Luther's canon


Luther's canon is the biblical canon attributed to Martin Luther, which has influenced Protestants since the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. While the Lutheran Confessions specifically did not define a canon, it is widely regarded as the canon of the Lutheran Church. It differs from the 1546 Roman Catholic canon of the Council of Trent in that it rejects the deuterocanonical books and questions the seven New Testament books, called "Luther's Antilegomena", four of which are still ordered last in German-language Luther Bibles to this day.

Deuterocanonical books

Luther included the deuterocanonical books in his translation of the German Bible, but he did relocate them to after the Old Testament, calling them "Apocrypha, that are books which are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read." He also considered the relocation of the Book of Esther from the canon to the Apocrypha, because without the deuterocanonical additions to the Book of Esther, the text of Esther never mentions God.

Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation

Some Catholic sources state and certain historians contend that until the definition of the Council of Trent issued on April 8, 1546, the Roman Catholic Church had not yet dogmatically defined the contents of the biblical canon for Catholics and thus settled the matter. though in the 4th century the Council of Rome had outlined the books which now appear in the Catholic Canon, Luther considered Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Revelation to be "disputed books", which he included in his translation but placed separately at the end in his New Testament published in 1522. This group of books begins with the book of Hebrews, and in its preface Luther states, "Up to this point we have had to do with the true and certain chief books of the New Testament. The four which follow have from ancient times had a different reputation." Some opine that Luther's low view of these books was due more to his theological reservations than to any historical basis regarding them.
In his book Basic Theology, Charles Caldwell Ryrie countered the claim that Luther rejected the Book of James as being non-canonical. In his preface to the New Testament, Luther ascribed to several books of the New Testament different degrees of doctrinal value:
Thus Luther was comparing doctrinal value, not canonical validity.
However, Ryrie's theory is countered by other biblical scholars, including William Barclay, who note that Luther stated plainly, if not bluntly: "I think highly of the epistle of James, and regard it as valuable although it was rejected in early days. It does not expound human doctrines, but lays much emphasis on God's law. …I do not hold it to be of apostolic authorship."

Sola fide doctrine

In The Protestant Spirit of Luther’s Version, Philip Schaff asserts that:
Martin Luther's description of the Epistle of James changes. In some cases, Luther argues that it was not written by an apostle; but in other cases, he describes James as the work of an apostle. He even cites it as authoritative teaching from God and describes James as "a good book, because it sets up no doctrines of men but vigorously promulgates the law of God." Lutherans hold that the Epistle is rightly part of the New Testament, citing its authority in the Book of Concord, however it remains part of the Lutheran antilegomena.
Lutheran teachings resolve James' and Paul's verbal conflict regarding faith and works in alternate ways from the Catholics and Orthodox:

Similar canons of the time

In his book Canon of the New Testament, Bruce Metzger notes that in 1596 Jacob Lucius published a Bible at Hamburg which labeled as "Apocrypha" Luther's four Antilegomena: Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation; Lucius explained this category of "Apocrypha" as 'That is, books that are not held equal to the other holy Scripture'. David Wolder, the pastor of Hamburg's Church of St. Peter, published in the same year a triglot Bible which labeled them as "non canonical". J. Vogt published a Bible at Goslar in 1614 similar to Lucius'. In Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus published in 1618 the Gustavus Adolphus Bible with those four books labeled as "Apocr New Testament." Metzger considers thoses decisions a "startling deviation among Lutheran editions of the Scriptures"

Protestant laity and clergy

There is some evidence that the first decision to omit these books entirely from the Bible was made by Protestant laity rather than clergy. Bibles dating from shortly after the Reformation have been found whose tables of contents included the entire Roman Catholic canon, but which did not actually contain the disputed books, leading some historians to think that the workers at the printing presses took it upon themselves to omit them. However, Anglican and Lutheran Bibles usually still contained these books until the 20th century, while Calvinist Bibles did not. Several reasons are proposed for the omission of these books from the canon. One is the support for Catholic doctrines such as Purgatory and Prayer for the dead found in 2 Maccabees. Another is that the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1646, during the English Civil War, actually excluded them from the canon. Luther himself said he was following Jerome's teaching about the Veritas Hebraica.

Modern Evangelical use

Evangelicals tend not to accept the Septuagint as the inspired Hebrew Bible, though many of them recognize its wide use by Greek-speaking Jews in the first century.
Many modern Protestants point to four "Criteria for Canonicity" to justify the books that have been included in the Old and New Testament, which are judged to have satisfied the following:
  1. Apostolic Origin – attributed to and based on the preaching/teaching of the first-generation apostles.
  2. Universal Acceptance – acknowledged by all major Christian communities in the ancient world.
  3. Liturgical Use – read publicly when early Christian communities gathered for the Lord's Supper.
  4. Consistent Message – containing a theological outlook similar or complementary to other accepted Christian writings.