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'''Luther’s View of the Canon of Scripture''' {{opinionarticle}}''By James Swan '' ([email protected], August 2004'' ) {{rtoc}}
→Endnotes: removed website for Endnote 122 - site not found notice
===Introduction: Playing The "Luther Card"===
1: Martin Luther Did Not Remove Books From The Bible: Was [[Martin Luther ]] a sixteenth century Marcion? Did he publish a Bible missing books? A brief overview on the construction of Luther’s Bible.
2: Luther’s Concept of The Canon Of Scripture: How did Luther view the canon of Scripture? A synopsis of Luther’s prefaces. A look at Luther’s Christocentric hermeneutic.
[108] O’Hare, Facts About Luther ,193.
[109] http://catholicoutlook.com/objbible5.php#1 [110] Dave Armstrong, Luther vs. The Canon of the Bible. The web-page is no longer extant in the form which contains this quote. However, it is still viewable through web archives at: http://web.archive.org/web/19990222062640/http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ325.HTM The quote from O’Hare was:
“Of the Pentateuch he says: 'We have no wish either to see or hear Moses. Job . . . is merely the argument of a fable . . . Ecclesiastes ought to have been more complete. There is too much incoherent matter in it . . . Solomon did not, therefore, write this book . . . The book of Esther I toss into the Elbe. I am such an enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not exist, for it Judaizes too much and has in it a great deal of heathenish naughtiness . . . The history of Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible . . .' The books of the New Testament fared no better. He rejected from the canon Hebrews, James, Jude and the Apocalypse. These he placed at the end of his translation, after the others, which he called 'the true and certain capital books of the New Testament.' . . . 'St. John is the only sympathetic, the only true Gospel and should undoubtedly be preferred to the others. In like manner the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul are superior to the first three Gospels.' The Epistle to the Hebrews did not suit him: 'It need not surprise one to find here bits of wood, hay, and straw.' The Epistle of St. James, Luther denounced as 'an epistle of straw.' 'I do not hold it to be his writing, and I cannot place it among the capital books.' He did this because it proclaimed the necessity of good works, contrary to his heresy. 'There are many things objectionable in this book,' he says of the Apocalypse, . . . 'I feel an aversion to it, and to me this is a sufficient reason for rejecting it' . . . His pride was intense . . . In this spirit of arrogance and blasphemy, he did as he willed with the sacred Volume . . He feels abundantly competent, by his own interior and spiritual instinct, to pronounce dogmatically which books in the canon of Scripture are inspired and which are not . . . He . . . believes he has the faculty of judging the Bible without danger of error. He believes he is infallible. {The Facts About Luther, Cincinnati, 1916, pp. 202-204}”
[111110] Yet Armstrong says elsewhere, “Luther was not content even to let the matter rest there, and proceeded to cast doubt on many other books of the Bible which are accepted as canonical by all Protestants. He considered Job and Jonah mere fables, and Ecclesiastes incoherent and incomplete. He wished that Esther (along with 2 Maccabees) "did not exist," and wanted to "toss it into the Elbe" river.” See Armstrong’s article, “The "Apocrypha": Why It's Part Of The Bible.” The text above contains no bibliographic references, but its similarities are so similar to O’Hare’s work, I would be surprised if Armstrong had another source other than O’Hare documenting the above alleged “facts.”
[112111] This is not meant to characterize all Roman Catholic treatments of Luther as negatively biased and poorly documented. For instance, Protestant writer Preserved Smith has written a large volume called The Life And Letters Of Martin Luther (New York: Barnes And Noble Inc., 1968, reprint of 1911 edition). The work probably contains more commentary (some rather negative) from Smith than it does Luther letters. While documentation is provided in a back index, no specific footnote/endnote numbers are provided to mach the bibliographic information with either Smith’s commentary of Luther’s letters. In one such commentary, Smith provides comments not much different than O’Hare. Specific references may be given in the index, but one would have to have all the German books cited so as to find them. Smith says: “But Luther was not the man to be bound by his own rule; few of his followers have ever interpreted, commented on, and criticized the Bible with the freedom habitual to him. The books he judged according as they appealed to his own subjective nature, or according to his spiritual needs. He often exercised his reason in determining the respective worth of the several books of the Bible, and in a way which has been confirmed to a surprising degree by subsequent researches. He denied the Mosaic authorship of part of the Pentateuch; he declared Job to be an allegory; Jonah was so childish that he was almost inclined to laugh at it; the books of Kings were " a thousand paces ahead of Chronicles and more to be believed." “Ecclesiastes has neither boots nor spurs, but rides in socks, as I did when I was in the cloister" [Smith, 268]. I find the overall thrust of this book quite disappointing, particularly Smith’s commentary. I rarely utilize this work in my studies of Luther.
[113112]LW 40:91.
[114113]LW 35:158.
[115114] These comments were taken from notes from Robert Kolb’s lectures, “The Theology of Martin Luther.”
[116115] Roland Bainton, Studies on the Reformation, 6-7.
[117116] O’Hare, The Facts About Luther, 202 .Hoge’s quotation of O’Hare at this point could have included the entirety of the sentence for a firmer meaning of what O’Hare was implying.
[118117] Martin Luther as cited in Ida Walz Blayney, The Age Of Luther (New York: Vantage Press, 1957)299. Blayney cites Luther from Dr. Martin Luther, Sammtliche Werke, Deutsche Schriften, Band 1-67; Frankfurt am Main u. Erlangen; Erste Auflage, 1826-1857. (Erl. I: 62, 133f).
[119118]LW 54:79.
