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To: Petronski

“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.”


176 posted on 08/31/2009 12:52:42 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (I loathe the ground he slithers on!)
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To: Mr Rogers
‘These books are not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read.’”[8]

Scriptures are the Bible. The Bible is Scripture.

He bound them in the book, but stated they were not Scripture.

177 posted on 08/31/2009 12:56:48 PM PDT by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: Mr Rogers; Petronski

That’s all quite fascinating, but, while factual (I don’t know that ANYONE has ever questioned the prerogative of a translator to include prefaces), does NOTHING to support your claim that Luther didn’t remove any books from the Bible.


181 posted on 08/31/2009 1:07:25 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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