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From one of the links I posted in #8 - for any with difficulty following links...

“B. Luther’s Christocentric Hermeneutic

Luther scholar Paul Althaus explains, “[Luther] allows the canon to stand as it was established by the ancient church. But he makes distinctions within the canon.”[14] It is these “distinctions” that are often seen as removal. In these prefaces, Luther explained that he understood the Biblical books in an order based on how clearly “Christ the gospel of free grace and justification through faith alone”[15] was enunciated. He considered this to be the apostolic standard by which all was evaluated. Althaus explains,

“It was particularly within the canon that Luther practiced theological criticism of its individual parts. The standard of this criticism is the same as his principle of interpretation, that is, Christ: the gospel of free grace and justification through faith alone. This is what Luther means when he says that the standard is “that which is apostolic.” Luther’s concept of apostolicity is based not only on a historical factor, that is, that Christ himself called and sent out a group of witnesses. Rather, it is determined by the content of a book. An apostle shows that he is an apostle by clearly and purely preaching Christ as Savior. “Now it is the office of a true apostle to preach of the suffering, resurrection, and office of Christ.” This shows that an apostle is inspired by the Holy Spirit; and this gives him his authority and infallibility. Since apostolic authority manifests itself in the gospel of the apostles, the church recognizes the authority of the Scripture as being based not on the person of the apostles but on the word of God or the gospel which bears witness to itself. The apostolic character of a New Testament author manifests itself in the content of his writing and in the clarity of his witness to Christ.”[16]

Certain books that did not express this were critically questioned by Luther: particularly James, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation. The editors of Luther’s Works explain,

“In terms of order, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation come last in Luther’s New Testament because of his negative estimate of their apostolicity. In a catalogue of “The Books of the New Testament” which followed immediately upon his Preface to the New Testament… Luther regularly listed these four—without numbers—at the bottom of a list in which he named the other twenty-three books, in the order in which they still appear in English Bibles, and numbered them consecutively from 1–23… a procedure identical to that with which he also listed the books of the Apocrypha.”[17]

Sometimes it is said that in the actual printings of Luther’s New Testament these four books were printed last without page numbers. The citation above says it was a “list” without page numbers.[18] Also of importance to note is Luther did not treat the four questionable New Testament books in the exact same way as he did the Old Testament apocrypha. Luther critic Hartmann Grisar has explained, “…[Luther] simply excluded the so-called deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament from the list of sacred writings. In his edition they are grouped together at the end of the Old Testament under the title: ‘Apocrypha, i.e., books not to be regarded as equal to Holy Writ, but which are useful and good to read.’ …Luther’s New Testament is somewhat more conservative.”[19] Grisar dubs Luther “conservative” because Luther did not include such a heading before the New Testament books he questioned. Luther’s opinion on the apocrypha was solidified, whereas with the New Testament Luther uses caution.

Luther also found different levels of Christocentric clarity within the Old Testament. He observed that Genesis, Psalms, and Jonah spoke more to the apostolic standard, while the book of Esther did not. The editors of Luther’s Works further explain the judgments contained in the prefaces:

“Luther’s prefaces… brought something new by means of which he revealed his understanding of the Scriptures, namely a set of value judgments and a ranking of the books into categories. For him the Gospel of John and the epistles of Paul as well as I Peter, rank as “the true kernel and marrow of all the books.” As books of secondary rank come Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. While Luther’s assigning of a standard of values to the New Testament books may have been simply an act of religious devotion, it proved to be also, as Holl readily points out, a pioneering step toward modern biblical scholarship. Luther’s prefaces are thus more than simply popular introductions for lay readers. They reveal a theological position of Christocentricity which inevitably affects his understanding of the New Testament canon.”[20]

Luther cannot be criticized for explicitly removing books from the canon of sacred Scripture. One can though disapprove of Luther’s critical questioning of particular New Testament books. Paul Althaus explains, “Luther did not intend to require anyone to accept his judgment, he only wanted to express his own feeling about these particular books.”[21] Althaus finds this to be apparent in Luther’s original prefaces of 1522, but even more so in his revisions of 1530. Lutheran writer Mark Bartling concurs: “Luther’s whole approach was one of only questioning, never rejecting. James, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation are only questioned, they are never rejected.”[22] Roland Bainton notes,

“Luther treated Scripture with royal freedom, but not at a whim. There was a clear determinative principle that the word of God is the message of redemption through Christ Jesus our Lord without any merit on our part, and that we are saved solely through heartfelt acceptance in faith. Yet despite the recognition of levels within Scripture, Luther did not treat the book as a whole and shrank from demolishing the canon by excluding James and Esther. The pope, the councils and the Canon Law might go, but to tamper with the traditional selection of the holy writings was one step too much.”[23]”

http://www.ntrmin.org/Luther%20and%20the%20canon%202.htm