As I am sure you are aware, the Apocrypha was not first disputed by Luther. Jerome disputed it in the fifth century. The Catholic church itself did not declare the books canonical until the Council of Trent in 1546. Both Luther (http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/apocryph.htm) and Jerome (http://www.justforcatholics.org/a108.htm) considered them "good reading", but not authoritative.
Luther and the Reformers claim "sola scriptura": If it isn't in the bible, it's a false doctrine. (Of course sola scriptura isn't in the bible.)
I believe you have misrepresented sola scriptura. I think it is better boiled down to (and, remember, definitions of sola scriptura are not universal) "the Bible alone is inerrant." This is opposed to the teaching of the Catholic church, which declares that the pope, when acting in the capacity of his office, makes a declaration it is also inerrant (divinely inspired).
Or, as A.A. Hodge put it, "Whatever God teaches or commands is of sovereign authority. Whatever conveys to us an infallible knowledge of his teachings and commands is an infallible rule. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the only organs through which, during the present dispensation, God conveys to us a knowledge of his will about what we are to believe concerning himself, and what duties he requires of us." This does not equate to "whatever not found in the Bible is false."
I contend that the Bible alone is inerrant. There are things that are true that are not found in the Bible, but nothing is true that contradicts it (and the Catholic Church has contradicted it).
Martin Luther was a godly man (though by no means inerrant) who has done much good for the Kingdom of God and, in doing so, changed the course of history. I am tired of hearing him bashed.
The Jews were guilty of adding to the Scriptures even if you discount the Apocrypha. Jesus denounced the Pharisees for this (Matthew 15:3-9). As for not being able to understand why Protestants reject the Apocrypha, the typical reasons I know are on this page: http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/apocryph.htm. For this page I offer one note: the author states that Catholics are not Christians. I would counter that anyone who believes everything the Catholic church teaches is not a Christian, but that there are Christians in the Catholic church. If you looked at my FR homepage, you know one of my favorite authors is GK Chesterton--a Catholic.
The finding of Tobias, Sirach, Letter of Jeremiah, and Psalm 151 at Qumran answer only the first objection and only for those books.
Which of Luther's teachings were proven false through Scripture at Worms and what were the arguments used to refute them? The Exsurge Domine does not refute anything. It just makes forty-one declarations.
The Catholics themselves have rejected books from the Septuagint. III Macabees, I Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasseh. Why did the Roman Church reject those as non-canonical?
Whatever you hold, there is one fundamental aspect to this whole thing to keep in mind: acceptance of a canon (by anyone in any religion) is a matter of faith. No Christian can ever prove that any set of books is the word of God, but by the Holy Spirit working in us we can sense truth, are convicted of our crime and are brought before the cross to confess our sins and be cleansed in the fiery river of Jesus's blood spilled for us that whoseoever believes may have life and have it to the fullest. Whatever else we may agree or disagree on, let us agree on these (no, I am not shying from the discussion at hand; as humans it is always good for us to remember the broader picture):
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." John 3:16-18
"If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him. Come, O Lord! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you." 1 Corinthians 16:22-23
If you followed the links, you would see that, even in the preview portion of the articles, the encyclopedia addresses the fact that the sections of Daniel were part of the pre-Christian cana.
It is silly to allege that they were written in Greek, rather than Hebrew. The reason the Hebrew texts aren't found is because the Jews acknowledge destroying them. One can only say that the Septuagint versions of Daniel 13 include Greek idioms, but the same can be true for many portions of the Septuagint. The very loose translations of the Septuagint are precisely why Jerome endeavored to write a translation based on the Masoretic texts.
>> As I am sure you are aware, the Apocrypha was not first disputed by Luther. Jerome disputed it in the fifth century. <<
Some people at the time interpreted Jerome's words at the time that way, accusing him of heresy. Jerome strenuously denied that interpretation, considering it outrageous slander. His cordonning off of the deuterocanonicals into an appendix had a very obvious reason: What he was writing was a translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and there were no Hebrew scriptures available to him. He pointed out that the Jews rejected the deuterocanonicals not because he believed the Christians should only accept as scripture what the Jews do... that's ridiculous, since the Jews reject the gospel!... but because he was explaining that there were no manuscripts to translate!
>> The Catholic church itself did not declare the books canonical until the Council of Trent in 1546. <<
Ignoring previous posts, you suffer from a common Protestant delusion about the nature of ecumenical councils. That's the first INFALLIBLE statement; it's not the first statement. They only state something infallibly after a heresy has emerged making a false assertion. the Catholic church upheld the canonical status of the books by word and deed throughout its entire history. Your assertion is like claiming that that the Supreme Court only decided in 2000 that states couldn't change election laws after an election had already been completed.
>> I believe you have misrepresented sola scriptura. <<
Sola sciptura is used 1000s of times a day around here to declare something is false because it is not in the bible. The term is an invention of Luther; I use it as Luther did.
>> This is opposed to the teaching of the Catholic church, which declares that the pope, when acting in the capacity of his office, makes a declaration it is also inerrant (divinely inspired). <<
Infallibility is used to CLARIFY doctrine, not to invent doctrine. Read the phrasing of an infallibly issued text. The Pope is careful to establish that the doctrine is the way that the Church has unanimously interpreted scripture throughout history. Without such an assertion, the Pope is merely stating his opinion.
