Here's a meme that highlights the 1519 Leipzig debate between Martin Luther and the Roman Catholic theologian John Eck. The Luther character asks where prayers for the dead are in the Bible, the Eck character responds with 2 Maccabees 12:43-46.
The Argument: The issue of "prayers for the dead" is symbiotically related to purgatory. Proving the first becomes a prooftext for the other. Rome's defenders often argue that Eck trapped Luther into denying the seven books of the Old Testament Apocrypha at this moment of the debate. That is, in order to deny prayers for the dead and the reality of purgatory, Luther was forced to deny the infallible authority of the Apocrypha. It is at this juncture in which Luther decided to remove the seven books of the Apocrypha from the Biblical canon.
How to Respond:
1.Luther went into the Leipzig debate still affirming the reality of Purgatory (though with reservations) and still adhered to it for a while after the Leipzig debate, probably rejecting it sometime in 1520.
2. There is no meaningful proof that the Leipzig debate was the point in which Luther rejected the Apocrypha. If one searches Luther's writings, he consistently quoted from the Apocrypha in the same way both before and after the Leipzig debate.
3. Luther did not accept the Apocrypha and then reject it. He never accepted it as primary infallible Scripture. Luther was schooled in a tradition that gave the Apocrypha secondary non-canonical status.
4. Rome's defenders typically only provide evidence Luther rejected 2 Maccabees and then make the illogical leap that he rejected the entire Apocrypha because of Eck's trap at the Leipzig debate. Evidence is not offered as to why the other books were rejected by Luther, it is assumed.
For further reading, see my old AOMIN entries in which I critiqued Roman Catholic Apologist Gary Michuta's book, Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger:
- Why Gary Michuta Says Protestant Bibles Are Smaller (1)
- Why Gary Michuta Says Protestant Bibles Are Smaller (#2)
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