Luther and the Apocrypha

[Singing Bush]

Howdy. I was wondering if any of you all would happen to know exactly what issues Luther had w/ the deuterocanonical books of the OT so that he felt they were on a sort of sub-Scriptural level?

 

[JeffreyLloyd]

I'd like to hear what people think too...

 

[BBAS 64]

Howdy. I was wondering if any of you all would happen to know exactly what issues Luther had w/ the deuterocanonical books of the OT so that he felt they were on a sort of sub-Scriptural level?

Good day, Singing Bush

You may want to read this thread:

http://www.christianforums.com/t1169837-luther-apocrypha-and-james.html

You may find it helpful, as some Lutherans handle the issue.

Peace to u,

Bill

 

[BBAS 64]

I'd like to hear what people think too...

Just wanted to say Jeff, hope things are well.

Bill

 

[Singing Bush]

Thanks for the suggestion BBAS. If you'll look further in that thread, though, you'll see that I've already looked it over a couple days ago and actually posted my own comments/questions. It's a very helpful thread concerning Luther's response to James, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelations but was somewhat lacking in its discussion about the apocrypha. Thus I have come here. Thanks anyways though.

 

[ByzantineDixie]

First thing to emphasize is that Luther did not remove the deuterocanonical books from the Bible...in fact the Martin Luther version of the German bible is still published today with the Apocrypha. There are even some Lutheran churches that include Apocryphal readings in their services. The issue for Luther was "inspiration". He did believe the subject books were "profitable and good to read". According to much published information the Apocrypha was officially removed from the KJV in 1885, although the first American printed KJV without the Apocrypha was printed in 1782. Luther did neither of these.

Luther provides comments in the prefaces of all the deuterocanonical books explaining the issues that affect "inspiration" including references to the considerations of the early church fathers. As the reasoning is varied, dependent upon the book, a general 3 line statement as to "why" is not possible. The prefaces for each book explaining Luther's thinking for that book can be located in Luther's Works, Volume 35, Prefaces to the Books of the Bible.

I suspect the fact that these books were not a part of the Hebrew Old Testament also played a role. The subject books were part of the scriptures used by the Jewish Diaspora but not used by the Jews in Palestine. However, I am far from an expert on this topic.

Peace

Rose

 

[BigNorsk]

The big issue is are they scripture, that is God-breathed.

In the Old Testament, God spoke through his prophets, in the New through Jesus' apostles.

In order to include of the books they need to be God-breathed through a prophet. Also, they need to agree with other scripture since God would not contradict himself. One pretty common problem they have is that they claim to be written by someone who clearly did not write them.

When you add it up, they are some nice writing, but just don't fit the definition of scripture.

If you are interested, there are a lot more apochryphal books than what the Roman Catholic Church accepts. A bunch of New Testament ones as well as other Old Testament ones.

Marv

 

[Carl the Copt]

The books in question were in fact Bible in the time of the writing of the New Testament. The early Church always viewed them as Scripture. For Orthodox today they are Scripture just as inspired as Genesis is or Esther is.
Carl the Copt

 

[ByzantineDixie]

The books in question were in fact Bible in the time of the writing of the New Testament. The early Church always viewed them as Scripture. For Orthodox today they are Scripture just as inspired as Genesis is or Esther is.
Carl the Copt

But...and please correct me if I am wrong...the Orthodox do not believe these works to be infallible (as they do not believe the rest of Scripture to be completely infallible). Rather the infallibility of Scripture for the Orthodox lies not in the books but in the churches interpretation of the books. If this is true, then the Orthodox position on the deuterocanonical books and the Lutheran position would be more similar than not. Where the deviation would occur would be the Lutheran understanding of infallibility for the rest of the 66 books of the bible.

Also...regarding these books being in the Scriptures at the time of Christ...yes, where Christ was living, as part of the Diaspora, this was true, but the Jews of Palestine did not have these books. Plus...it is my understanding that the books varied through out the Diaspora depending upon location.

I am on the fringe of my knowledge base here so welcome additional comment and correction.

Peace

Rose

 

[Jamza]

I wish it was more clear cut. I'm just confused and want to know whether or not the Apocrapha is authoritative. Heh I wish someone would tell me yes or no.

 

[raphink]

In order to include of the books they need to be God-breathed through a prophet. Also, they need to agree with other scripture since God would not contradict himself. One pretty common problem they have is that they claim to be written by someone who clearly did not write them.

Esther is not "God-breathed" according to your definition. It doens't even talk about God. Still it is part of the Jewish canon (not talking about the greek Esther, which is part of the OT apocrypha) ... What about it?

