Who is supposed to believe this counterhistorical spin?
“When Luther published his Bible, a layman found the entirety of the canon. Luther expressed his thoughts on the canon in “prefaces” placed at the beginning of particular Biblical books. These prefaces were not out of the ordinary. Luther was not engaging in any sort of outrageous scholarly behavior:
“In providing prefaces for the books in the German Bible, Luther was simply following a traditional practice. The inclusion of a prologue illuminating the main thoughts of a treatise was a practice associated with the best in scholarly exposition as far back as Aristotle. Jerome’s Vulgate had prefaces to almost every book in the Bible, plus others for groups of books such as Paul’s epistles and the seven catholic epistles.... The second edition of Erasmus’ New Testament in 1518 began with one hundred twenty folio pages of introductory material.”[13]”
The full article may be read here: Luther’s View of the Canon of Scripture By James Swan,
http://www.ntrmin.org/Luther%20and%20the%20canon%202.htm#a2
For example, the first paragraph of Luther’s intro to James is, ““Though this epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients, I praise it and consider it a good book, because it sets up no doctrines of men but vigorously promulgates the law of God. However, to state my own opinion about it, though without prejudice to anyone, I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle; and my reasons follow.”