Why did Martin Luther take out books from the Catholic Bible to make the Protestant Bible ?

Answer 1

The books that were removed supported such things as
+ Prayers for the dead (Tobit 12:12; 2 Maccabees 12:39-45)
+ Purgatory (Wisdom 3:1-7)
+ Intercession of saints in heaven (2 Maccabees 15:14)
+ Intercession of angels (Tobit 12:12-15)

The New Testament canon of the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible are the same with 27 Books.

The difference in the Old Testaments actually goes back to the time before and during Christ’s life. At this time, there was no official Jewish canon of scripture.

The Jews in Egypt translated their choices of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the second century before Christ. This translation of 46 books, called the Septuagint, had wide use in the Roman world because most Jews lived far from Palestine in Greek cities. Many of these Jews spoke only Greek.

The early Christian Church was born into this world. The Church, with its bilingual Jews and more and more Greek-speaking Gentiles, used the books of the Septuagint as its Bible. Remember the early Christians were just writing the documents what would become the New Testament.

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, with increasing persecution from the Romans and competition from the fledgling Christian Church, the Jewish leaders came together and declared its official canon of Scripture, eliminating seven books from the Septuagint.

The books removed were Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom (of Solomon), Sirach, and Baruch. Parts of existing books were also removed including Psalm 151 (from Psalms), parts of the Book of Esther, Susanna (from Daniel as chapter 13), and Bel and the Dragon (from Daniel as chapter 14).

The Christian Church did not follow suit but kept all the books in the Septuagint. 46 + 27 = 73 Books total.

1500 years later, Protestants decided to keep the Catholic New Testament but change its Old Testament from the Catholic canon to the Jewish canon.

The books they dropped are sometimes called the Apocrypha.

Here is a Catholic Bible website: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

"Luther published his German New Testament in 1522 based on Erasmus' Greek New Testament. The Table of Contents had a blank line between what he regarded as acceptable books and four books that he had doubts about---Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. Luther didn't exclude them from the canon, but regarded them as having a lower level of quality than the others. He didn't like the theology those four books taught. For example, he felt that James' emphasis on works (James 2:14- 26) contradicted Paul's emphasis on salvation by faith (Romans 1:17: 4:18-24; Ephesians 2:4-10). (But Paul also emphasized works: Ephesians 2:10: 1 Timothy 6:17- 19). Luther was so blinded by hatred of the Catholic Church's penance system, which emphasized works, that he failed to see how perfectly the theology of James and Paul fit together!"

Answer 3

Just for interest sake;
I have a copy of Luther's translation of the Bible, which was published in Philadelphia in the 1860's. It is in German, the font is the old German Fraktur. This Bible does contain the deuteron canonical books, but they are together in a section entitled "Apocrypha" between the old and new Testaments. Luther stated that they are good inspirational reading, and also a record of history, but not Divinely inspired word of God like the OT and NT.

Mark

Answer 4

He restored the OT to the way the Jews established it 300-400 years before the birth of Jesus. The men of the great assembly, which included some of the OT prophets, decided which books belonged in the tanach which is the Jewish Bible. The books they declared inspired and to be part of the Bible exactly matched the protestant OT. The Catholics actually added books to the Bible. Luther just removed them as they did not belong in the first place.

Answer 5

Why did the Catholic church take out books of the bible to make the Catholic bible? That book has been edited and altered for 2000 years.

Martin Luther did the same thing the church, the King James interpreters and even Thomas Jefferson did - he took out anything that didn't fit his political goals or that contradicted his religious opinions.

Answer 6

I want to just take a moment to commend imacatholic2 for the balanced and fair answer.

It is true that Protestants reverted to the Jewish canon because of doctrinal concerns. This change was accepted in the Protestant churches because there was (and still is) a sentiment that the Church had in fact overstepped its authority in defining its own canon for the *Hebrew* scriptures.

Luther's badly flawed suggestion to remove some New Testament books did not fly, because cooler heads prevailed in recognizing that there was no question about the Church's authority to determine New Testament canon.

Answer 7

THe original 1611 KJV had the Apocrypha in it. As well as other early Protestant translations or versions.

Answer 8

Because they conflicted with his false theology. He also tried to remove James too.

And "Edge" is wrong. It was Jewish 70 Jewish Rabbis who included those books in the Greek translation of the OT 200 years before Christ was born

Answer 9

Hey, it worked for the Catholics when they wanted a bible to reflect their bigotry, why can't Luther do the same thing?