I thought the canons were compiled by two seperate church committees. I had no idea Luther had anything to do with it. i must do some study...
Oh yes, they do indeed! I'll have to post more on this later. Got to get back to work.
Hey, other Catholic folk, feel free to jump in here and answer Warren's question.
The books of the Apocrypha, Jewish in origin, were not considered Scripture by any rabbinical authority. The Jews themselves have never viewed the books as inspired.
Thus, their rejection as Holy Scripture by Protestants.
Luther also kept out the Gospel of Luke initially, but added it back later after protest.
You call them the Apocrypha. Catholics and Orthodox call them the Deuterocanon.
I've read them and have no idea why Luther would exclude them.
He gave four reasons. At various times he said their dotrine was corrupt. He also felt that since they were written in Greek, not in Hebrew they should be excluded. They are not directly quoted in the NT (of course, neither are some other OT books). And finally, because the Jews did not accept them.
There are problems with all four reasons.
I saw no contradictions to Protestant teachings - but I am not a theologian.
The Maccabees narrative supports the existence of Purgatory and the legitimacy of praying for the dead.
I thought the canons were compiled by two seperate church committees.
Luther came up with his own canon (which at first was to exclude Esther, James and Revelation). This created heated debate among other Reformers and wiser heads like Philip Melanchthon prevailed - keeping the entire Jewish canon and the full NT canon.
I had no idea Luther had anything to do with it. i must do some study...
The basic issues are the four ones raised by Luther.
No ...
Luther was debating at Worms with a Catholic bishop over whether or not there existed purgatory, atonement and anything else beneficial to salvation besides faith. The Bishop -- I forget his name -- showed him evidence for these doctrines in Revelations, Hebrews, James, Wisdom, 2nd Maccabees, Daniel, and 1 Peter.
Luther then struck seven old testament books, seven new testament books, and portions of two more old testament books from the bible, declaring he could not believe in such a God, and justifying the action by saying that there had been some dissent in the early church as to whether those books constituted scripture.
The argument for the New Testament books was so weak, that within his lifetime they were added back. But since the Old Testament canon had never been infallibly defined, he had more success in striking those books, which you call "apocrypha."
That is really a poor name, since the name also applies to several books which no-one claims to be in the bible.
(Making it even more confusing is the fact that for centuries, some churches used 1 & 2 Esdras [a.k.a. as Ezra and Nehemiah] whereas others used 3 Esdras, a shortened version; and some ancient churches -- and even some modern Eastern churches -- include 3 Maccabees. The Council of Trent merely included all the books which had been unanimously regarded as scripture, and which were used in liturgy. Nothing about the Council of Trent denies the inspired origin of 3 Esdras or 3 Maccabees, nor, to my knowledge, does any other Catholic doctrine. The Church merely does not oblige Catholics to defend the books as necessarily inspired.)