text: 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.\n\nThe 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.\n\nToday, 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."\n\nWhile 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.\n\nHope this helps.