Martin Luther, a priest of the Catholic Church, decided to remove 10 books of God's Holy Word, which every Christian on Earth had used for the preceding 1,200 years, whose teaching didn't agree with some of His new unbiblical ideas - 7 Old Testament books and 3 New Testament books. His group of followers were on the verge of rebellion over trashing the writings of the Apostles, so he had to back down on the 3 New Testament books. If he had his way, Protestants would have an incomplete bible of 63 books instead of the incomplete bible of 66 books they now use. Either the 73 books of the original Holy Bible were selected under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or they were not. If they were,
then no-one has any right to reject any of them. If they were not, then we cannot be certain that any of them are the inspired Word of God. You can't have it both ways.
This is just as bad as when Protestants imagine Martin Luther by divine inspiration removed books from the Bible to give us the "pure Bible" or some such.
That is, there are two false narratives that get brandied about on this subject. Catholics tend to have one, and Protestants another. And unsurprisingly Catholics and Protestants tend to get the history, events, and circumstances of the period very wrong because instead of reading history they are reading propaganda.
For one, the Deuterocanonicals weren't "removed" because Luther considered their contents problematic, that's a fiction. It's sometimes claimed (by both Protestants and Catholics) that Luther took issue with, for example, 2 Maccabees because it includes prayer for the dead--except prayers for the dead weren't a problem for Luther, nor are they a problem for Lutherans. In fact our Confessions
explicitly state that we do not reject praying for the dead.
"
Now, as regards the adversaries' citing the Fathers concerning the offering for the dead, we know that the ancients speak of prayer for the dead, which we do not prohibit; but we disapprove of the application ex opere operato
of the Lord's Supper on behalf of the dead." - Defense of the Augsburg Confession, Article XXIV, 94
Likewise, paragraph 96 of the same addresses it again, in that accusations made were that we like the heretic Aerius forbade prayers for the dead, but that we do no such thing and prayers for the dead are not forbidden; what we rejected was the offering of the Most Holy Eucharist on behalf of the dead as though the Sacrament were ex opere operato benefited the soul of the departed.
Some likewise say Luther rejected them because of Purgatory, except that isn't true either since the Deuterocanonicals do not declare the doctrine of Purgatory; and one would have absolutely no need to remove the Deuterocanonicals in order to reject the doctrine of Purgatory, as the Orthodox do just fine without a doctrine of Purgatory and they embrace the Deuterocanonicals. These are entirely unrelated.
Luther held to various opinions on the Deuterocanonicals personally, his chief issue wasn't that their content was problematic--but whether they belonged in the Canon. A question that had never been settled or established at any point in the history of the Church, and of which there had been many diverse opinions throughout the history of the Church.
Further, Luther held suspicions not about three books of the NT, but four: Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Apocalypse. Luther wasn't somehow unique here, as though these had never been questioned. These are four books of the historic Antilegomena, and many of the ancient Fathers regarded these books as dubious. It's true that Luther considered James an "epistle of straw", however he highly regarded the Apocalypse.
And as I mentioned above, those of us who call ourselves Lutheran have no official position on such matters. Luther's translation is not authoritative, Luther's opinions on these books are not authoritative. Lutheranism doesn't have an official position on the canonical status of the Deuterocanonicals. From the Lutheran POV the Canon of the Bible is technically open because it has never been formally closed. Something only an Ecumenical Council could accomplish, and we do not recognize any Ecumenical Councils as valid and licit since the Second Council of Nicea which condemned the heresy of Iconoclasm.
-CryptoLutheran