 

[Wigglesworth]

The Apocrypha/Deuterocanon includes works of fiction and works that appear to be histories but with blatant historical inaccuracies. Therefore, it is difficult to reconcile them with the position of verbal inspiration by the Holy Spirit.

A more relaxed position on inspiration would allow for these writings to be acceptable by the church for "example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine . . . ." (Article VI, Articles of Religion, Book of Common Prayer). This appears to be practically the same position Luther took, although he didn't state it that way.

 

[ufonium2]

In order to include of the books they need to be God-breathed through a prophet... One pretty common problem they have is that they claim to be written by someone who clearly did not write them.

Like the 5 "Books of Moses"? Unless you believe that Moses wrote about his own death in the past tense, and used city names that didn't exist until hundreds of years after he died, it's hard to argue that Moses wrote them in their entirety.

 

[SolomonVII]

I wish it was more clear cut. I'm just confused and want to know whether or not the Apocrapha is authoritative. Heh I wish someone would tell me yes or no.

For Catholics, they are authorative. For many other Christians, they are not.
So it all depends on which voice you would consider authoritative on these matters.

One reason that the apocrypha was left out of the Bible though, contrary to the orders of the Archbishop of Cantebury of the time, was simply that paper was expensive at the time, and the publisher's were looking ot find savings on their investment wherever it may come.

One of the reason that Jews decided against the apocryphal books was that the Septuagint that included them was so popular amongst the Christians, whom they detested. The fact that Jews themselves had previously honored these books before, though, can be seen in the fact that their major festival of Hannukah, presevered in the Catholic Bible's deuterocanoical books of the Maccaabees, is not even mentioned in the version of the Masoretic Bible of the Jews. (The actual canonization of this Bible was only confirmed after the dawn of the Christian era).

Protestants themselves at first diminshed the writings of the deuterocanicals, by setting them apart, and them finally be publishing Bible without these books. Doctrinal differences, such as purgatory, prayers for the dead, and penance for sins are most explicitly spelled out in the Apocrypha, and the Protestants wanted to distance themselves from such practices, for whatever reasons.

Only in the deuterocanicals are several ideas and traditions that link the older Hebrew traditions of the Old Testament with the newer Christian traditions of the New Testament to be found. Bodily resurrection, for example first appears in explicit form in these very deuterocanicals.

hence, even if not considered inspired by all, at least all Christians should understand how inspiring that these works were historically in the formation of the most prominent doctine of the New Testament- ie that being of the Bodily Resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

 

[Truth and Reconciliation]

Luther took out the Deuterocanon - there's no doubt about it. Because he took it out, the Council of Trent made those books officially OFFICIAL to make it clear to everyone.

Yes, a lot of the Deuterocanon is fictional, but can't the Holy Spirit work through the storywriter and inspire the fictional work? Any literature inspired by the Spirit (hence only the Bible) is edifying for man to read and learn about God. For instance, the Book of Job is classified under "poetry" and isn't supposed to be a true story. It's fictional, but the Spirit breathed His Word into the author of the story so that the work of fiction contains the message that God wishes to convey to his children.

The proof that the Book of Job is fictional is through its literary style. The book was probably written during the Restoration Period under the Persians due to the literary elements adopted from Babylonian styles. And the theme of the story fits in well with the history of that era. Just think of Job as representative of Israel...

Likewise, Esther and Daniel are written during the Hellenistic Era due to the Greek literary elements in them. For instance, in Esther, Haman is implied to be Macedonian because the most odious character in Hebrew society would be their Greek conquerors. But Esther is historical because of the early records of Purim. Daniel to the exilic Jews in Babylon is somewhat of a folk hero and a prophet. The non-Deuterocanonical portions of Daniel contain both prophecy and didactic stories, while Susanna and Bel are just didactic stories/fables.

The Book of Jonah is known for the shortest prophecy in the Bible. The book is more of a didactic story/fable. But was it inspired? Sure, as it conveys the message that God wants us to hear.

 

[SolomonVII]

Luther took out the Deuterocanon - there's no doubt about it. Because he took it out, the Council of Trent made those books officially OFFICIAL to make it clear to everyone.

Yes, a lot of the Deuterocanon is fictional, but can't the Holy Spirit work through the storywriter and inspire the fictional work? Any literature inspired by the Spirit (hence only the Bible) is edifying for man to read and learn about God. For instance, the Book of Job is classified under "poetry" and isn't supposed to be a true story. It's fictional, but the Spirit breathed His Word into the author of the story so that the work of fiction contains the message that God wishes to convey to his children.

