The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum What books are canon & when was canon complete?

Do not be too hasty to cast off Montgomery's comments above, for in the article from which this section is taken, he makes a great defense of biblical inerrancy and brings Luther into the discussion to make his point, lauding Luther for his unwavering stand upon Holy Writ.

Again and again in his Prefaces we find Luther arguing in this vein: "Up to this point we have had to do with the true and certain chief books of the New Testament. The four which follow have from ancient times had a different reputation." "This Epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients." "Many of the fathers also rejected this book [Revelation: Luther's Preface of 1522] a long time ago." Here Luther appeals not to subjective considerations but objectively to the judgments of the early church, specifically to what Jerome says in his De viris illustribus, chap. 2. and to what Eusebius reports in his Ecclesiastical History, Bk. II, chap. 23 and Bk. III, chap. 25. The negative evaluations of antilegomena by certain church fathers were certainly unjustified, as history proved. but Luther had every right to raise the question in terms of the fathers, Unless one is going to make the fatal error of accepting the content of Scripture because the institutional church has declared it such (which necessarily subordinates Scripture to Church and brings the Protestant back to his Romanist vomit), there is no choice but to refer canonicity questions to the earliest judgments available historically concerning the apostolic authority of New Testament books. Christ promised to the apostolic company a unique and entirely reliable knowledge of His teachings through the special guidance of His Holy Spirit (John 14;26), so the issue of the apostolicity of New Testament writings has always been vital for the church. As a theologian, Luther had the right, even the responsibility, to raise this issue, and did not become a subjectivist by doing so.