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To: ebb tide
4: Martin Luther Called The Book Of James “An Epistle Of Straw”

The most frequent charge against Luther’s view on the canon is his opinion on the book of James.[50] Luther wrote this statement in his original Preface To The New Testament in 1522:

    “In a word St. John’s Gospel and his first epistle, St. Paul’s epistles, especially Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, and St. Peter’s first epistle are the books that show you Christ and teach you all that is necessary and salvatory for you to know, even if you were never to see or hear any other book or doctrine. Therefore St. James’ epistle is really an epistle of straw,  compared to these others, for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it. But more of this in the other prefaces.”[51]

Rarely is Luther accurately quoted on this topic. Luther says James “is really an epistle of straw” compared to “St. John’s Gospel and his first epistle, St. Paul’s epistles, especially Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, and St. Peter’s first epistle.” Luther wants his readers to see a comparison.

An interesting fact about this quote (hardly ever mentioned by Luther-detractors!) is that it only appears in the original 1522 Preface To The New Testament. John Warwick Montgomery points out: “Few people realize — and liberal Luther interpreters do not particularly advertise the fact — that in all the editions of Luther’s Bible translation after 1522 the—Reformer dropped the paragraphs at the end, of his general Preface to the New Testament which made value judgments among the various biblical books and which included the famous reference to James as an “Epistle of straw.”[52] Montgomery finds that Luther showed a “considerable reduction in negative tone in the revised Prefaces to the biblical books later in the Reformer’s career.”[53] For anyone to continue to cite Luther’s “epistle of straw” comment against him is to do Luther an injustice. He saw fit to retract the comment. Subsequent citations of this quote should bear this in mind.[54] Luther and the Canon


You really need to get over your obsession with Martin Luther. Nobody here thinks of him as Pope or even the "founder" of Protestantism.

145 posted on 11/03/2020 5:48:41 PM PST by boatbums (Lord, make my life a testimony to the value of knowing you.)
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To: boatbums
So who was the founder of protestantism?

I know who the founder of the Catholic Church is.

146 posted on 11/03/2020 5:56:01 PM PST by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome.)
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