Why did Martin Luther REMOVE Seven (7) books from the Protestant Bible ?

Question

The books missing from Protestant Bibles are: Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Wisdom, Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and parts of Esther and Daniel.

Martin Luther, without any authority whatsoever, removed those seven books and placed them in an appendix during the reformation. They remained in the appendix of Protestant Bibles until about 1826, and then they were removed altogether.

Answer 1

Simply put, they didn't agree with his theology.

Answer 2

Just to clarify, the Roman Catholic Church has only one Bible which is the Latin Vulgatæ. At any rate they [the Protestants] pretty much followed the Jews who removed the 7 Deutero-Canonical books back around 90-95 AD. The Catholic Council of Trent, called to counter changes made by Martin Luther, again reaffirmed the canonicity of all 46 books of the Old Testament. Some Protestant reformers who attended, tried to get the Church to accept the list of books which the Jewish rabbis had chosen at Jamnia. The Church refused and upheld her teaching from Pope Damasus I, and the Council of Florence. As a result, Protestants have the same New Testament books as Catholics, but their Old Testament differs because it does not contain the books rejected by the rabbis at Jamnia, and much later, rejected by Martin Luther. It is interesting that for 1500 years all Christians accepted the same canon for the Old Testament. Only in the last 480 years, since the reformation, has there been disagreement from Protestants.

Answer 3

I want to know who gave Luther the authority to take the books out of the Bible?

Answer 4

Protestant thought went with the Jewish OT scripture as maintaining the purity of the Old Testament. The Apocryphal books were good for reading, but not considered scripture. So they were left out. And, if Protestants do want to read through those books, they are readily available. You make a good point though, maybe Protestants should know a little more about those books.

Answer 5

Distrusting the Latin Vulgate Bible, because it was relied on by the Catholic Church, Luther decided to translate his Bible into German from the original languages. The earliest forms of the New Testament writings were in Greek, so Luther translated his New Testament from Greek. It was known that most of the Old Testament had originally been written in Hebrew. So Luther wanted to translate his German Old Testament from the Hebrew texts.

In this he was following St Jerome, who had sought out old Hebrew manuscripts to produce the Latin Vulgate Bible in 406 AD. However, when Luther obtained Hebrew manuscripts from the Jews of his time, he found that the seven Books in question were not in their Canon of Scripture. This strengthened his resolve to remove the Books. The Jews, he argued, were the Guardians of the Old Testament, so he would use their Old Testament.

BUT...................

The oldest existing versions of the Jewish Old Testament DO INCLUDE the Seven Books. It is from these versions that the early Christian Scriptures were made. The best, oldest and most complete version of the Jewish Old Testament we know today is called The Septuagint, and this includes the books that Luther deleted.

Answer 6

because they supported things to which he didn't want around - for example the concept of purgatory. who wants to fully be able to comprehend what is said in Scriptures about some sins being forgiven in this life and some on the next. or how about the fact we are to be tested with fire. purgatory is the time in which we are standing before Christ in our judgement - could be one moment could be one year - we do not know. however praying for the soul of the departed person while they are standing before God's judgement..... is explained in Macabee's.
Judith is an amazing tract for difficult time - strengthening our faith through God's presence....

the protestant denominations which sprang from his segregation are genrally called Catholic lite -- the road onto which our feet are placed when we become believers becomes more narrow with every step - it's not always easy - bt with God all things are possible. i belive Mr Luther wanted to widen the path to make things easier.

Answer 7

Apparently, he made a mistake. He also wanted to remove the 'woman caught in adultery' (John 8) but did not; (if memory of my studies serves me correctly on the point).

Answer 8

i didn't know he did, but its amazing that with everything the bible has been through and all the changes and translations that have been made to it, people still think its the same bible as when it was first written

Answer 9

He thought he knew more than God

Answer 10

These books were not consider to be inspired scriptures before the Catholic Church added them in 1546, they were later removed because they are considered to be the uninspired writings of men and not God.