The proof that the Book of Job is fictional is through its literary style. The book was probably written during the Restoration Period under the Persians due to the literary elements adopted from Babylonian styles. And the theme of the story fits in well with the history of that era. Just think of Job as representative of Israel...

Likewise, Esther and Daniel are written during the Hellenistic Era due to the Greek literary elements in them. For instance, in Esther, Haman is implied to be Macedonian because the most odious character in Hebrew society would be their Greek conquerors. But Esther is historical because of the early records of Purim. Daniel to the exilic Jews in Babylon is somewhat of a folk hero and a prophet. The non-Deuterocanonical portions of Daniel contain both prophecy and didactic stories, while Susanna and Bel are just didactic stories/fables.

The Book of Jonah is known for the shortest prophecy in the Bible. The book is more of a didactic story/fable. But was it inspired? Sure, as it conveys the message that God wants us to hear.

Perhaps more influential than Luther in casting doubt upon the 'inspired' and 'divine scripture' adjective the majority of early church leaders used to describe the Deuterocanons, would be the Protestant opinion written by AndreasBodenstein(Carlstadt)in 1520. He distinguished between helpful books such as Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Tobit and 1 and 2 Maccabees and the dangerous books- 1 and 2 Esdras, Baruch, the Prayer of Manasseh, and the additions to Daniel mentioned in the above post quoted. The latter group were worthy of only riducule and censorship, in the opinion of Carstadt.

The usefulness of the now sequestered, doctrinally unsound, and diminished apocryphal books was a matter of debate for Protestants of the Church of England, but it was the Puritans who especially did not want the Apocrypha at all. The first English translated Bible without an Apocypha- The Geneva Bible of 1599, instantly became the favored translation among this group of Christians.

The criticism common today against the deuterocanicals is that they are unhistorical. Such criticism however is quite modern and likely has as much today with the rise of the fundamentalist movement in the past 150 or so years, which in itself was a reaction against the enlightenmnent thinking which was once on the verge of relegating the whole of the Christian faith to the dustbins of primitve superstition and naive myth, much as had been done to the Apocrypha in the previous centuries.

Hence the school of hypercitical school of biblical criticism of the mid 1800's which has been at least partially responsible for the rediscovery of the literary and metaphorical roots of many of the stories of the Old Testament, can be seen as a logical extension of the forces that had once denigrated the Apocrypha as worthy of ridicule and censure. The same arguments that were initially used against the deuterocanicals are now being used against the whole of the biblical tradition.

In an ironic twist then, the rationalism that early Protestants employed against the veracity of the Apocrypha has now taken on the form of snake consuming itself by first swallowing its own tail.

 

[Orchids]

I once had a Bible with the apocrypha in it, and am interested in reading this...but now I cannot find that Bible.

If I remember correctly (and maybe I don't)... it seems the Gospels never mention the Apocrypha nor any verses therein, so therefore another reason they were not included in the Canon?

 

[SolomonVII]

This link may provide an answer to what role Deuterocanicals played a part in the belief system of Jesus.

Did Jesus quote from the Apocrypha?



The short answer is yes---and so did the Apostles.

Jesus and the Gospel writers referenced the Deuterocanonicals in the following instances:

Matthew 6:12, 14-15---"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; if you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your heavenly father forgive your transgressions."
Sirach 28:2---"Forgive your neighbor's injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven."

Luke 1:17 (describing John the Baptist)---"He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers towards children and the disobediant to the understanding of the righteous, to prepare a people fit for the Lord."
Sirach 48:10---"You are destined, it is written, in time to come, to put an end to wrath before the day of the Lord, to turn back the hearts of fathers towards their sons, and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob."

Luke 1:28, 1:42---"And coming to her, he said, 'Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you!'.....Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."
Judith 13:18---"Then Uzziah said to her: 'Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God, above all the women of the earth; and blessed be the Lord God, the Creator of heaven and earth.

Luke 1:52---"He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones, but lifted up the lowly."
Sirach 10:14---"The thrones of the arrogant God overturns, and establishes the lowly in their stead."

Luke 12:19-20---"I shall say to myself, 'Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!' But God said to him, 'You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?'"
Sirach 11:19---"When he says: 'I have found rest, now I will feast on my possessions,' he does not know how long it will be till he dies and leaves them to others."

Luke 18:22---"When Jesus heard this, he said to him, 'There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.'"
Sirach 29:11---"Dispose of your treasure as the Most High commands, for that will profit you more than the gold."

John 3:12---"If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?"
Wisdom 9:16---"Scarce do we guess the things on earth, and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty; but when things are in heaven, who can search them out?"

