thesunisout said:
Just a side note; the scripture doesn't mock or defame the Jews, and neither should we. Calling a race of people Christ rejectors is not kosher! Read Romans 11 to see what kind of attitude we should have towards the Jews, who God promised to save in the end times.

God is no respector of persons.
He cares not of DNA. Neither should we.
Faith and obedience are His ONLY criteria.

Scripture is clear, those who do not have the Son, DO NOT HAVE THE FATHER.(1 John 2:23)
Jews who refuse to get baptized get "cut off from among the people of God" (Acts 3:22-24) and cease to be "sons of Abraham." Such disobedient ones are called "sons of satan" (John 8:39-47/Rev 2:9).

Romans 2:25-29 shows us how God sees true Jewishness. Namely, a genetic jew, if disobedient to God's will, is viewed by God as an uncircumcised pagan (v.25). Meanwhile the genetic gentile, if obedient to God's will, is viewed by God as a circumcised Jew (v.26), despite his lack of family genetics and the outward marks. Paul teaches that true Jewishness, as God counts it, is based on a man's inward disposition of faith and obedience to God (v.28-29). From this passage we see that You and I are true Jews in God's eyes, whereas outward-only jews like the High Priest Caiaphas surrender their status as Jews in God's eyes. Such jewish persons are uncircumcised pagans, in God's eyes. We should view them no differently than God does.

thesunisout · Apr 16, 2018

parousia70 said:
God is no respector of persons.
He cares not of DNA. Neither should we.
Faith and obedience are His ONLY criteria.

Scripture is clear, those who do not have the Son, DO NOT HAVE THE FATHER.(1 John 2:23)
Jews who refuse to get baptized get "cut off from among the people of God" (Acts 3:22-24) and cease to be "sons of Abraham." Such disobedient ones are called "sons of satan" (John 8:39-47/Rev 2:9).

Romans 2:25-29 shows us how God sees true Jewishness. Namely, a genetic jew, if disobedient to God's will, is viewed by God as an uncircumcised pagan (v.25). Meanwhile the genetic gentile, if obedient to God's will, is viewed by God as a circumcised Jew (v.26), despite his lack of family genetics and the outward marks. Paul teaches that true Jewishness, as God counts it, is based on a man's inward disposition of faith and obedience to God (v.28-29). From this passage we see that You and I are true Jews in God's eyes, whereas outward-only jews like the High Priest Caiaphas surrender their status as Jews in God's eyes. Such jewish persons are uncircumcised pagans, in God's eyes. We should view them no differently than God does.

They have been rejected up until the middle of the tribulation when God will restore them through faith in Jesus Christ. The Jews will come to believe He is their Messiah. Read Romans 11

parousia70 · Apr 16, 2018

thesunisout said:
They have been rejected up until the middle of the tribulation when God will restore them through faith in Jesus Christ. The Jews will come to believe He is their Messiah. Read Romans 11

History.

The "remnant" was the true believing Israel, and the olive tree of Romans 11 is a symbol of that Israel. Unbelieving jews were cut off (Acts 3:22-24), and believing gentiles joined into believing jewish Israel (John, Mary and Joseph, the apostles, the jewish church, etc.). All the elect of Israel are ALREADY SAVED, and that Israel corresponds to the now jewish/gentile Church of Jesus the Messiah.

SolomonVII · Apr 16, 2018

Radagast said:
He revisited debates from the early church regarding its authenticity. But he included it in his Bible.

He also included Deuterocanons in his Bible.

thesunisout · Apr 16, 2018

parousia70 said:
History.

The "remnant" was the true believing Israel, and the olive tree of Romans 11 is a symbol of that Israel. Unbelieving jews were cut off (Acts 3:22-24), and believing gentiles joined into believing jewish Israel (John, Mary and Joseph, the apostles, the jewish church, etc.). All the elect of Israel are ALREADY SAVED, and that Israel corresponds to the now jewish/gentile Church of Jesus the Messiah.

That's not correct:

Romans 11

11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!

13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. 15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

The distinction isn't between believers and unbelievers in this passage, it is between Jews and Gentiles. Meaning, the Jewish people will be restored in the last days

parousia70 · Apr 17, 2018

thesunisout said:
That's not correct:

Romans 11...
The distinction isn't between believers and unbelievers in this passage, it is between Jews and Gentiles. Meaning, the Jewish people will be restored in the last days

You do realize It was already the last days when Paul wrote Romans 11, do you not?

Hebrews 1:1-2
1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;

In Romans 11, Paul was clearly speaking of the restoration of the Remnant of Jews that existed in his time, not ours or some future time to us:
5 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

Scripture teaches that Every Elect Jew alive in the first century who Followed their Messiah was Saved, and the rest who refused were cut off forever, destroyed, crushed and ground to powder by the Chief Cornerstone... (Matthew 21:33-45)

You seem to be claiming that all Jews of all time who have lived (and died) without accepting Jesus will somehow be saved at some point in our future?... Where do you get that notion from because I certainly can not find it in the pages of scripture.

mathinspiration · Apr 17, 2018

Luther actually removed some New Testament books like James because of good works and Revelations because of good works etc. he was interested in a philosophy debate and religious debate.

How do we know that Luther made right decision in removing OT books from canon

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