Gary Michuta's Treatment of Luther and the Protestant Biblical Canon: A Critical Analysis
Gary Michuta's Treatment of Luther and the Protestant Biblical Canon: A Critical Analysis J. Neil Daniels Introduction The question of biblical canonicity remains one of the most enduring sources of theological dispute between Protestant and Catholic traditions. Gary Michuta’s Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible (first edition, 2007; second revised edition, 2017) stands as a contemporary Catholic apologetic seeking to defend the inclusion of the deuterocanonical books while attributing their removal from Protestant Bibles primarily to the influence of Martin Luther. Michuta devotes over twenty pages (twelve in the main text and ten in an appendix) to scrutinizing Luther’s position on the Apocrypha. Yet a closer analysis of his treatment reveals significant methodological flaws and historical inaccuracies that ultimately undermine his central thesis concerning Luther’s motivations and influence. Michuta’s Central Argument A...