Luther's Bible editing

[brownie3]

I've a question: why did Martin Luther remove certain books of the Bible? From what I understand it happened around the time of the Reformation. If he believed in the Word of God, why did he take some of it out at that time? Who was he to say what was God's Word (God-inspired Scripture) and what wasn't? I hope my question is clear. I'd appreciate a good answer to this, I've been wondering for 3 years.

 

[FallingWaters]

Everything you always wanted to know about it:
Luther’s View of the Canon of Scripture
By James Swan

August 2004

 

[Anoetos]

Luther didn't remove anything from the Bible.

He translated the Bible into German and when he did so he translated all the books including those Old Testament books contested between Protestants and Catholics.

I don't know why he is consistently blamed for taking books out of the Bible.

He didn't.

 

[FrAnthony]

Luther didn't remove anything from the Bible.

He translated the Bible into German and when he did so he translated all the books including those Old Testament books contested between Protestants and Catholics.

I don't know why he is consistently blamed for taking books out of the Bible.

He didn't.

I'm definitely not a Luther expert, not close. According to a link posted above in this string, it appears that although he translated all the books he didn't hold them all to be an equal part of the Bible. "If" that's true, then it sounds like he removed them in the sense that he excluded them as equal parts of Scripture and reduced them to simply a "good read" (again, according to the link...not me...I don't know either way).

Is it true that he considered certain books as not equal parts of Holy Scripture even though he did translate all of them? If so, I can see how people would think he removed them from the Bible.

 

[Anoetos]

I'm definitely not a Luther expert, not close. According to a link posted above in this string, it appears that although he translated all the books he didn't hold them all to be an equal part of the Bible. "If" that's true, then it sounds like he removed them in the sense that he excluded them as equal parts of Scripture and reduced them to simply a "good read" (again, according to the link...not me...I don't know either way).

Is it true that he considered certain books as not equal parts of Holy Scripture even though he did translate all of them? If so, I can see how people would think he removed them from the Bible.

Holding the opinion that some books of the Bible are unequal in authority or canonicity to others isn't the same thing as "leaving them out".

Luther's opinion on the Bible was that of a Doctor of Sacred Scripture. This doesn't mean he gets a pass or that his opinion is unquestionable, but it does mean that we ought to be careful about just dismissing his opinion on confessional grounds.

The fact is that his opinion of the OT Deuteros was not unique. Another fact is that during the period in which he lived biblical and textual scholarship was undergoing something of a renaissance such that it can be said with perfect candor that there were, in the west, effectively, two extant canons.

On the one hand, the vast majority accepted that canon eventually confirmed at Trent. On the other, a minority of scholarly opinion held that the seven books in question were not entirely canonical and were, in fact apocryphal. This didn't lead everyone to the conclusion that they ought to be excluded from the canon. Most felt that they ought to be appendicized which is what Luther and the translators of the English Authorized Versions eventually did.

Hints of this distinction are to be found in the very designation of these books as Deutero-Canonical which means, of course, that they comprise a second, or even secondary canon.

The point is that this opinion was permissible to biblical scholars and nobody made a big deal out of it when the opinion was expressed at the time and, in the event, when translators actually removed the books to an appendix. If there was a problem with these translations of Sacred Scripture it wasn't over canonical issues it was over the fact that they had been translated at all.

Now, on those canonical books which Luther questioned and had "problems" with, especially the New Testament books he didn't feel clearly articulated Sola Fide:

It is true that Luther viewed the Bible with "solafidean glasses", as it were. The doctrine of justification was the lens through which he viewed all of Scripture, so those books he felt inadequately articulated or supported that doctrine he occasionally expressed opinions about that, today, seem, at best, odd and ill-advised and at worst plainly heretical.

But again, we need to take into consideration the historical context. Such opinions were permissible to him. The books he expressed these opinions about were among the last to be accepted into the NT canon and universally recognized. Questions of authorship and canonicity were not new. The new learning had merely refreshed the conversation. At any rate, if he had omitted the books he would have been a second Marcion and worthy, on this point, of our odium. But he didn't, he didn't even appendicize them.

We also need to consider that his opinion changed over the course of his life. Luther was someone who lived at the very beginning of the modern era. It has been suggested that no one before him had been really given a biography. His common conversations were written down and published and scholars to this day are loathe to accept them as definitive of the Reformers thought since they amount to hearsay and rest upon the scribal diligence of the recorder.

Most of the comments on the biblical books though are from his own pen and can be found in the prefaces he wrote for his Bibel. But even these went through revisions and modifications over his lifetime.

On the epistle of James we have his famous pronouncement that it is "an epistle of straw" and yet later he says that "It is very good and has many good things in it" while continuing to maintain that he (Luther) believes James to have beenn inadequate to the task of really articulaitng justification (the idea that the justification James is speaking of is proibative rather than soteriological hadn't yet gained much currency).

So, really, this is a non-issue born of wrong ideas about canonicity and history and whether in confessional dialogue ends justify means. But we do a disservice to our common history if we do not let people speak for themselves and if we do not consult the record, preferring, for purposes of polemical hay-making, to blithely repeat the disingenuities of others.

To say that Luther left books out of the Bible, but to mean that he held a graduated opinion not only about the canonicity of certain books but their primacy within the canon is, frankly, deceptive and therefore, for the very fact, untrue.

That it is damaging can be seen by the OP in this very thread.

P.S. I recommend the article above written by my friend James Swan very highly.

 

[japhy]

... and he added the word allein ("alone") to Romans 3:28.

 

[Anoetos]

... and he added the word allein ("alone") to Romans 3:28.

So halten wir nun dafür, daß der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, allein durch den Glauben.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law (ESV).

It's standard practice for translators to incorporate words which bring out the meaning of the original. In this case, Luther was underlining the meaning of the original, probably unnecessarily.

It is significant that later translators didn't follow him in this choice since the text itself makes the point.

Because, afterall, justification by faith apart from the works of the Law is justification by faith alone.

Ever wonder why all those conjunctions in your KJV are italicized? Same thing, words added to make sense of the original in translation.

 

[japhy]

So halten wir nun dafür, daß der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, allein durch den Glauben.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law (ESV).

It's standard practice for translators to incorporate words which bring out the meaning of the original. In this case, Luther was underlining the meaning of the original, probably unnecessarily.

It is significant that later translators didn't follow him in this choice since the text itself makes the point.

Because, afterall, justification by faith apart from the works of the Law is justification by faith alone.

Ever wonder why all those conjunctions in your KJV are italicized? Same thing, words added to make sense of the original in translation.

Well, I don't use the KJV, but yes, I know that. But "faith apart from works" and "faith alone apart from works" do not have the same meaning. "Faith alone" basically flies in the face of all Jesus said about doing God's will by doing good: clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, etc. Jesus said "go and do likewise" at the end of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

 

[Grego]

Pope Innocent I, Letter to Exsuperius, Bishop of Toulouse 6, 7, 13
(405 AD)

"A short annotation shows what books are to be accepted as canonical. As
you wished to be informed specifically, they are as follows: The five books
of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; and
Jesus Nave, one of Judges, four of Kingdoms, and also Ruth, sixteen books
of Prophets, five books of Solomon, the Psalter. Likewise, of histories, one
book of Job, one book of Tobias, one of Esther, one of Judith, two of
Maccabees, two of Esdras, two books of Paralipomenon. Likewise, of the
New Testament: four books of Gospels, fourteen Epistles of Paul, three
Epistles of John, two Epistles of Peter, the Epistle of Jude, the Epistle of
James, the Acts of the Apostles, the Apocalypse of John. Others, however,
which were written under the name of Matthias or of James the Less, or
under the name of Peter and of John, by a certain Leucius–or under the
name of Andrew, by the philosophers Nexocharis and Leonidas–or under
the name of Thomas, and such others as may be, are not only to be
repudiated, but, as you know, are also to be condemned."


The Bible was assembled by the Catholic Church , to be used for our Liturgy. Above is a Papal letter outlining what books are to be accepted as Canonical.

Before this time no-one knew what the Bible was, and Luther 1200 years latter was the first to start mutalating it by throwing books out of the Catholic Bible!

The Bible is a Catholic Book!

 

[Anoetos]

Well, I don't use the KJV, but yes, I know that. But "faith apart from works" and "faith alone apart from works" do not have the same meaning. "Faith alone" basically flies in the face of all Jesus said about doing God's will by doing good: clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, etc. Jesus said "go and do likewise" at the end of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Do you really believe Luther was against doing good works?

 

[Anoetos]

Grego,

Luther's translation of the Holy Bible contains all the books of the Catholic Bible.

 

[japhy]

Do you really believe Luther was against doing good works?

I don't think Luther was against doing good works, but I question the (primarily Protestant) inclination to alienate good works from our salvation.

