Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 7
The speaker narrates three “steps” that turned these books from Scripture ? edifying-but-not-doctrinal ? “evil, fictitious” (Jerome’s notes, Luther’s reclassification, and the Bible Society’s 1826 cost-cutting removal); which step do you find most spiritually or ethically troubling, and what does it suggest about how fragile “what feels normal” in Christianity can be?
Another way to ask: Which change bothers you most: Jerome’s doubts, Luther moving the books, or the Bible Society removing them to save money in 1826? What does that show about how easily “normal Christianity” can change?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
Based on the speaker’s storyline, the most ethically troubling step is often the 1826 removal “to save printing costs,” because it reshaped Protestant imagination through simple absence (“out of sight, out of mind”). It suggests what feels “normal” can be changed quickly by publishing habits and repetition, not just by careful theological decisions.
- Step 1: Jerome “surreptitiously translated” from the Masoretic text “without any authorization,” then “attacked” the books in his notes and “gave them the name Apocrypha.”
- Step 2: Luther sought to “recreate both the Old and the New Testament canons” and succeeded in stripping these books of “canonical status” among Protestants, saying read them “for spiritual edification, but not for doctrine.”
- Step 3: In 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society printed KJV “without the Apocrypha… in order to save printing costs.”
- Result: “a generation of Protestants grew up who had never seen these seven books,” then assumed Catholics “had added spurious books.”
- David summarizes the fragility: over time the books went from “Scripture” to “edification” to being viewed as “evil… because they didn’t know the truth of their own history.”