LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

54 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW IX
In the 1534 edition of Luther’s Bible (the first edition of the complete
Bible), the following title precedes the list of apocrypha: “Apocrypha: these
books are not held equal to the Scriptures but are useful and good to read.” 10
Nothing could be clearer than this: the Apocrypha are not Scripture, and
therefore not canonical. There is certainly no justification here for the
distinction that some have drawn, between “proto-canonical” and “deuterocanonical”
books. The books are either Scripture or not, either canonical or
not.
Nor is it legitimate to blather on about an ambiguity between the
Hebrew canon and the Greek canon. Luther’s list of apocryphal books does
not coincide with the listing in either the Septuagint or the Vulgate. He
accepts the Hebrew canon, and knows nothing of a supposed Greek canon.
One could, perhaps, make out a case for “proto-apocryphal” versus
“deutero-apocryphal”, if that would do any good. But, even that finds no
support in Luther. For him the question is: either canonical or not canonical,
either Scripture or not Scripture, or either apocrypha or not apocrypha. He
does not deal here in greys or in a sliding scale, but in black and white:
either it is God’s Word or it is not God’s Word—or rather, either it is God’s
Word or it is man’s word. Luther knows nothing of degrees of inspiration, or
of degrees of being God’s Word.
In Luther’s translation of the Old Testament Apocrypha, Judith appears
first. The Preface to Judith begins as follows:
If one could prove from established and reliable histories that the events
in Judith really happened, it could be a notable and fine book, and should
properly be in the Bible. Yet it hardly squares with the historical
accounts of the Holy Scriptures, especially Jeremiah and Ezra. 11
Two conclusions may be drawn from this statement. In the first place, lest
someone begin to entertain theories about Luther’s supposed willingness to
subordinate Scripture to external authorities, it is clear that when he writes
of “established and reliable histories”, he is thinking of books within the
canon, not of histories outside the canon. The two examples he specifies are
Jeremiah and Ezra. In the second place, Luther did not consider Judith to be
canonical, that is “part of the Bible”. He merely suggests that it would be
worthy of being in the canon, if canonical books supported its reliability.
10 AE 35:337 n. 1.
11 AE 35:337.