Bible book removal hypothetical

May 1st, 2008 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0) |

Martin Luther is famous for many things, including the phrase sola scriptura (”Scipture alone”). Interestingly enough, he had quite a distaste for several books throughout the Bible. In his Prefaces to the New Testament, Luther said of the book of James, “St. James’ epistle is really an epistle of straw…for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it.” Regarding the book of Revelation he said, “I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it” (If you’re interested, you can read more about Luther’s scriptural views here). Even some of the greatest theologians, Luther among them, had low views of certain parts of the Bible.

So here’s the (hypothetical) question: If you were forced to choose, which book of the Bible would you remove?¹

1. To clarify, the book would be essentially erased from human history and memory. All direct quotes and any references to the whole book or any passages/verses would disappear without a trace. ↩