Luther?! HUH?!

Yes, my title is bizarre. Yes, I am up at 2:30 in the morning blogging on Catholic thought........ Anyway,

I just read this website discussing the topic of Martin Luther and the Canon of scripture. First, I must admit that they do make a good point about James Akin (although he should not be singled out) making bold statements about Luther that we all make, such as him "removing scripture from canon". Maybe Akin could make a better response if allowed to see these challenges to what he said. However, I do want to make a few points that the author of this work seems to neglect:

1) Luther, while he did include the so called "Apocrypha" books in his translation of the Bible, did indeed dismiss several Old Testament Books (especially Maccabees, as this site touts) as lesser books of the Old Testament. This in fact did lead to the removal of them totally from the Protestant "canon", and whether or not the author wants to admit, did relegate them to a substandard work than the other works of the Bible. He did, in essence, remove them from the Canon simply by downplaying their significance.

2) The discussion of the Epistle of James tickles me, because try as you might to defend Luther's intentions, even if he is comparing this epistle to other New Testament works, his comments clearly indicate that it is at the very least not of the same quality as other books. This was obviously a Lutheran ploy to reject theological and historical doctrines of the Church (at least to me).

So, although Luther might not have "formally" removed books from his translation, I believe Catholic Apologists and even this article itself clearly indicates how Luther undermined the Canon of scripture.