Barbarian observes:
Right. The first approved list came during the Council of Trent. It confirmed the books that had been established by a local council in Florence in the 1400s, and a list that had been presented, but not made canonical by the Council of Carthage in 397,
It confirmed Jerome's translation, known as the Vulgate, which is the same as the Bible made canonical at Trent. The same was confirmed at Hippo, pending ratification by the "Church across the sea" (i.e. the pope) although I don't think he ever formally approved it.
The lists of the books from Hippo, the Fathers, and Trent are all contradictory.
Show us that. But as you see, the canon was established for the Church by the Council of Trent. It was an open question prior to that, with various opinions. Indeed, the vote at Trent was divided, with some dissenters, and some abstentions.
Luther made an attempt to remove the books of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation from the canon (notably, he perceived them to go against certain Protestant doctrines such as
sola gratia and
sola fide), but this was not generally accepted among his followers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther's_canon
In the first section, under "
Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation."
The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther’s version is the famous interpolation of the word alone in Rom. 3:28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness.457 But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art").
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc7.ii.iv.iv.html
It is true that Luther, after being rebuffed by his fellow Protestants, changed his stated position on James.
The new article you are quoting does not even refer to the issue of canonization even once.
It merely demonstates the fact that Luther wanted to remove James from the Bible, because it contradicted his new doctrines. You denied this, so I showed you some evidence for it.
So far, you have not produced any testimony that Luther even questioned the canonicity of James.
See above. His own words say so. If he thought James was the word of God, why would He liken God's words to be "an epistle of straw", and of "no evangelical character?"
Barbarian said:
↑
By the way, William Barclay, as a non-trinitarian universalist is hardly representative of protestant theology any more than a secular humanist Roman Catholic scholar represents Roman Catholic Theology.
Um, no, Barbarian did not say that. Do you even bother to read them so you know who is saying what?
Barbarian observes:
He was correct in his assertion that these books were contrary to those doctrines (most notably James), but most Protestants have either found ways to interpret them in a compatible way, or have rejected one or both of Luther's doctrines.
Barclay could not exegete his way out of a children's bedtime story. The only people that feel there is any disharmony between James and Romans are those who do not understand the two books.
My point, exactly. Luther only knew the two were contradictory if one accepted his doctrine of sola fide. But in reality, there's no conflict at all.
Barbarian, I already know exactly where you going to go, and have written a lot on this forum already on the subject of James 2.
I'm just pointing out the historical record; if you don't add sola fide to Paul's statement, there's no conflict in the least.
I think I will be moving on.
Have a good day, and God bless.
