Why did Protestants remove books from the Bible?

[Fish and Bread]

My problem is not that there are some possible indirect allusions to New Testament verses in the cited verses from the Deuterocanonical books, but that a handful of these verses, when taken in their contexts, actually contradict either New or Old Testament verses, as I cited above. An example would be the glorious description of Judith which, if taken literally, must put Mary into another category which is impossible to do, given the fact that the phraseology is so hyperbolic in both cases.

Well, what if we said that Judith was "blessed of the most high God above all the women of the earth" alive at the time? Mary lived later, so what is said about Judith doesn't necessarily contradict what is said about Mary, if the passages are interpreted in a certain way. I guess I should probably look up Judith and review it in more detail, but that would be the initial possibility that would jump to mind.

The Reformers were neither malicious nor capricious in their decisions.

But what divine right did the Reformers have to make rulings on this sort of thing? Especially rulings that contradict the historic Christian belief? What about cases where the Reformers contradicted each other, like the real presence in the Eucharist and so on and so forth? I think it is really hard to accept the judgment of the Reformers as definitive, because it is hard to make a case for them having the authority to make changes or even to determine what their ruling would have been on a lot of issues where they disagreed (Granted, they generally all agreed on excluding the deuterocanon, apart from the Anglicans, who were more mixed).

 

[david01]

Thanks, Fish and Bread, for your response. I suppose the Reformers probably would claim the same divine right that the Jews had when they established their canon in A.D. 70, but, then I can't speak for them. Likewise, I am not aware that there was any divine right claimed by those who initially included these seven books, but again, I can't speak for them.

There has certainly been more than a fair shae of disagreement over time within the Roman Catholic Church, as there still is. It was only in 1871 that papal infallibility was established and that was even limited to ex cathedra statements. It is one thing for a denomination to claim unity and really quite another to actually attain it.

The simple reality is that the deutercanonical books play virtually no role today in any church which retains them.

 

[Fish and Bread]

The simple reality is that the deutercanonical books play virtually no role today in any church which retains them.

That's probably accurate, but the same could also be said of some other Old Testament books that everyone accepts, probably. Christianity has usually leaned more heavily on some books than others in the Old Testament. I haven't really seen anything done with long genealogical lists that seem to make up most of 1Chronicles, for example. I think there is probably hidden meaning in a lot of books that just isn't readily apparent, though -- for example, for those who have a fairly Catholic view of the Christian priesthood (as being sacrificial), Leviticus actually sheds a lot of light on where that comes from. When I read through Leviticus, I could see right where the theology was adapted from (And translated into a Christian understanding), in many respects, which I'd never quite understood the roots of prior.

 

[christinepro]

The books are not in the Jewish Tanach (Old Testament) either. I like the books though. They have quite a bit of history. The Hanukkah story is in the book of Maccabees.

 

[christinepro]

I also think that I heard that they were trying to remove parts of Revelation out of the Bible as well as the Book of Solomon too... and I think Titus as well.

I heard that they wanted to remove the Book o f Daniel as well.

 

[InTheCloud]

Thanks, Fish and Bread, for your response. I suppose the Reformers probably would claim the same divine right "that the Jews had when they established their canon in A.D. 70, but, then I can't speak for them. Likewise, I am not aware that there was any divine right claimed by those who initially included these seven books, but again, I can't speak for them."

Remember David that the people who included the Deutericanonicals in their Bible were the first christians, the same people who wrote and included the NT in their biblical canon. As a history buff, I always think that to question their judgment in one thing is to question the judgement in all things. If the Jew of Palestine or to be precise, the Pharisees were challenging both the deutoerocanonicals and the NT divine inspiration, why they were wrong in one thing and right in the other.
And I thing that Maccabees and Tobit do play a small but important role in Catholic theology even today. St John of the Cross, a jewish converso, even did very intersting comment on Tobit.
And Mel Gibson before his antisemitic embarrasment was thinking on making a movie about the Maccabees.

 

[david01]

Fish and Bread, thanks for your comments. I, too, have found the geneaologies in I Chronicles to be heavy slogging. I have pointed out to my RCC friends that the basis of the RCC priesthood is found in Leviticus, not in the New Testament. Many of them take offence at the statement, but I agree entirely with you on it.

Resoto, depending on who you believe, the people who first included the deutercanonicals in the Bible may have been Jews and not Christians. Thus, to question their judgement, as you say, in this one thing may lead to questioning their judgement in all things, which actually was done when the New Testament was incorporated into the Bible.

In all of my discussions on this issue the only theological issue mentioned is that of Purgatory. If you can find what these other doctrines are, I would be quite interested,