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Posts: 3154
Apr 26 09 10:23 PM
XrcTim wrote: logos, If all this is true and this man was truly a scholar and a stench Romanist why did he do more to undermine the Latin Vulgate than any man in history by publishing his Greek text of the NT known as the Textus Receptus?
In his defense of his revision of the Latin New Testament, Erasmus wrote: "As I do not uproot the old version, but by publishing a revision of it make it easier for us not only to possess it in a purer form but to understand it better" (Worth, Bible Translations, p. 63). Rice noted that Erasmus agreed with Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples and Paul of Middleburg that the Latin Bible in common use in their day had readings that Jerome said he had corrected (Saint Jerome, p. 178). Rolt pointed out that Erasmus wrote Pope Leo X that his design was not "to contradict the vulgar Latin, but to correct the faults that had crept into it" (Lives, p. 39). Boyle confirmed that Erasmus "disclaims any intention to rival the publicly read version of the text" (Erasmus on Language, p. 12). M. A. Screech observed that "Erasmus' starting-point was the Vulgate, and his goal was a scholarly revision of it" (Reeve, Annotations, p. xii). David Daniell noted: "Erasmus's chief aim was to correct the Vulgate; to make a new Latin text from the Greek that would avoid, and correct, the Vulgate's many mistakes" (William Tyndale, p. 60). Do KJV-only advocates agree with Erasmus's view of the Vulgate?
In his long title page, Erasmus did not even mention that the Greek was being published. Erasmus also keyed his Annotations to his own Latin translation. Halkin pointed out that "the Greek text was only joined to it [the Latin text] as a reference text" (Erasmus, p. 105). Daniell observed that in the Novum instrumentum "the Greek is there to explain his Latin" (William Tyndale, p. 60). Rummel observed: "Latin authors are more frequently cited than Greek ones because it is more often the Latin translation than the Greek original that is discussed in Erasmus' notes" (Erasmus' Annotations, p. 50). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation noted that "it is clear that most of Erasmus's effort and the focus of his interest over many years lay in the Annotations" (II, p. 56). William Combs cited Erasmus as saying that the "Greek text has been added so that the reader can convince himself that the Latin translation does not contain any rash innovations, but is solidly based" (Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, Spring, 1996, p. 44). George Faludy stated: "The Novum instrumentum is at variance with the Vulgate in some four hundred instances, each of which is elucidated in the annotations" (Erasmus, p. 161). Daniell confirmed: "In all, Erasmus made about four hundred changes to the Vulgate, every one defended in his notes" (Bible in English, p. 117).
Rolt wrote that Erasmus requested permission to dedicate his New Testament to Pope Leo X and that "the pope was pleased he should do it" (Lives, p. 39). In their preface, the KJV translators even noted "that Pope Leo the Tenth allowed Erasmus' translation of the New Testament, so much different from the Vulgate, by his Apostolic Letter and Bull." Harold Grimm confirmed that Pope Leo X "commended" the New Testament of Erasmus "highly" (Reformation Era, p. 81). David Daniell wrote that "Pope Leo X admired and supported Erasmus, and wrote of his admiration for the Novum instrumentum" (Bible in English, p. 117). Pennington maintained that Pope Leo X issued "a brief stamping authority upon it [the second edition] (Life, p. 187). Durant also observed that Pope Leo X approved of the New Testament of Erasmus and that "Pope Adrian VI asked Erasmus to do for the Old Testament what he had done for the New" (The Reformation, p. 285). Before he became the pope, Adrian had been a bishop and inquisitor-general in Spain. Rolt pointed out that Pope Adrian VI was an "old friend and school-fellow" of Erasmus (Lives, p. 78). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation stated that "the Popes, especially Leo X, had been favourable to him" [Erasmus] (p. 557). Sowards noted that "Leo's brief containing his enthusiastic and unqualified endorsement" of Erasmus's New Testament was printed in front of the second edition of it (Desiderius Erasmus, p. 76). Rolt observed that Pope Leo X and Cardinal Ximenes suppressed the books written by a Spaniard named Stunica against Erasmus and the first edition of his New Testament (Lives, p. 43). Butler maintained that "the pope continued to speak both of the text and version with esteem" (Life of Erasmus, P. 175). In a letter to Henry Bullock discussing the New Testament he edited, Erasmus is translated as writing that his work "is approved by bishops, by archbishops, by the Pope himself" (Jackson, Essential Works of Erasmus, p. 275). In a letter to Thomas More, Erasmus wrote: "The New Testament is approved even by those whom I thought most likely to find fault; and the leading theologians like it very much" (Ibid., p. 264). The Dictionary of Catholic Biography noted that Erasmus "was upheld throughout his career by the popes, none of whom censured him" (p. 380). Rolt noted that Roman Catholic Cardinal Albertus and Cardinal Campegius wrote letters to Erasmus commending him concerning his New Testament, and they sent him presents (one a silver cup and the other a diamond ring) (Lives, p. 41). Sir Thomas More, who was later made a Catholic saint and who was a close friend of Erasmus, wrote three poems in praise of this New Testament (Ibid.). A pope did not condemn the writings of Erasmus until Pope Paul IV in the Index of 1559, over twenty years after the death of Erasmus. Thomas James asked: "Seeing his Apology satisfied the pope in his life-time, why should papists traduce him now he is dead?" (Treatise, p. xxx).
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