[120119] The Table talk is a collection of comments from Luther written down by Luther’s students and friends. Thus, it is not in actuality an official writing of Luther and should not serve as the basis for interpreting his theology. Even anti-Luther Catholic historian Hartmann Grisar has pointed out, “Of course, it must not be overlooked that the Table Talks are ephemeral—‘children of the moment.’ While they correctly and vividly reproduce the ideas of the speaker, minus the cool reflection which prevails in the writing of letters and still more of books, they contain frequent exaggerations and betray a lack of moderation. The lightning-like flashes which they emit are not always true. The momentary exaggerations of the speaker at times beget contradictions which conflict with other talks or literary utterances. Frequently humorous statements were received as serious declarations. Humor and satire of a very pungent kind play a great part in these talks” [Grisar, 481].
[121120] The editors of Luther’s Works point out:” During the last decades of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth century it gradually became manifest that in spite of all his diligence and devotion and in spite of his occasionally faithful renderings into German, Aurifaber had actually obscured and distorted the Table Talk. One after another, manuscripts containing contemporary reports of Luther’s conversations were discovered in remote archives or rediscovered in libraries where they had long been overlooked.”
“Questions have often been raised concerning the reliability of the reports of the Table Talk that have come down to us. Aurifaber’s version, as we have already noted, is far less trustworthy than the manuscripts that were rediscovered at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. There is no doubt that the manuscripts take us much closer to what was actually said than Aurifaber’s text does. But it is too much to claim that even the manuscripts provide us with verbatim reports” [LW 54, introductory comments].
[122121] O’Hare citation may be taken from this: “The book of Solomon's Proverbs is a fine book, which rulers and governors should diligently read, for it contains lessons touching God's anger, wherein governors and rulers should exercise themselves .The author of the book of Ecclesiasticus preaches the law well, but he is no prophet. It is not the work of Solomon, any more than is the book of Solomon's Proverbs. They are both collections made by other people. The third book of Esdras I throw into the Elbe; there are, in the fourth, pretty knacks enough; as, "The wine is strong, the king is stronger, women strongest of all; but the truth is stronger than all these." The book of Judith is not a history. It accords not with geography. I believe it is a poem, like the legends of the saints, composed by some good man, to the end he might show how Judith, a personification of the Jews, as God-fearing people, by whom God is known and confessed, overcame and vanquished Holofernes -that is, all the kingdoms of the world. `Tis a figurative work, like that of Homer about Troy, and that of Virgil about Aeneas, wherein is shown how a great prince ought to be adorned with surpassing valor, like a brave champion, with wisdom and understanding, great courage and alacrity, fortune, honor, and justice. It is a tragedy, setting forth what the end of tyrants is. I take the book of Tobit to be a comedy concerning women, an example for house-government. I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities. The Jews much more esteemed the book of Esther than any of the prophets; though they were forbidden to read it before they had attained the age of thirty, by reason of the mystic matters it contains. They utterly condemn Daniel and Isaiah, those two holy and glorious prophets, of whom the former, in the clearest manner, preaches Christ, while the other describes and portrays the kingdom of Christ, and the monarchies and empires of the world preceeding it. Jeremiah comes but after them. The discourses of the prophets were none of them regularly committed to writing at the time; their disciples and hearers collected them subsequently, one, one piece, another, another, and thus was the complete collection formed. When Doctor Justus Jonas had translated the book of Tobit, he attended Luther therewith, and said: "Many ridiculous things are contained in this book, especially about the three nights, and the liver of the broiled fish, wherewith the devil was scared and driven away." Whereupon Luther said: "'Tis a Jewish conceit; the devil, a fierce and powerful enemy, will not be hunted away in such sort, for he has the spear of Goliah; but God gives him such weapons, that, when he is overcome by the godly, it may be the greater terror and vexation unto him. Daniel and Isaiah are most excellent prophets. I am Isaiah - be it spoken with humility - to the advancement of God's honor, whose work alone it is, and to spite the devil. Philip Melancthon is Jeremiah; that prophet stood always in fear; even so it is with Melancthon."[ Table-Talk Of Martin Luther Translated By William Hazlitt, Esq. Philadelphia: The Lutheran Publication Society. Utterance XXIV. Available at: http://www.ccel.org/l/luther/table_talk/table_talk.htm.
[123122] O’Hare is not the only author to conclude Luther devalued Ecclesiastes: “We know that [Luther] ridiculed the Book of Ecclesiastes…” as cited in “The 40 Questions Most Frequently Asked About The Catholic Church By Non-Catholics,”(1956) authored by Nihil Obstat: Rt. Rev. William J. Cusick, D.D., P.A Censor Librorum mprimatur: + Most Rev. T. J. Toolen, D.D., LL.D., Archbishop-Bishop of Mobile-Birmingham. Available at [http://www.netacc.net/~mafg/que4006.htm
[124123]LW 15:10.
[125124]LW 15:7.
[126125] LW 35:263.
[127126] Table-Talk Of Martin Luther Translated By William Hazlitt, Esq. Philadelphia: The Lutheran Publication Society. Utterance XXIV. Available at: http://www.ccel.org/l/luther/table_talk/table_talk.htm.
[128127]LW 33:110.
[129128] Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church (Michigan: W.B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1985), 13 footnote 6
[130129] Table-Talk Of Martin Luther Translated By William Hazlitt, Esq. Philadelphia: The Lutheran Publication Society. Utterance DXLVII. Available at: http://www.ccel.org/l/luther/table_talk/table_talk.htm.
[131130]LW 19:36
[132131] The following sermon is taken from volume VII:289-300 of The Sermons of Martin Luther, published by Baker Book House (Grand Rapids, MI). It was originally published in 1909 in English by The Luther Press (Minneapolis, MN), as Luther's Epistle Sermons, vol. 2. This e-text was scanned and edited by Richard P. Bucher, it is in the public domain and it may be copied and distributed without restriction.
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