Steve Ray & Melanchthon on Keeping Books in the New Testament Canon

I've become extremely skeptical of Roman Catholic research on Luther's opinion of the canon of Scripture. Sometimes it just seems like they’re making it up as they go along. Over the years I’ve been in numerous discussions with Roman Catholics on this subject- and I definitely see a pattern of misinformation. Sometimes its just a misreading of Reformation texts, other times it’s stuff that comes from ... who knows where. For instance, I have repeatedly come across the charge that Melanchthon stopped Luther from removing books from the New Testament. The funny part about this is usually Melanchthon is seen as this meek and mild scholar who cowered in Luther’s shadow. In regard to the canon though, Melanchthon was somehow able to control Luther.

 I was  given  links to Roman apologist Steve Ray's material on the canon, and he mentions the bit about Melanchthon stopping Luther from removing books-

Steve Ray says:

“Martin Luther understood the place of the Church in establishing the canon... He realized that if he could jettison the Church, or at least redefine it as “invisible” and “intangible”, he was free to reevaluate and regulate the content of the canon for himself. He actually began to function as his own pope and council. If it weren’t for his theologian Philip Melanchthon, Protestants would no longer consider James, Revelation, Hebrews, Jude and a few other books as inspired Scripture.”-Source: Steve Ray: “Bible's Canon: Do Protestants or Catholics Have The Correct Books?”

Ray infers that Luther wanted to create his own canon, while most scholars recognize Luther holds to a “canon within a canon” [see Roland Bainton, Studies on the Reformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963) 5]. Paul Althaus explains that Luther “…allows the canon to stand as it was established by the ancient church. But he makes distinctions within the canon” [Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 83]. Steve Ray makes questionable points that make me wonder how familiar he is with Luther. Which “few other books” is Mr. Ray referring to? I am unaware of Luther ever seriously questioning the canonicity of any other New Testament book other than the four mentioned above.

But most importantly, Ray says, “If it weren’t for his theologian Philip Melanchthon,…” Ray seems to indicate, Luther’s views on the canon were somehow curtailed by Melanchthon. Ray makes the same point elsewhere:

“When Martin Luther rejected “popes and councils” he also realized that the canon was again up for grabs. He didn’t like James as we know, but he also placed Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation at the back of the book, not with the inspired books. It was only later that Philipp Melanchthon convinced him to defer to long tradition and place the books back in the New Testament, back in the recognized order. How did Luther fail to recognize the self-authenticating writings?"-Source: Steve Ray, “New Testament Books: Self-authenticating? No Need for the Church to Close the Canon?”

Ray would do well to provide further information to substantiate this claim that Melanchthon was the primary reason Luther put books “back in the New Testament.” To my knowledge, there is no such document from either Melanchthon or Luther. I have e-mailed him in the past asking for a source, I received no response. I tend to think its because it does not exist.

To my knowledge, no such information exists as Ray describes Luther and Melanchthon. The most in depth treatment of Luther’s Bible was done by M. Reu, Luther’s German Bible: An Historical Presentation Together with A Collection of Sources (Ohio: The Lutheran Book Concern, 1934). This book is the most in-depth thorough treatment on this subject. Within 600 pages, Reu makes no mention of such an important discussion between Luther and Melanchthon. Reu does mention though that in 1521 Melanchthon did urge Luther to follow through with his plan of translating the Bible (Reu, 148). Reu notes an intriguing comment from Luther that Melanchthon forced him to do so: “Hence Luther's remark in Tischreden that Melanchthon had forced him to translate the New Testament (I, 487, 11 f)” (Reu, 351). I have a few other books specific to Luther and the Bible. Nowhere have I found anything even remotely suggesting Melanchthon stopped Luther from removing books from the canon.

Simply because Ray doesn't cite his source, doesn't mean I think he's the bogeyman. Maybe he read someone say "Maybe Melanchthon stopped him" or something like that. I would really like him to simply document what he's referring to.

Perhaps he got it from this source: Henry G. Graham, “WHERE WE GOT THE BIBLE OUR DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.” Henry G. Graham making a similar undocumented assertion:

"Even in regard to the New Testament it required all the powers of resistance on the part of the more conservative Reformers to prevent Luther from flinging out the Epistle of St. James as unworthy to remain within the volume of Holy Scripture – ‘an Epistle of straw’ he called it, ‘with no character of the Gospel in it’. In the same way, and almost to the same degree, he dishonored the Epistle of St. Jude and the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the beautiful Apocalypse of St. John, declaring they were not on the same footing as the rest of the books, and did not contain the same amount of Gospel (i.e., his Gospel)."

