text: why did martin luther throw out books in the bible? after he left the catholic church, why did he feel it was necessary to throw out seven books in the old testament? they were: wisdom, sirach, judith, baruch, tobit,1 maccabees, 2 maccabees   these books were part of the greek sepuagint. they were used by jesus and other jews during that time. it was only after christianity started growing did jews started questioning this books. they have since been found in the dead sea scrolls luther and the rest of the protestants didn't throw those books out of the bible. they were never part of the jewish canon or the jewish bible, but were respected documents by both jews and christians alike.  the protestants chose to limit the christian old testament to only those books that were considered authoritative by the jewish rabbis at the council of jamnia in 90 bce. even the catholic church considered these books of lesser authority. the catholic church called these books "deutero-canonical," indicating their lesser, although still important status.  today, those books are not included among the 66 books of the christian bible that are the most authoritative, but are included together with others in a section catholic, protestant and jewish bible scholars call "the apocrypha."  while lutherans today do not consider them as authoritative, as say jeremiah and isaiah are, they still revere them and find much that is valuable and faith-enriching in them. you'll find that lutherans, episcopalians and roman catholics honor these books today, even if they do not consider them "canonical" the way genesis, for example is.  hope this helps.