>> Martin Luther was a godly man (though by no means inerrant) <<
Martin Luther preached people should subscribe to any ungodly passion that occurred to them. His serial adulteries were not moral failures, but actual recommended prescriptions. It is in response to such teachings that the Catholic church asserted that works are an essential element of salvation, not because salvation occurs through works (the Catholic church has proclaimed it does not throughout history, contrary to Protestant misconception), but because, as St. Jude's epistle points out, faith without works is death; Luther's "faith" was not the saving faith, as demonstrated by his wickedness.
The modern Lutheran church's understanding of Sola Fides is not what Martin Luther taught, and is in full accord with the Catholic Church's teachings on Faith and Works, as attested to by the leadership of both churches (Missouri Synod excluded, not because they disagree, but because they refused to consider the issue with them evil Catlicks).
>> The Catholics themselves have rejected books from the Septuagint. III Macabees, I Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasseh. <<
False. The Prayer of Manasseh occurs at the end of the book of Jeremiah in the Catholic bible. "I Esdras" (actually, you mean 3 Esdras) was very rarely published alongside 1-2 Esdras in the Septuagint. Various versions of the Septuagint used either 1-2 Esdras or 3 Esdras; 3 Esdras is merely a truncation of 1-2 Esdras, which has become known as the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
As for 3 Maccabees, it's authorship was believed to be post-Christian, and no pre-Christian publication of it has ever been found. It is not part of the Septuagint, but is merely an optional addition found in many versions of the Septuagint. It was not deemed inauthentic or heretical. The Catholic church simply could not make the claim for it which it did for the deuterocanonical books, that it had been universally accepted by the entire church since the first preachings of the apostles.
As for your sources, "Jesus is Lord," it is amusing to me that your bible "expert" didn't even know that Susanna and Manasseh are IN the Catholic bible.
His other reasons, debunked;
1. Not one of the apocryphal books is written in the Hebrew language, which was alone used by the inspired historians and poets of the Old Testament. All Apocryphal books are in Greek, except one which is extant only in Latin.
False. At least five of the "apocryphal" books have been proven to have been written in Hebrew or Aramaic. The fact that there is no proof for the other two is thoroughly consistent with the fact that our only pre-Jamnian, Hebrew-language books is the Dead Sea Scrolls, a compilation which also lacks certain books in the Protestant old Testament.
2. None of the apocryphal writers laid claim to inspiration.
Silly. Most of the other OT writers didn't do so either.
3. The apocryphal books were never acknowledged as sacred scriptures by the Jews, custodians of the Hebrew scriptures (the apocrypha was written prior to the New Testament). In fact, the Jewish people rejected and destroyed the apocrypha after the overthow of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
False. The apocryphal books were regarded as sacred scriptures by the Essenes. The Sadducees did reject them, along with all other Old Testament books, except the five books of Moses. The Pharisees' canon was not fixed, and the New Testament actually even makes reference to books which were eventually rejected by Christians AND Jews, such as the Book of Jubilees (also known as the Apocalypse of Moses).
4. The apocryphal books were not permitted among the sacred books during the first four centuries of the real Christian church (I'm certainly not talking about the Catholic religion which is not Christian).
There is no historical evidence of there being ANY church besides the Catholic/Orthodox Church, which accepted the Septuagint in its entirety. Except for a few side-by-side translations, there are no otherwise complete, extant copies of an Old Testament known to history that did not excluded the deuterocanonical books.
>> The Apocrypha contains fabulous statements which not only contradict the "canonical" scriptures but themselves. For example, in the two Books of Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes is made to die three different deaths in three different places. <<
This obviously stems from the author's misunderstandings. It's quite silly, actually. Does he not think that anyone ELSE noticed that for the first 1800 years? Also, consider the geneaologies of Jesus and the events around the crucifixion for apparent contradictions.
>> The Apocrypha includes doctrines in variance with the Bible, such as prayers for the dead and sinless perfection. <<
Thus proving only that Martin Luther and his followers misunderstood the bible.
>> It teaches immoral practices, such as lying, suicide, assasination and magical incantation. <<
Nowhere does it condone suicide or magical incantation. As for assassination and lying, those are also depicted in the rest of the Old Testament (reference Deborah and Abraham).
>> No apocryphal book is referred to in the New Testament whereas the Old Testament is referred to hundreds of times. <<
That is both false and a ridiculous standard: There are 22 Old Testament books in the Protestant canon which are never directly referred to in the Old Testament. There are three books in the deuterocanonicals which are, in fact (Wisdom, Sirach and 2 Maccabees). There are also at least two non-canonical books which are referenced.
This statement is quite false. Infallibility and inspiration are not the same thing, and the Church emphatically does not claim that Papal statements are inspired or equal to Scripture. (Strictly speaking, inspiration is the positive gift of saying exactly what God; infallibility is the merely negative gift of being prevented from saying what God does not wish to be said.)
In general, I think non-Catholics would be well advised to let Catholics present Catholic doctrine, and I think Catholics would be well advised to let others present their own doctrine. Otherwise, we just waste a lot of time with mischaracterizations of each other's beliefs.