Who knows? Roman Catholics don't seem to bother with ad fontes research, so this type of undocumented information will continue to spew forth. I posted about this a while back on the Catholic Answers boards- and even some of the more intelligent participants couldn’t come up with a response to where this super-ability of Melanchthon to stop Luther comes from. For instance, a guy who calls himself “itsjustdave” devoted a whole entry on his blog to this subject. The sad and funny thing about “itsjustdave’s” review is he either completely misunderstood my question about Steve Ray’s sources, or he completely ignored it:

“The fathers of Lutheranism, for centuries, understood Luther's view of the canon much the same way as Steve Ray and Henry G. Graham. I think the reason the Graham and Ray may not have included documentation of their claim, is that it is a well-established fact taught within Lutheranism. Why document the obvious? Yet, it appears from the sources you cite, revisionism has made such facts less obvious to all.”

For a minute, I thought this guy was actually going present pertinent information- but all he did was launch into Lutheran attitudes about the canon. Again, it all comes down to ad fontes research. Roman Catholics claim to have a monopoly on understanding history- yet I wonder if it's just history they're making up as they go along. It's hard to tell when sources aren't given.


Addendum 2/12/15
Here's are some posts from Catholic Answers in which it was asserted "Erasmus Albertus" was responsible for stopping Luther:

Feb 27, '12, 9:38 pm

Nicea325  Senior Member Join Date: March 16, 2010 Posts: 7,111 Religion: Catholic

Re: Luther's bible Quote: Originally Posted by fisherman carl  I have heard that Luther removed some of the NT books from his German bible for about a year before being persuaded to put them back in. Is this true? Yes it is true. I believe it was Erasmus Albertus who persuaded him to keep those NT books.

#6       Feb 28, '12, 4:46 pm

TertiumQuid  Regular Member Join Date: May 19, 2004 Location: New Jersey Posts: 840 Religion: Reformed

Re: Luther's bible Quote: Originally Posted by Nicea325  Yes it is true. I believe it was Erasmus Albertus who persuaded him to keep those NT books. I've been following this particular myth for a few years now- that Luther wanted to remove books from the Bible but someone persuaded him to either leave them in or put them back. This is the first I've heard the name "Erasmus Albertus" as the person holding such sway over Luther's actions (it may actually be the first time I've ever heard of Erasmus Albertus as well). If you have any sort of documentation, I'd certainly like to see it. The way this myth usually runs is that it was Melanchthon who wielded such power over Luther. Consider what Steve Ray says: Quote: “Martin Luther understood the place of the Church in establishing the canon... He realized that if he could jettison the Church, or at least redefine it as “invisible” and “intangible”, he was free to reevaluate and regulate the content of the canon for himself. He actually began to function as his own pope and council. If it weren’t for his theologian Philip Melanchthon, Protestants would no longer consider James, Revelation, Hebrews, Jude and a few other books as inspired Scripture.” And also: Quote: “When Martin Luther rejected “popes and councils” he also realized that the canon was again up for grabs. He didn’t like James as we know, but he also placed Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation at the back of the book, not with the inspired books. It was only later that Philipp Melanchthon convinced him to defer to long tradition and place the books back in the New Testament, back in the recognized order. How did Luther fail to recognize the self-authenticating writings?" Ray would do well to provide further information to substantiate this claim that Melanchthon was the primary reason Luther put books “back in the New Testament.” To my knowledge, there is no such document from either Melanchthon or Luther. If you have any web pages or books that credit Erasmus Albertus with as the person holding such power over Luther, I would be very interested in it. Even if the page turns out to be poorly documented or completely bogus. Thanks, James Swan

#7       Feb 28, '12, 6:29 pm

Nicea325  Senior Member Join Date: March 16, 2010 Posts: 7,111 Religion: Catholic

Re: Luther's bible Quote: Originally Posted by TertiumQuid  I've been following this particular myth for a few years now- that Luther wanted to remove books from the Bible but someone persuaded him to either leave them in or put them back. This is the first I've heard the name "Erasmus Albertus" as the person holding such sway over Luther's actions (it may actually be the first time I've ever heard of Erasmus Albertus as well). If you have any sort of documentation, I'd certainly like to see it. The way this myth usually runs is that it was Melanchthon who wielded such power over Luther. Consider what Steve Ray says: And also: Ray would do well to provide further information to substantiate this claim that Melanchthon was the primary reason Luther put books “back in the New Testament.” To my knowledge, there is no such document from either Melanchthon or Luther. If you have any web pages or books that credit Erasmus Albertus with as the person holding such power over Luther, I would be very interested in it. Even if the page turns out to be poorly documented or completely bogus. Thanks, James Swan By all means I am not stating it is a fact and I was not sure of the name of the man who changed Luther's decision. Perhaps Steven Ray got the name correct?