John 5:18---"For this reason the Jews tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but he also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God."
Wisdom 2:16---"He judges us debased; he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure. He calls blest the destiny of the just and boasts that God is his Father."

John 10:29---"My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father's hand."
Wisdom 3:1---"But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them."

Paul and James allude to them as well:

Romans 2:11---"There is no partiality with God."
Sirach 35:12---"For he is a God of justice, who knows no favorites."

Romans 9:21---"Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for a noble purpose andanother fo an ignoble one?"
Wisdom 15:7---"For truly the potter, laboriously working the soft earth, molds for our service each several article: both the vessels that serve for clean purposes, and their opposites, all alike; as to what shall be the use of each vessel of eiother class, the worker in clay is the judge."

Romans 11:24---"For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?"
Wisdom 9:13---"For what man knows God's counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?"

1 Thessalonians 2:16---"(The enemies of Christ persecute us), trying to prevent us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved, thus constantly filling up the measure of their sins. But the wrath of God has finally begun to come upon them."
2 Maccabees 6:14---"Thus, in dealing with other nations, the Lord patiently waits until they reach the full measure of their sins before he punishes them; but with us he has decided to deal differently"

James 1:13---"No one experiencing temptation should say, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and he himself tempts no one."
Sirach 15:11-12---"Say not: 'It was God's doing that I fell away'; for what he hates he does not do. Say not: 'It was he who set me astray'; for he has no need of wicked man."

James 5:2-3---"Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver hav corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire."
Judith 16:17---'The Lord Almighty will requite them; in the day of judgement he will punish them: he will send fire and worms into their flesh, and they shall burn and suffer forever."

Now, of course, you may say that these don't sound like exact quotes, and you'd be right; but there are thousands of allusions in the New Testament from the Old, both Deuterocanon and not, which are not exact quotes. Romans 11:34, for example, also has an allusion to Job 15:8, but ironically the allusion to Wisdom 9:13 is closer in actual wording to it than Job is. And, of course, if you want to get into loose allusions, we could expand the above list to ten times the size it is. Then there are also the cases of outright error in some New Testament quotes, such as Matthew 27:9, in which Matthew quotes "the prophet Jeremiah", when the allusion is actually found nowhere in Jeremiah but rather in Zecheriah 11:12-13.

There is also the case of some Old Testament books not being quoted by Jesus in the New Testament: He didn't quote from Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, or the Song of Solomon. And yet they are still considered to be canonical Scripture even though He did not reference them.

 

[SolomonVII]

Her is another quote from Wolseley that addresses the subject of the apocryphal writings (of which some books, by the way, did not make it into anybodies Bibles)

History of the Canon


The Jewish Bible contains the same 66 books as the Protestant Old Testament, for reasons I'll address in a minute. The Catholic Old Testament, on the other hand, contains 73 (with some additional chapters to both Daniel and Esther). The Orthodox Old Testament has the same 73 books as the Catholic version, and some Orthodox bodies have 75.

The reason for these discrepancies has to do with linguistic, theological, political, and historical concerns. (As LilyLamb can tell you from my posts on other boards, I tend to be long winded, and people's eyes glaze over reading my babblings, so I'll try to be brief. )

In the 2nd century B.C., Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, decided he wanted to build the greatest library in the world, which would contain a copy of every book ever written, all of them translated into Greek, which was the dominant language in that part of the world at the time. This would include, of course, the Jewish Scriptures. In Alexandria, there was a huge diasporic Jewish community, and seventy Jewish scholars were hired from that community to locate, gather, and translate every last book of Jewish Scripture that could be found. This was accomplished, and the name of this Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures was the Septuagint, after the Latin word septus, meaning seventy---since seventy scholars worked on it. This Greek translation carried the 73 books currently found in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles.

By the time of Christ, the Septuagint had become accepted by many diasporic Jews throughout the ancient world; it was, however, not held in favor with the "legalistic" factions in Jerusalem, which would include the Pharisees and the Sadducees. To these folks, Hebrew was a sacred language, and in their way of thinking, if God wanted us to know something, then He'd see to it that it remained in the sacred language of Hebrew; and if God didn't care enough about a book remaining in Hebrew, then apparently it wasn't terribly important to begin with. Accordingly, at a Jewish council held at Jamnia in approximately 100 AD, they put together their own collection of the Jewish Scriptures, made from only the books still extant in the original Hebrew. (Another reason for rejecting the Septuagint books had to do with the fact that the Books of Maccabees contained evidence of friendship treaties between the Jews and the Romans---and by this time, the Jews had come to hate the Romans so much that they didn't want anything to do with them.) This Hebrew collection was called the Masoretic text, or sometimes the Masora. It contained the 66 books now found in all Jewish Bibles, since it rejected the Greek books found in the Septuagint.

