How pure is Erasmus the Roman Catholic’s Greek text (the mother of subsequent TRs)?

How pure is Erasmus the Roman Catholic’s Greek text (the mother of subsequent TRs)?

Erasmus being a Roman Catholic humanistic scholar would naturally use all available materials, including the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate, Lorenzo Valla’s (another humanist) Annotations on the New Testament and the writings of church fathers.

He produced two sets of New Testaments: Greek and Latin. In so doing, he was hoping that a closer attention to the Bible would produce some healthy moral reform (as against spiritual reform of the Reformers) in the Church. But he never thought it would do any harm to Rome. He even dedicated it to the Pope, who gratefully sent him a letter of thanks and commended it.

Of course there are areas that he did correctly, for eg. Matthew 4:17. The Vulgate had Jesus say ‘do penance’, he rendered it as ‘be penitent’, and later ‘change your mind’. The Unquenchable Flame, Michael Reeves, pg 27,28

See below what he had done:

I. Greek text is not just the basis for his Latin translation, but also the other way round:

II. edits the Greek text to reflect his Latin version.

III. Erasmus translated the Vulgate's text back into Greek.eg last six verses of Revelation.

IV. translated the Latin text into Greek wherever he found that the Greek text and the accompanying commentaries were mixed up,

^V. simply preferred the Vulgate’s reading to the Greek text.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderius_Erasmus

In a way it is legitimate to say that Erasmus "synchronized" or "unified" the Greek and the Latin traditions of the New Testament by producing an updated (he would say: "purified") version of either simultaneously. Both being part of canonical tradition, he clearly found it necessary to ensure that both were actually presenting the same content. In modern terminology, he made the two traditions "compatible". This is clearly evidenced by the fact that his Greek text is not just the basis for his Latin translation, but also the other way round: there are numerous instances where he edits the Greek text to reflect his Latin version. For instance, since the last six verses of Revelation were missing from his Greek manuscript, Erasmus translated the Vulgate's text back into Greek. Erasmus also translated the Latin text into Greek wherever he found that the Greek text and the accompanying commentaries were mixed up, or where he simply preferred the Vulgate’s reading to the Greek text.

Hills wrote on the stand of Dean Burgon and Scrivener : “…looked askance at the TR and declined to defend it except in so far as it agreed with the Traditional Text found in the majority of the Greek NT manuscripts.” The KJV Defended, pg 192.

Now we can begin to understand why the Byzantine text (upheld by Dean Burgon of baptismal regeneration mode) and Erasmus text are different and tampered with.

May God help us to understand and reconcile.

Paul Cheong

Jun 2011

3 prominent TR men we will not meet in heaven but God is pleased to use them for His glory

3 prominent TR men we will not meet in heaven but God is pleased to use them for His glory

a. Dean John William Burgon – strenuously upholding the doctrine of baptismal regeneration.

b. Lancelot Andrews - the leading KJV translator listed in Defending the King James Bible, DA Waite, pg 68 - He was Roman Catholic in doctrine pledging his allegiance to the king and not the Pope.

c. Desiderius Erasmus – stranger to grace, died a Roman Catholic and was never ex-communicated by Rome.

a. Dean Burgon

In theology he was a High-church Anglican, strenuously upholding the doctrine of baptismal regeneration but opposing the ritualism into which even in his day the High-church movement had begun to decline. The Magnificient Burgon, Edward F. Hills in Which Bible?, David Otis Fuller, pg87

b. Lancelot Andrews

It should be clear that Lancelot Andrews was not just Romish in the outward, symbolic sense, he was thoroughly Roman Catholic in his doctrine as well. It is also clear that this Catholic doctrinal perspective, articulated by Andrews, represented the view of all but a handful of the translators, and represented the official theology of the Anglican Church in general. Indeed, the Anglican Church of the early Seventeenth Century was a church which embraced this doctrine. The King James Version in History, Kenneth L. Bradstreet. Pg 116. See below for more proof, pg 113 – 118 . Suggest you read the book. You may purchase from Chistianbook.com

c. Desiderius Erasmus

Because Erasmus failed to rely entirely upon God’s grace, Luther concluded sadly that Erasmus must be a stranger to it. With his Greek New Testament, he had, like Moses, led many out of slavery; yet like Moses he never entered the Promised Land. The stark difference between them showed that reform of abuses and the Reformation were two completely distinct projects. The former was a call for man to do better; the latter was an admission that he cannot, and hence must rely on the all-sufficient grace of God that the moralizers implicitly denied. The Unquenchable Flame, Michael Reeves, pg56

Whenever we quote them, we must put them in the correct place : ie as unsaved men used by God and not pretend otherwise or keep quiet…

May God help us to understand and reconcile.

Paul Cheong