[ealgeone]

Luther decided that only the Hebrew or Aramaic portions of the Old Testament should count (part of Daniel and a bit of Ezra are in Aramaic). Perhaps the reason for this was that he wanted to get rid of a verse in one of the books of Maccabees which was used by the Catholic Church to support the doctrine of purgatory and praying for the dead. The books of Maccabees are preserved only in Greek.

Goes back a bit further than Luther doesn't it?

[Verginius Rufus]

There was some debate in the early church over which books should be considered part of the Bible, both as to the Old Testament and the New Testament, but eventually all of the so-called "deutero-canonical" books were accepted (which were extant only in Greek, not in Hebrew). I believe all of the Eastern churches accept all of the books Luther excluded, and in some cases have one or two more that the Catholic Church does not accept.

Luther essentially went with the Jewish canon for the OT, but as I understand it the Jewish canon wasn't fully decided until some time after the time of Christ. Obviously the Torah was accepted much earlier.