#8       Feb 28, '12, 6:39 pm

TertiumQuid  Regular Member Join Date: May 19, 2004 Location: New Jersey Posts: 840 Religion: Reformed

Re: Luther's bible Quote: Originally Posted by Nicea325  By all means I am not stating it is a fact and I was not sure of the name of the man who changed Luther's decision. Perhaps Steven Ray got the name correct? I have never seen any proof to validate Mr. Ray's assertions, and I have been looking... for a long time. Unless someone provides some meaningful documentation, the assertion that someone had such sway over Luther to persuaded him to either leave books of the Bible in or put them back in remains a myth. To date, no Roman Catholic apologist has done so, at least none that I'm aware of, and I know the works of many of them. Regards, James Swan

Silly Luther stuff From Catholic Answers

I don’t know what it is about the folks who hang around on the Catholic Answers forums. It’s like a meeting place for the ridiculous. Here’s something posted recently:

Here is how I look at Luther:"And Satan will be let loose for a time, and he worketh thru his prophet Martin Luther...."I personally believe by reading all his works, he was under the influence of Satan, if not Satan's unholy angels. Only Satan and his minions are so capable of distorting and twisting scripture to their own means. Martin Luther set in motion the greatest ever-growing Schism the Christian nation has known. 28,000 distinct Protestant Denominations have existed since the Martin Luther and it is estimated that 5 new denominations start somewhere around the world each week. Schism upon Schism upon Schism upon Schism. It is out of control.Not to be judgmental but Martin Luther was one of the false prophets mentioned by Jesus. Hazarding a guess, I would say he is in hell and if by chance he is in heaven, his mansion in heaven is about the size of an Outhouse....

The man who posted these comments calls himself “Joey Warren.”If my sleuth work is accurate, his blog can be found here: http://dialeticscripture.blogspot.com/. Joey says his comments are based on reading all the works of Luther. I’m assuming he read them all in English, so he read over 50 volumes of material. I simply do not believe it. Yes, that’s right: one of the defenders of the Papacy is using mis-truth to provide Catholic answers. Go figure.

I asked Joey the following question: Have you really read all of Luther's Works? Which "works" specifically led you to your conclusion? His answer:

“ColloquiaLuther’s New TestamentLuther's New Testaament (Edition of 1524). Luther's New Testaament (Edition of 1622).Do you want me to quote his heretical statements?We could just start with his "Sola Srcriptura", "Sola Fide" and the other one. All three are unbiblical and heretical.”

As I suspected, Joey hadn’t read all his works. Another participant, a man fairly knowledgeable about Luther responded:

In other words, you have not read all his works. (Luther wrote many, many works besides those you list. Probably most Luther experts have not read all Luther's works. There might be a half a dozen people in the world who have.) Why did you falsely claim that you had? By "Colloquia" I presume you mean the Tischreden. Did you read all of them? And what do you mean by having read three different editions of Luthers NT? What edition is represented by "Luther's New Testament" without a year? And how is the 1622 edition different from the 1524 edition? What did you learn about Luther from reading an edition published 100 years after his time? I applaud you, at any rate, on your ability to read 16th-century German. Unless that also turns out to be a false claim. . . . (It is implicit in the claim that you read "Luther's New Testament," which is a German translation, obviously.) I don't know what you think you are accomplishing by making these weird assertions.

Joey finally came clean after this and admitted he hadn’t actually read much of Luther:

No, I did not read them in their entirety, on the passages that were relevant to my investigation. This was done during the early 80's while in the Navy. Don't applaud me, I had lots of help. I took a trip to Europe to investigate these accusations people have made about his statements about the scriptures. I went to Germany and Rome and visited the libraries and asked to be shown certain passages where these quotes were. I had the librarian copy these after I found some scholars that could read the stuff enough. Then I visited the Universities where Theology was taught and got the same from the Professors. Then it took several months to find a couple of Linquists to translate these individually. So what I have is the photocopy of the text and it's transliteration. I hope one day that someone will put his entire works in English for the whole world so the truth of the matter can be ascertain. The problem with US libraries and Universities is that they have "Select" writings translated, not all of them. And what they do have, supports their teaching and beliefs. But I think it is in the best interest of the Lutheran movement that these don't become available in English.....

“That would be my challenge to the Lutherans. Put every single one of his writings in English if they so believe that he was so HOLY and so RIGHT. but they will not, and I can take that to the bank and draw interest on it. Some things are better left hidden from the world....for some.”

“I was looking in particular to references where Martin Luther questioned or made outright statements that certain books of the bible were not Inspired by God.”

I have good news for Joey- Much of Luther’s works in English have been available for quite some time, decades actually. The material he’s looking for about "certain books of the bible" can be found here Luther’s View of the Canon of Scripture.