It should be mentioned at this point that many copies of the Hebrew Scriptures had become lost or destroyed in the years between 300 B.C. and 200 A.D.; and Hebrew originals for some of these rejected books were impossible to find. Since the late 19th century, however, archaeological finds have uncovered copies of nearly all these books, or parts of them, in Hebrew, which were hidden by various people to protect them from being destroyed. So to use the reasoning of the Masoretic faction, God did preserve these books in Hebrew---it's just that they couldn't find them at the time.

By this time, the Christians had come along, and they tended to use the Septuagint, rather than the Masora. As time went on, they added their own writings (Gospels, epistles) to the corpus, and by the time of Pope Damasus, the whole works was translated into Latin by Jerome. Since Jerome was usuing regular street Latin instead of high-falutin' classical Latin, the Latin version was called the "Vulgate", after "vulgar" Latin. This became "the" Bible for Christians right up into the 16th century.

It must be borne in mind that during the first 400 years of Christian history, there was no clear-cut "canon" for Biblical books; there were many, many books produced during this period, some of them heretical (the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, for example), some of them unorthodox (like the "infancy narratives" such as the Gospel of Psuedo-Matthew and the Proto-Gospel of James), and some of them orthodox but incomplete (such as the Didache). Some of these books were held as divinely inspired Scripture by some Christian communities, while some of the books in our present canon were rejected. The list which we now have (for the New Testament) was finally settled at the Council of Hippo in 393 A.D.; the same list was reconfirmed at the Councils of Carthage (397 and 418 A.D.), Florence (1441 A.D.), and Trent (1546 A.D.)

For a list of some of these extra-biblical books (both Jewish and Christian), go to www.bible2000.org/forgottenindex.htm or wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/. You will be astounded at the number of ancient writings out there which never made it into the Bible (and usually for good reason). Some of the New Testament writers were familiar with these books, and even quoted them in our Bible; for example, Matthew 7:13 is an echo of the Epistle of Barnabas 18-20; Matthew 14:13-21 is an echo of 2nd Baruch 29:8. Jude loved the Jewish apocrypha---verse 6 can be found in the Book of Enoch, verse 7 in the Testament of the 12 Patriarchs, and verse 9 can be found in the Assumption of Moses. (Of course, on the other hand, Paul himself also quoted from the pagan Greek poets Epimenides, Aratus, Menander, and Cleanthes.)

Anyway, the Greek Septuagint/Latin Vulgate was used as the standard Christian Bible right up to the time of the Reformation. When Luther came along, as we all know, he had some serious problems with certain Catholic doctrines such as purgatory. He rejected this doctrine, and in order to reinforce that rejection, he also rejected the seven Old Testament books from the Septuagint, since one of them (2nd Maccabees) contained a passage which corroborated the concept of purgatory. (Luther also had a problem with the concept of "works", and wanted to throw out the Epistle of James as well ["faith without works is dead"], but his friend Philip Melanchthon convinced him that if he kept on tossing books at the rate he was going, he was going to end up with a pretty thin Bible.) The other Reformers picked up on Luther's German translation with its omissions and additions (again, to reinforce his idea of sola fide, Luther added the word "alone" to Romans 5:1, changing it from "justified by faith" to "justified by faith alone"), and thus, all Protestant Bibles to the present day have 66 books, with the omission of the seven Old Testament books from the Greek Septuagint.

Catholic Bibles still contain those seven books, which consist of Judith, Tobit, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and 1st and 2nd Maccabees; Orthodox Bibles contain them as well, and some Orthodox churches also accept 3rd and 4th Maccabees, for a total of 75 books.

Anyway, that's why some Bibles have fewer books than others. (I guess I didn't do too well at keeping things brief, did I? )

Blessings,
----Wols.

 

[ByzantineDixie]

Hey Soloman!

I know you are quoting Wolseley's work and you may not have this information but I am interested in source material for the following claims:

1) It was Luther's rejection of the doctrine of purgatory which caused him to reject 2nd Maccabees.

2) Because Luther rejected 2nd Maccabees he automatically had to reject the rest of the seven OT books from the Septuagint.

3) Phillip Melancthon told Luther to stop "tossing books at the rate he was going".

All three of these claims are new to me and I would like to examine the reference material which makes these claims. If you do not know, are you in a position to contact Wolseley? Many thanks!

Peace

Rose