A common Catholic argument says:
“Martin Luther removed books from the Bible because they contradicted his theology.”
A common Protestant response says:
“Luther changed nothing at all. Catholics added books at Trent.”
Both slogans flatten a complicated history.
Luther had unusually strong opinions about parts of the biblical canon. But he did not simply delete James from his Bible, and the Old Testament canon question existed long before the Reformation.
Luther really did criticize James
This should not be denied.
In his 1522 New Testament preface, Luther famously called James an “epistle of straw” in comparison with writings he believed proclaimed Christ more clearly.
He also questioned the apostolic character or theological status of:
- Hebrews;
- James;
- Jude;
- Revelation.
This reflected his distinction between books he considered the clearest witnesses to the Gospel and books he thought less certain or less central.
So the statement:
“Luther never questioned any New Testament book”
is false.
But did he remove James?
No.
James remained in Luther's German New Testament.
It was translated, printed, and read.
Luther placed Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation at the end of his New Testament and treated them differently in his prefaces, but he did not publish a 23-book New Testament with James deleted.
That distinction matters.
Why did Luther dislike James?
The obvious guess is James 2:24:
“a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”
Luther certainly found James difficult to reconcile with Paul's language.
But his criticism was broader.
He evaluated books by how clearly they testified to Christ and the Gospel.
He thought James lacked the same explicit proclamation of Christ's death and resurrection found in Paul, John, and 1 Peter.
This does not make his judgment correct.
It does make the historical claim more precise than:
“Luther saw the words not by faith alone and threw James away.”
Luther still preached and used James
Luther's relationship with James was inconsistent and more complicated than one famous sentence.
He continued to cite and preach texts from the letter.
Later Lutheranism did not follow him into removing James from the New Testament canon.
The traditional 27-book New Testament remained standard.
The Old Testament question is different
The more substantial Protestant-Catholic canon difference concerns books such as:
- Tobit;
- Judith;
- Wisdom of Solomon;
- Sirach;
- Baruch;
- 1 and 2 Maccabees;
- and additional portions of Esther and Daniel.
Catholics call these deuterocanonical books.
Many Protestants call them Apocrypha.
Orthodox Old Testament collections are more complex and are not identical to either the standard Protestant or Roman Catholic lists.
Did Luther delete the Apocrypha?
Not from his original complete German Bible in the simplistic sense.
Luther's Bible placed these books in a separate section between the Old and New Testaments.
The heading described them as books not held equal to Holy Scripture but useful and good to read.
That position diminished their canonical status, but it did not hide or physically erase them from the printed Bible.
Later Protestant Bible publishing increasingly omitted the Apocrypha altogether, especially in many English-language editions.
Was Luther the first Christian to question these books?
No.
Ancient and medieval Christianity contained real disagreements about the Old Testament's scope.
Jerome strongly preferred the Hebrew canon for establishing doctrine, while Augustine and North African councils received a broader collection.
Greek-speaking Christianity inherited the Septuagintal scriptural world, though even ancient manuscript collections are not perfectly uniform.
Therefore:
“Everyone had exactly the Roman Catholic canon until Luther changed it”
is historically too neat.
But did the Church have a broader Bible before Luther?
Yes, in an important sense.
Western medieval Christian Bibles commonly contained the deuterocanonical books.
They were read in the Church and transmitted within the Latin Vulgate tradition.
The Reformation did not discover books nobody had ever seen and then decide whether to add them.
It reclassified books that had long existed within Christian biblical collections and whose precise status had a complicated history.
Trent and the Reformation
The Council of Trent in 1546 formally listed the books received as sacred and canonical in the Roman Catholic Church, including the deuterocanonical books.
This happened after the Protestant Reformation had made the canon question especially contentious.
It is misleading to say:
“Catholics invented these books in 1546.”
The books had been used in Christianity for centuries.
It is also misleading to say Trent merely repeated an uncontested universal canon that had never been questioned.
The long history contains genuine complexity.
Why Protestants favored the shorter Old Testament
Reformers were influenced by several considerations.
The Hebrew canon
They gave strong weight to the books found in the Jewish Hebrew canon.
Jerome
Jerome's distinction between canonical books and ecclesiastical books provided an important Western precedent.
Doctrinal disputes
Passages such as 2 Maccabees 12 became relevant to debates about prayer for the dead and purgatory.
Humanist scholarship
Renaissance attention to Hebrew and Greek sources encouraged renewed investigation of textual and canonical history.
It would be naïve to pretend theology played no role.
It would also be inaccurate to say theology was the only reason.
Did Catholics “add” seven books?
The phrase is polemically useful but historically weak.
From a Protestant canonical perspective, Trent dogmatized books not belonging to the Hebrew canon.
From a Catholic perspective, Trent formally affirmed books already long received and used by the Church.
The historian should describe the actual process before adopting either side's theological verdict.
What about the Orthodox canon?
This is where many simplified debates fail.
Eastern Orthodox biblical tradition does not map perfectly onto the Roman Catholic canon.
Different Orthodox traditions have historically printed or received additional texts in their Old Testament collections.
That fact alone shows why the history cannot be reduced to:
66 books versus 73 books, and somebody must have changed the original table of contents.
The early Church inherited scriptural collections before a universally printed Christian Bible existed.
Did Nicaea decide the canon?
No.
The Council of Nicaea in 325 did not choose the books of the Bible.
That popular myth should not be imported into the Reformation debate.
The New Testament canon developed through usage, debate, episcopal and synodal decisions, and growing consensus over centuries.
Athanasius's Festal Letter 39 in 367 gives the first surviving list exactly matching the modern 27-book New Testament.
Luther and “Scripture alone”
Luther's canonical judgments raise a real question for sola Scriptura:
If Scripture is the sole infallible norm, how does one know with certainty which books constitute Scripture?
Protestants have offered answers involving:
- apostolic origin;
- catholic reception;
- internal qualities;
- providence;
- and the Holy Spirit's testimony.
Catholics and Orthodox Christians argue that the canon itself demonstrates the necessity of authoritative Church tradition.
That is a serious theological debate.
It should not be replaced by the historically inaccurate line:
“Luther just removed whatever he disliked.”
The fair verdict
What is true?
True: Luther criticized James severely.
True: he questioned or ranked several New Testament books differently.
True: he gave the deuterocanonical books a lower status than the books of the Hebrew canon.
True: his German Bible still printed James.
True: his complete Bible printed the Apocrypha in a separate section.
True: later Protestant Bibles often omitted those books entirely.
True: canon disagreements predated Luther.
True: Trent formally defined the Roman Catholic canon during the Reformation era.
These facts fit together.
Conclusion
Did Luther remove books from the Bible?
If by “remove” we mean:
“He deleted James from his Bible because James contradicted him,”
no.
If we mean:
“The Reformation changed the canonical status and placement of several books and helped produce the shorter Protestant Old Testament,”
yes.
The more interesting question is not whether Luther was a cartoon villain with scissors.
It is:
What authority determines the canon?
That question reaches far beyond Luther—and directly into the disagreement between Protestantism and the older Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
Sources and further reading
- Martin Luther, writings and prefaces collected at CCEL.
- Luther on James, scholarly discussion in Themelios.
- Council of Trent, Session IV canon decree.
- Athanasius, Festal Letter 39.
- Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History III.25.
- Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority.
- Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament.