Martin Luther on Canon of the Old Testament
66 books — Apocrypha useful but not Scripture
These books are not held to be equal to Holy Scripture, but they are useful and good to read.
THE POSITION
Luther pulled the deuterocanonical books out of their Vulgate positions, gathered them between the Testaments, and gave the section its own title page stating what they are and are not. He does not suppress them — they are printed, and he commends reading them — but the heading denies them parity with Scripture, which is the whole of the question this locus asks.
13 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Augustinian friar whose protest over indulgences opened the Reformation, and the theologian for whom justification by faith and the bondage of the will are the whole of the gospel. This entry rests on his own writings only — The Bondage of the Will (1525), the Smalcald Articles (1537), the Large and Small Catechisms (1529), Concerning Christian Liberty (1520), the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), the Church Postil and his biblical prefaces — and deliberately excludes the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord, which are not his.
Cite this page
"Martin Luther on Canon of the Old Testament", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/luther/ot-canon (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/luther/ot-canon).