 

[Anoetos]

Alright, well, this thread is about Luther editing the Bible.

Now that we've established that he didn't, maybe you can find someone to discuss this with.

All the best,

Mike.

 

[brownie3]

Let me start by thanking everyone who has responded to this question of mine. I have had this question for a few years now, but the church I go to is lacking in their spiritual growth aspects and I could never ask the pastors there about these things. But that's another story.
It sounds to me like, from the linked website and comments that people posted, that Luther did not remove books from the Bible but he did "remove" them to the back of the bound text called the Bible. And he has issues with other books too but left them in the places we find them today. What we're not confronting thus far in this thread is that someone did indeed entirely eliminate Luther's appendix from the Bible. Who dun it? Whose, shall I say, "fault" is it that we no longer have these books in Protestant Bibles? It is ultimately someone's doing. Furthermore, as Luther's appendix was one step toward these books being removed from the Bible entirely, could not partial blame be given to him? (Not to deface Luther, but by "blame" I'm referring to cause and effect.)
If some of you can answer these questions I'd sure appreciate it. I'm new to christianforums.com and I joined because of the aforementioned church issue. Thanks so much. ~brownie3

 

[brownie3]

Could someone please help me with this question? I still don't know if I should be following the Catholic Bible or the Protestant Bible!

 

[MrGoodbar]

This argument is considerably more complicated than Luther, the reformation, and the council of Trent. It goes back 1500 years before the reformation. The apocryphal books are not found in the Hebrew Masoretic Text, but do appear in the Septuagint. The Hebrew canon is based on the Masoretic Text, and thus does not include the apocryphal books which appear in the septuagint.

The authors of the New Testament, when quoting the OT, quoted the Septuagint.

So the question is a lot deeper than "Did Luther take them out?" or "Why did the Protestants take them out?" They were first "put in" to Hebrew scripture by the Septuagint translators, then rejected by the Rabbinical council of Jamnia, which also placed a curse on Jewish Christians.

So, while I do not hold them to be inspired scripture, the answer is much more complex than who "took them out?"

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Could someone please help me with this question? I still don't know if I should be following the Catholic Bible or the Protestant Bible!

Then just follow the "in-between" one.

 

[david01]

The simple reality as to which tradition to follow is that the deutero-canonical books contain no significant doctrinal differences from the remainder of scripture. It is alleged by some that one verse in II Maccabees proclaims the doctrine of Purgatory. It does nothing of the sort and, as any reasonable Catholic will admit, the doctrine of Purgatory was developed by the magisterium apart from any biblical basis. So, the bottom line is that one can believe either text and still have the same doctrinal beliefs as the other.

That being said, it is significant that Luther and many others accepted the Masoretic text, which was affirmed by a Jewish council in A.D. 70. To this day, this is the text used by all branches of Judaism without dispute. To assert that the Bible is a Catholic document is not merely arrogant, but is quite erroneous. The Roman Catholic Church did not author any of the Old Testament books nor even the New Testament books. The Old Testament existed long before anything like the RCC came into being. At best, one might say that a church council (whether EOC or RCC is open to debate) affirmed the canon of scripture based on the Septuagint Old Testament.

 

[MrGoodbar]

Good post, david.

I ultimately agree with you about doctrinal belief, and do not (as my tradition does not) recognize the apocrypha, as Jewish tradition does not. Yet my thoughts do drift to the fact that those books were thrown out at Jamnia, and the reasons for them being tossed may have included a suspicion that they pointed toward Christianity. I'm guessing that it had more to do with a quasi-political reaction to the Zealot revolt and ensuing Roman burning of the temple, but that thought nags at me in this argument a little.

brownie,

I would agree with david, you aren't going to get driven off a cliff either way. Which texts are or aren't scripture a problem that creates crazy doctrines. How many doctrinal arguments in the GT section between Catholics and Protestants involve texts in the apocrypha? I'd say few. Most involve differing interpretations of the same text.

 

[BigNorsk]

The theory that the Synod of Jamnia set the Jewish Canon was a nice theory really popularized from the late 1800's to the mid 1900's but it does have a major problem. There's really no supporting evidence that it did so. It may have talked about a couple of books but the idea that it set the Jewish canon has really fallen out of favor. There is even more than a little question if there ever was a synod of Jamnia.

There is stronger evidence that the Jewish canon dates back to about the time of Jeremiah.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Jamnia is a good starting place if you want to look into it.

Marv