This oft-quoted saying from Luther finds its way onto numerous anti-Reformation web pages:“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 quote is derived from one of the versions of John Aurifaber’s version of the Table Talk. I was going through an old biography of Luther and they confirmed my previous suspicion, that the quote is a mis-citation:
"Soon after the publication of this article, I became aware , that Esther was here a mistake for Esdras; and this by the verse quoted. The error stands in all Aurifaber's editions of the Tabletalk; his text is taken by Walch, and from Walch I translated."[Source: Thomas Carlyle, Sir William Hamilton, Life of Martin Luther, (Michigan: American Book Exchange), 242].
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