Victor R. Claveau, MJ
Luther rejected the OT deuterocanonical books because Sirach speaks about free will, Tobit speaks about the efficacy of works, and II Maccabees speaks about prayer for the dead (purgatory); each of which were denied in his twisted theology. He could not justify the removal of these three books, so he just threw out the deuterocanonical books altogether.
It is not well known that like the Old Testament, the New contains a number of deuterocanonical books. These are The Letter to the Hebrews, The Letter of James, The Letter of Jude, The Second Letter of Peter, The Second and Third Letters of John and the Book of Revelation.
Luther also rejected from the canon the Letters of Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Book of Revelation from his Bible. These books he placed at the end of his translation. He accepted or rejected New Testament books, according to whether or not he found what he considered the “Gospel” in them. “He says: ‘The first three (gospels) speak of the works of Our Lord rather than of his oral teachings: that of St. John is the only sympathetic, the only true Gospel and should be undoubtedly preferred to the others. In a 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,’ he says, ‘bits of wood, hay and straw.’ The Epistle of St. James, Luther denounced as ‘An epistle of straw,’ ‘I do not hold to it,’ he said, ‘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 this heresy. ‘There are many things objectionable in this book.’ he says of the Apocalypse; ‘to my mind it bears upon it no marks of an apostolic or prophetic character.’